Inspired Engineering: A Conversation with Experiential Designer and Former Disney Imagineer, Eddie Sotto

Engineering Influence welcomed experiential designer Eddie Sotto of SottoSudios/LA, and former Senior Vice President of Concept Design at Walt Disney Imagineering onto the program to discuss inspiration, collaboration and what can happen when design and engineering work together to create a successful user experience.  Sotto is currently working on a rapid digital COVID testing platform that would enable people to use communal venues such as concert halls, airports and theme parks safely.  More information on that project can be found at Future Proof Experiences. Eddie Sotto can also be seen on The Imagineering Story now streaming on Disney+.

Interview Transcript:

Host:

Welcome to Engineering Influence, a a podcast from the American Council of Engineering Companies. Now we focus a lot of our shows on the business aspects of engineering, and that's our main focus after all, but we should also spend time talking about the softer side of the profession because the bridges buildings, water systems, and related infrastructure, our member firms design take up residence in the built environment.

Host:

People come in contact with it every day and it defines our world. So how do we keep our inspiration when we're working on these projects? How do we keep sight of the big picture and how do we design for the experience of the end user? Because how we design is just as important as what we design.

Host:

And there's a lot to discuss, and I wanted to get someone onto the show with unique experience and perspective. We kind of exceeded our expectations here, and it is my distinct pleasure to welcome Eddie Sotto. Eddie is the owner of experiential design firm SotoStudios/LA, and served as the Senior Vice President of Concept Design at Walt Disney Imagineering, where he was responsible for the show design for Disneyland Paris' Main Street, and the Disneyland hotel, as well as the master plan for Tokyo Disneyland. Other notable projects on Eddie's resume include the Indiana Jones Adventure at Disneyland USA, Mission: Space at Epcot, and Poohs Hunny Hunt at Tokyo Disneyland, which I believe was one of the first trackless attractions at a Disney resort.

New Speaker:

Beyond theme parks, Mr. Sotto applied the principle of Imagineering to such projects as the media as architecture facade at ABC's Time Square studios, and has worked on projects for companies as diverse as Motorola, Kodak, Ferrari and even NASA. So Eddie, welcome to the show.

Eddie Sotto:

Well, thank you for inviting me. This is exciting.

Host:

Yeah, this is great because it's a, it's a great opportunity to marry experiential design and add the more creative aspect to the professional aspect of, or the more technical aspect of, of engineering and you know, right off for our audience who unlike me, you know, I'm, I'm very, well-versed in Disney history and I love Disney for our audience who might not be aware of what Imagineering does and how expansive their portfolio is. Can you tell us how you got involved with Disney and what got you into the door?

Eddie Sotto:

Well of course, as a kid, I was always very fascinated by the escape of Disneyland, the experience of going through the portal and being immersed in another world. So you could say I'm a victim, I'm a customer of experienced design. You know, I became addicted to that. And, and I remember as a young boy saying, you know when I grow up, I want to be one of those guys that thinks of ideas for rides at Disneyland and you know, be careful what you wish for, I suppose. But it wasn't a direct route. I went there really was no college education, no classes, no internet or anything at the time. This is like 1977 or eight, you know to really become a theme park designer. If you could imagine no engineering courses and you become an engineer, what do you do?

Eddie Sotto:

Go out and watch them make bridges? I mean, so that's the way the feed part business was other people were just sort of already there, maybe they were art students or engineers or there things. So I realized that you know, Disney is a tough place to get into Imagineering was kind of the pinnacle. I had no real education. So I actually started by pitching ideas to Knott's Berry farm. They, I got married very young. I was hired in as my 21 years old to design and kind of create a ride that had engineering problems, believe it or not. It was a ride that existed. It was called the a cycle chase where people were on full-sized motorcycles, very high center of gravity. You could imagine that. And they were getting injured. And my boss at Knott's Berry Farm, I pitched my way into a design job said of course he didn't want to build the ride I presented afterall so, I was a little worried about keeping my job and they said, well, what could you do with this?

Eddie Sotto:

Is there, could you, you save this other ride? Cause we're going to get sued like crazy people are falling off these motorcycles. So I went out and looked at it and I learned the clients. And, you know, any project is always looking for a solution. Design is solutions and said, well, what if we lowered the center of gravity? And the theme of the area was the 1920s and said, what if we could make something that reminded you of the soap box Derby, like those little, our gang comedy films, we would see on TV, you know, with Spanky and so forth and lowered it like a bobsled. And then of course, with a height requirement being lower for the guests, that means a complete family audience could ride it. So what if you could double the ridership lower the center of gravity and pretty much have a new ride by, you know, adding some scenery and replacing the vehicles.

