Technology Plus Education Equals . . . Techucation? Edunology? By Kevin Moffett PandaVision Efteling Amusement Park Kaatsheuvel, the Netherlands Premiered in 2002 At Efteling, PandaVision has raised the bar for the 3D/4D film industry. Opened on June 19, 2002, in conjunction with the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), it marks the first collaboration between a charitable organization and an amusement park to design and produce an attraction. The project began a few years ago when the WWF started looking for alternate means of presenting its conservation message. It would seem that the WWF has found its ideal stage in Efteling, which attracts a wide range of guest types from all over the world. “It is the first time an organization like the WWF has worked with a theme park to contact the public with its conservation message,” says WWF-Netherlands’ director Hans Voortman. “With three million visitors per year, Efteling is an ideal site for us to surprise the public with this original and creative environmental experience.” Voortman cites several reasons for choosing this type of attraction to promote his organization’s message of nature conservation. A few years ago, WWF approached Efteling with the hope of combining technology and education to reach a larger audience, because, Voortman says, the various media outlets have become “too fragmented and shallow.” PandaVision consists of a 3D large-format film with 4D in-theater effects designed to enhance the experience. The 3D film was developed in collaboration with the Belgian company nWave Pictures, a leading producer of 3D films for giant screens. Ben Stassen, nWave Studios’ CEO, was “really impressed with WWF’s willingness to think out of the box. The premise we built on was that an intensely entertaining immersive experience can have a meaningful, long-lasting impact on the public.” Inspired by its work on PandaVision, nWave Pictures has also recently produced S.O.S. Planet, a 40-minute 3D/2D documentary that focuses on the challenges of communicating information in an age of media bombardment. According to Stassen, “Over the past 30 years, the majority of institutions that have gotten involved in exhibition of large-format films have been driven by the same motivation as WWF—to fulfill their educational mission statements in a more compelling, more entertaining way.” According to the folks at Efteling, PandaVision has been an instant and continuing success for both the park and the WWF, a group that has more than 4.7 million supporters in 100 countries. Already close to two million visitors have experienced the attraction; the reaction of the visitors has reportedly been enthusiastic, and exit surveys showed that their commonsense message, “take care of nature,” came across clearly. A morphing station was the most popular activity in the attraction, with as many as a half-million people instructed by the computer to merge their faces with the face of a polar bear, a turtle, or a sea horse. Shanghai Science and Technology Museum Shanghai, China Opened in 2002 Seen from Century Square in Shanghai’s Pudong Development Zone, the impressive-looking Shanghai Science and Technology Museum looks like a great glass albatross. It is one of China’s newest museums and one that’s currently undergoing a redesign by Canadian design company Forrec Ltd. According to Dave Eagleson, vice president at Forrec, his company has been tasked with conceiving and designing exhibit areas in the second wing of the two-winged museum, including six zones with topics ranging from robotics to the human body, space exploration, virtual reality, ecology, and nuclear science. Over the next two to three months, Forrec will work directly with the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum, which is funded by the Shanghai municipal government. “We’ve basically been given raw, empty space with all of its enclosures dealt with and, basically, we are conceptualizing taking what their desires are with what they want to exhibit,” Eagleson says. “We are designing the look and environment for the spaces, laying them out functionally, and providing them guidance in terms of how certain exhibits should be arranged. They have an idea that they want to communicate a certain message, and we’re helping them decide how to say it.” This foray into the Asian market is not a new one for Forrec. Other projects include planning and design on Yue Mei Discovery World in Taichung, Taiwan, and the complete design for the 262,467-square-foot Berjaya Star City, an indoor theme park in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The company has also worked on Suzhou Amusement in Suzhou, China, so it has experience with the public/private sector hydraulics in that market. “We’ve always worked with private companies,” says Eagleson. “There’s always a bit of a government influence in China, in terms of the oversight and approvals, but typically we haven’t seen a huge amount of difference between China and other countries of the world. It’s a long-distance project, so communication is an issue. We haven’t had a