We built the whole backlot in 3D. Like, everything.

I had to get their blueprints, and this was all during COVID, and the Google Earth stuff is how I built it all. Because I could go around and spin around, like – they needed the TV building, so I had to get– I had the blueprints, so I know the basic floor print and the size, but I use Google Street View for everything. ‘Cause I had to build the Brownstone [Street] line, which goes back to the ‘20s. It’s the oldest part of the Warner Bros. lot. The New York backlot, I mean everything.

And because the water tower’s the hero, I built every nut, bolt, rivet. I counted them on the photographs. It is, like, product-accurate.

But that’s how we did Main Street [on VMK]. I had to do it without those tools, so I had to go to the park, take the photos, get ‘em produced and then scanned and then you had your scrap reference. Where now, doing a project like that, I could not have done the Warner Bros. project without the tools we have now.

When I walk down Main Street or even Adventureland, there’s a certain kind of ownership to what we built, because you know, yeah, it was built in 1955 or whatever, but I felt a sense of pride of the amount of detail that went into building that thing digitally.

What was really cool is after [VMK], I worked on the Paris project, and they sent me to Florida. And that was the first time I got to go behind the scenes of the park. So not only do you get to connect to the design from the outside, just walking down Main Street – like Tower of Terror in Florida, they let us go underneath.

And getting to get behind it was really nice, because like you said, rebuilding something that exists really connects you. Like, I know the Warner Bros. lot by heart, because I had to build it. And I knew Disneyland really well by building it.

I remember years later, taking people in there, and I knew all the secret passages, because I had to study the park. And not only that park, I really studied that park, a little bit of Japan, but a good amount of Disney World as well. And it was funny, when I finally made my trip to Disney World, and I was in a golf cart with one of the producers, he didn’t know where to turn, and I’m like, “Turn here, then we’ll get there.”
He’s like, “You’ve never been here.”
I’m like, “What do you mean? I built the park, like, years ago for Disney Interactive.” And it was, sure enough.

It connected us to their property, in a wonderful way. I mean, to this day, when I’ve gone back and done work at Disney, you get all those little magic tingly things that only Disney can give you, and it’s like, “Maybe they’ll want me again,” you know?

I’m a tenured professor. And it’s a technical college, so you can’t tell anybody they can’t make it in animation. You know, you can’t come out and say you should hang it up and go be a fireman. (laughs)

I tell my students, to make it in this career, you have to be persistent. And it’s just like you have to have the same dedication and persistence you had when you’re learning to walk. I tell them all, “You all learned how to walk. You all had that persistence, you all had that desire. That’s what it takes to work in animation. I mean, you really, really, really want to. You have to really want to do it.”

It’s fun, because you inspire young people, and you’re around young people, and they keep you young.

I wanna tell Mike something. I don’t know that he knows it, or even if he knows this, but…

During the course of making VMK, you and I sat down at one point. And I was learning a lot, ‘cause you know, I’m just not a creative guy. I’m not an artist.

I think you were offered a lead artist position of some type, and you originally turned it down. And you and I were talking, and you were in the middle of trying to decide whether or not you wanted to take it.

And I just remember this, because it’s kind of something that’s really stuck in my head. I remember it today. You were sitting in your office, down at the end in the corner, and you and I were chatting, and you said you didn’t wanna take it because you didn’t wanna manage people.

You wanted to be the one that was doing the work. You wanted to be the one who actually had, you know, putting everything together. You didn’t wanna be the person who was, you know, managing other artists.

I don’t know what it means, but that’s always meant something to me. It’s something that I’ve kind of worked on for my own self.

I like being in the management position, but one of the things that I’m doing when I was at Soundelux, when I was at Formosa, and now I have my own business, is I want to be hands-on. And that was from you. I just want you to know that.

Aw, I appreciate that. I think it’s important to stay in the trenches, honestly. ‘Cause you’re working with so many passionate people. You wanna feel that same passion. You wanna be in there with them, and you know, fighting a good fight and all that stuff.

Even today, same thing. Toys, I’m on the board with everybody, ‘cause I need that experience, and that shared experience really. ‘Cause you’re all driving for the same goal, and this was one massive team that kinda had that same mindset.

That’s the Disney way. I mean, 90 percent of the attractions I designed at WDI never see the light of day. That’s just how concept work works, and that’s how video games work. You know, how many guys have worked on games since then that they’ve gone 2-3 years in, and it’s gone?

We all lived through some pretty crazy scheduling times, and there was I think a stretch where we worked like three months straight without a day off.

And it was probably putting pressure on my marriage, ‘cause I was newly married right around that time. And I remember my wife at the time, she was like, “I don’t see you.” I would get home at decent times enough, but there was times that I’d get home at, like, 9:00 at night. You know, my boys are already in bed.

I loved the idea of VMK so much, that all of us and another fifty people would have given up chunks of our – well, we did give up chunks of our lives – to try and get it out the door.

Everybody had such a passion to get this game done, and to work together, just make it happen, no matter what it was gonna take.

Yeah, it wasn’t just a job. It really wasn’t. I mean, I think that’s the difference between some people now, and what we were going through then. Because I can easily think that 90 percent of the people, if not 100 percent of the people then, were 100 percent focused on, and passionate about doing this. Whereas some people now are just like, they go to work and they go home.

This is a part of me that misses Interactive. Man, that was the most amazing opportunity I’ve ever had in my whole career, bar none.

Bar none. I’m right there with you, Mike.