Eddie Sotto:

So at 21 years old with no college education and no art school or anything, I'm out there with a sketchpad drawing this ride and building it within six months. And this is where I learned collaboration, working with engineers, people that build vehicles, set designers, and you just kind of alerted by osmosis. So those skills eventually took me to another company called Landmark, working for Six Flags and Universal in those companies. And then Disney hires me away only four years later to be probably one of the younger executives to come in at a high level, sort of like as a producer, designer to do the main street for Disneyland Paris. So it was, you know, believing in yourself, pitching ideas, understanding some story and, and kind of the hard way really learning about collaborations.

Host:

Yeah. And you raise a really good point because Imagineers designers, experiential designers, I mean, you're storytellers, you want to get a narrative acrossif it's, if it's an attraction at Disney, it's taking a very abstract concept that either is you know, birthed in animation, which you have limitless ability to do whatever you want or, or cinema and turning it into something, tangible, something immersive where the guests can experience it beyond just, you know, getting on a ride, but almost entering that world. And up against that, you have the engineering perspective, which is taking this concept and turning it into reality and working the science and the math to make it work. And that's where the technical problem solving skill comes in. And there is a relatively recent example of this is in Animal kingdom, Pandora, which is a newly opened land within animal kingdom. Joe Rhode, now recently retired, Imagineer. He drove the concept of these floating mountains, but at the end of the day, it was an ACEC member from Walter P. Moore and Associates that actually did the structural work. And that kind of shows the need for collaboration. I mean, how, in your experience with Disney and the work that you did, I mean, how did you converse and get along with whoever was brought on either within Imagineering or as a contractor to actually turn the concept into something tangible?

 

Floating Mountains in Pandora at Disney's Animal Kingdom. Structural design by Walter P. Moore and Associates.  2019 Florida EEA Grand Award

Photo: elisfkc from Orlando, FL, United States (wikipedia).

 

Eddie Sotto:

Well, you know, the name of Imagineering comes from imagination, being combined with technical know-how engineering. So imagine-eer-ring is imagination and engineering coming together. And so, you know, normally, like for example, we'll just take the Poohs Hunny Hunt attraction, which is sort of the first trackless we ranging ride where the vehicles have a mind of their own and go different places and do different things. And now it's become the gold standard 20 years later, it's probably the most prevalent new system to use, you know, if you're going to do something like a show attraction. And so, you know, back at that time, though, there were wire guided systems. There were some things, you know, a wire in the floor could guide a vehicle. You could sense that and so forth. But I had this concept of wanting to do an indoor dark ride using this kind of a system.

Eddie Sotto:

And, you know, really let the vehicles, you know, each one be addressed individually Universe of Energy, you know, at Epcot had a wire in the floor, but it just led grand stands around it didn't, it didn't really, it couldn't go backwards. It couldn't do this. It couldn't do that. This is a real template for dark ride. So you need engineers for that. And so we had the ride group or the rider ride design group of engineers. And to me the whole, the whole key to this, because it could become very defensive, you know, an engineers. I mean, I'm not signing the drawings. They are. So somebody gets killed, you know, the engineers, the one who's really signed up for it. And, you know, I take that seriously too, but, you know, Hey, it's their name signing on, in the title block. Right. So what I try to do, because so anyway, the, the culture of signing the title block that kind of creates a world of no, and it kind of creates the idea that well, engineers can have the reputation of over-engineering something to be on the safe side or the super, super, super safe side.

Eddie Sotto:

And then you miss the intent of the story or of what the whole project is there for and a bridge that is what you're supposed to do. You are supposed to over-engineer it and make this thing last for centuries. Like the Brooklyn Bridge. A theme park ride. Yes, it does have to function, but the success of the business of the creative aspect is having this, the engineering do what the story is asking it to do. So this becomes a very interesting thing of shared trust and response. I'm not going to ask them to do something that's going to ever endanger a guest or put somebody in jeopardy. Of course, safety is the first first priority, but I am asking for a little bit of wackiness, I'm asking for out of the box engineering thinking, which means if you can't do it the way that we've always done it and just make the steel fatter, we're going to go open up a research book and look at different ways of doing something or different ways of this.

Eddie Sotto:

So I'll give you an example. We had a model in the open house of this Winnie the Pooh ride. And I asked one of the other designers because the families were coming in. I said, ask the kids what scene they liked the most in this ride, because you're always asked to cut something or everybody's going to cut something. He says, well, what scene? And of course the one where you bounce with Tigger was the most popular scene. And I knew right then as a creative guy, I can't cut that scene. That better be if there's going to be one scene that works. So frankly, I went and cut a lot of stuff out of the line. We are waiting kind of lowered people's expectations. And then we went back to our staff. We got a bunch of guys in a room. And one of the things with engineers, I try to be the guy that makes the Kool-Aid.