great deal of difficulty because we’ve worked in the market in the past, so we’ve got a certain amount of sensitivity to the cultural issues and realities there that allow us to move things forward.” Original construction on the 223,097-square-foot Shanghai Science and Technol-ogy Museum began in December 1996, and was completed in March 2001, with an investment totaling $8.3 billion. Currently half of the museum is open and each building is themed on a different abstraction, including the Building of Intelligence, the Building of Creation, and the Building of the Future. There is also an IMAX theater showing large-format and 360-degree films. The IMAX Corp. predicts that between 25 and 50 Chinese theaters will be using its giant screen movie technology within five years. Currently the IMAX cinema at the Science and Technology Museum is one of just two in the country, with six more scheduled to open in the next two years. “This will make China the fastest-growing market in IMAX’s history,” IMAX’s Richard Gelfond told the Wall Street Journal, adding that in five years, China will be the company’s second-largest market in the world. Says Forrec’s Eagleson, “Shanghai and Bejing are both growing by leaps and bounds, and it seems, to some degree, competing with one another for attention. There’s likely going to be a long-term benefit from being in that market.” The Tech Museum of Innovation San Jose, Calif. Opened in 1990, moved to current site in 1992 Fact: The $113 million Tech Museum’s construction was made possible by money from the Development Agency of San Jose, as well as $32 million of in-kind contributions. “Our mission is to show our guests how technology affects them in everyday life,” says Tech Museum of Innovation spokesperson Kris Covarrubias, “and to inspire a new generation of inventors.” This year, an estimated 650,000 visitors are expected at the Tech, the nonprofit museum located in Northern California’s Silicon Valley, in a striking mango-colored building designed by Mexican architect Ricardo Legorreta. “Most of our guests come from the Santa Clara County area,” Covarrubias says. “But we also get a lot of drive-through tourism between Monterey and San Francisco, mostly travelers from Germany and Japan.” The museum has a little bit of everything, including more than 250 permanent exhibits, as well as the only IMAX dome theater in Northern California, a learning center for kindergarten through twelfth grade students, and a showcase of the latest high-tech gadgetry designed in Silicon Valley. The Tech Museum of Innovation is one of the new museum breed: one part entertainment, one part learning center, one part community service organization. And their community service is clearly important. For Earth Day this year, the 132,000-square-foot museum, in conjunction with local environmental groups like Coral Reef Alliance, Bay Area Air Quality Management District, and Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition, conducted performances and benefits that highlighted the importance of a healthy planet with a focus on the technologies that are helping in small ways to bring it about. A production called “Smogzilla” showed children the role air quality plays. Clean fuel vehicles like electric scooters and cars were on display, and an evening benefit for featuring a screening of the giant screen film Coral Reef Adventure was hosted by sci-fi demigod William Shatner. During the year, the museum also sponsors the Tech Museum Awards, which “honor innovators and visionaries from around the world who are applying technology to profoundly improve the human condition in the categories of education, equality, environment, health, and economic development.” In May, judges make decisions based on the awards’ credo, “Technology Benefiting Humanity,” and in November, five laureates in each category are honored, with prizes of $50,000 each. Mystery Park Opens at Long Last! Interlaken, Switzerland Opened May 24, 2002 Last month, after several false starts and delayed grand openings, Switzerland’s much-awaited Mystery Park finally welcomed guests through its doors. Based on the ideas of best-selling author Erich von Däniken, the park is more than 320,000 square feet of exhibits examining past civilizations and ancient cultures whose origins are still shrouded in secrecy. There are seven themed buildings in the park encircling and linked to a main building by a glass corridor. Exhibits include a reproduction of the Egyptian Pyramids of Giza, a virtual visit to the banks of the Nile, and a reproduction of the Tombs of Dendra, where guests will learn how the ancient Egyptians were already familiar with electricity. They will also marvel at Vimanas, “flying objects from ancient Indian folklore,” and investigate the secrets of England’s Stonehenge. The park will bring 160 new jobs to the Bernese Oberland area. Recruitment for the 80 full-time and 80 part-time personnel has already begun.Find more information at www.mysterypark.ch. Next Month in Front Row News: We’ll give you the rundown of new and improved thrill rides big and small for 2003.