Where do you start when you want to bring a story to life? At Storyland Studios, we believe you begin by dreaming big! Our BlueSky Phase starts with a discovery process where our team will help you imagine how to bring your story into reality. What’s the project’s vision? What inspires it? What makes it one of a kind? And most importantly, what are the plot, setting, and characters that define the core of your story?

With the dream defined, it’s time to begin breathing life into it. To do that, we need to understand the shape, form, and size your project will take. We’ll conduct a Feasibility Study that asks, “What will it take to make this real?” and helps determine your project's potential market acceptance and income-generating capability. With this information, we’ll create a framework budget and master schedule for the project.

Now that your project’s vision is set and the boundaries defined, we can begin to master plan it, whether in a physical, digital, or branded world. We take on projects of all shapes and sizes, from the local coffee shop to the world’s largest theme parks.

Outputs:
Discovery (Plot/Character/Setting)
Feasibility Study
Master Planning

At the heart of every story is something we call the Big Idea. It lies at the intersection of your story’s plot, characters, and setting, and serves as the organising design principle for the project. It directs and influences hundreds of decisions across multiple disciplines by providing design logic and internal consistency.

The Big Idea also helps us set the theme of the experience we’re designing; every experience has a theme or organising principle that holds the various elements of the offering together in the mind of guests, and just as importantly, your employees. The Big Idea guides the theme we select, and that helps us decide what should be included in the experience, and perhaps more importantly, what should be left out.

With the Big Idea as our guide, we’ll begin concept work to develop the look and feel of your project. Our team of experts starts to visualise all components of the project, bringing the idea and theme to life. Depending on your project needs, this could include graphic designs, concept sketches, 3D renderings, wireframes, architectural studies, or branding concepts.

Outputs:
The Big Idea and Organising Principle
Early Ideas on Theming
Initial Experience Storyboards

To begin to script the overall experience, we actually start at the end. What’s the emotional response we want our audience to feel during the experience that will keep them coming back again and again? When they walk away, what do we want them to remember? We’ll start from these memories we want to create and work backwards to build the project’s storyline, ensuring that it has just the right impact on everyone who comes into contact with it.

In story development, we take the Characters, Settings, and Plotlines and give them the Hollywood treatment. We write the backstories, create the character art, design the costumes and establish the tone of voice for each of our characters. We will richly define the settings in which these characters will appear, whether in this world or worlds beyond — past, present, or future. Finally, we will weave together intricate and involving plotlines that connect characters with each other and with their settings, compelling our audiences to engage with our content and experiences again and again.

The Guest Narrative, or Customer Journey, brings all this to life, clearly defining what every guest will see, feel, and do while they interact with the project.

Outputs:
“Memory Back”
Project Storyline
Guest Narrative/Customer Journey

Now that the concept design direction is set and the storyline written, it’s time to focus on the details of each component that will be needed to bring the experience to life. Our experts begin the development and documentation of the thousands of individual pieces required to create the whole. We call this “Connected Storytelling,” and for our clients, it means they have a complete picture of how an experience is going to show up for their guests across every element of their business.

Connected storytelling lays out the details of the “pre-show,” “show,” and “post-show,” but in the context of consumers’ whole lives, not just their experience when they are on your premises or platform. We consider the whole funnel, including awareness, consideration, building desire to engage, and then welcoming guests to spend their precious time with us.

From graphic design to final content, technology selections to backend control systems, master brand guidelines to construction documentation, we design, develop, revise, review, and perfect each aspect of this connected experience. We define the materials we’ll need to execute the project, then cross-check the work of all disciplines to make sure they integrate properly.

Outputs:
The Connected Story
Experience Design Package
Technology, SFX and Materials Selection

It’s time for design to become reality. As your project leaps off the page, we work to oversee the fabrication and creation of every aspect of implementation. Whether it’s custom fabrication, traditional printing, coding, media development, immersive theming, or scenic construction, we're involved to guide the process and make sure that the final result of your vision is exactly what you had in mind.

Whether we’re putting on the hard hats, getting into our protective gear, or picking up our styluses, we hit the ground running as all of the tiny details, systems, and stories are constructed, installed, tested, and refined. Our engineers and designers will be hard at work, together with audiovisual and show and set design colleagues, to make sure that the story we’re trying to tell and the memories we want to create will be delivered without a hitch. It’s the most exciting time on the project as the anticipation builds for opening day...

Outputs:
Build/Fabricate/Execute
Media and SFX Creation
Install/Test/Launch

Even though your project is open and delighting audiences, that it doesn’t mean the work is done! Since we’ve been with you from the beginning, no one knows your project better than us, and we’re here to ensure that it stays just as dynamic and captivating as the day it launched.

Whether you need to develop a marketing program to tell the world about your experience, digital support to keep it optimised and running smoothly, content updates to stay fresh and relevant, or anything else you can think of, we’re here to make sure that your investment delights audiences for years to come.

Outputs:
Marketing Program
Digital Support
Content Refresh/Updates