Eddie Sotto:

I try to, you know, make the excitement and get them excited that it is their job to be the key in making the thing magical. Because if you think of the effects in these rides, that is if they don't work, there is no show, actually listen to you guys. I'm waltzing in here with an idea, but it's going to be all of us and namely you, that you're going to have to be stretched yourself too. And we're all going to sit here. And if it's a success, it's, everyone's success. Not just my success, it's not the creative versus the technical. It's the creative and the technical. And you're going to challenge me and you. I want you to look at me and say, well, Eddie bouncing with Tigger is one thing, but what if you could even do this with Tigger too? I'm expecting somebody when it passes through their hands to come out better than it was when it went in.

Eddie Sotto:

So, so we go in there and everyone's looking, and of course, you start out with sort of the expected. Everyone said, well, you know, you really can't make a vehicle jump up and down with with with with a Tigger. We can't, you know, the impact is going to be too great. It's going to cost too much. Tigger in the movie is jumping three feet. We can't really do that. Then comes in the wacky engineer. And he's actually a model builder. He's not even an engineer. The model builder says, Eddie, here's what we're going to do. I see, that's why I love these meetings. This is what makes, if I'm at a, I was an engineer and I am a part-time engineer. Cause I kind of think of the strategy. I don't know how to do it, but I'm like, well, what if you tried using this method or that method?

Eddie Sotto:

So anyway, this one gentlemen comes in, I think it was, his name was Ovid Pope. I think that was his name anyway. So he comes in this model guy, and he goes, I took it upon myself to make a little paper model for you. Come on, show us. So he does. And it's all the scenery in cutouts of like trees and a forest where Tigger is projected into this forest. The scenery is jumping up and down because I heard in the last meeting, the engineers were crying about, you really can't make the vehicle go up and down that high, that velocity, he says, so what if we only made the vehicle go up and down maybe an inch or so. And we gave the sensation of movement, but the scenery went up and down exactly in sync with it. And then the film of Tigger jumping up and down was also working at a counter perspective to the scenery. And he had this thing all done with sticks and wood and paper. And he starts demonstrating with a little stick of the Tigger and everything. And everybody looks at this and goes, Oh my goodness. So it takes lots of different disciplines, the model maker, making the scenery, the engineers, but see isn't that exciting when it is, you know when it takes several talents to come up with a solution, that's what makes it different.

Eddie Sotto:

Yeah, absolutely. I, you know, one of the things that we talk about and it's been kind of a continuous theme throughout a lot of our conversationsand we talk about the future of engineering. It's that a lot of people who are looking back and saying, okay, where are we going with this? And where is engineering going in 10, 15, 20 years, there has been this acceptance and even a push that just having the technical know-how is not going to be enough that it's important to also have a backing education in philosophy or the arts or music or literature. So that there's this humanities basis that counterbalances the technical proficiency and allows that creative thinking so that if you do get a group of people together in a room and also diversifying the experiences in the background of the engineers around the table.

Eddie Sotto:

Well, what I do in absence of that is and by the way, you know, it's not to say that you would stereotype engineers as saying, well, they only know engineering. So I wanted to do a ride of, for Tokyo Disneyland, that involved what would look like rocket powered motorcycles that would do wheelies. I used to have a Schwinn stingray bicycle, an orange crate, or Apple crater. One of those that had wheelie bars on it. And then of course being a muscle car person, myself, all, anything would drag racing and all that kind of stuff is appealing. So we go in and I want to do this motorcycle, the simulated motorcycle ride, but there was certain things I wanted. I didn't want to see the track. I didn't want this. I didn't want that. So we're in there just talking and you go around the table and you mine people's personal interests.

Speaker 2:

You say, well, who have used into racing, who had a muscle car? I don't start talking about the ride. It's kind of an interview. When you've got eight guys around a table, you have some women that are different ones. And everybody talks about their personal interests. And in my mind, I'm casting because I really want someone to stay till midnight and figure this out. I know I can't do it. And so we ended up the one person that was the most passionate tells me his father had a rocket powered, salt racing car. And then as a kid, he grew up doing that. And I'm like, now I know who I'm putting in charge of the engineering group is the guy that had the rocket power thing because we can leverage their personal interests whatever that is. And I feel like if you look at Mark Davis, the person that did it, I saw the Tiki Room poster on your wall. Well, Mark Davis loved, you know, the tribes of New Guinea. And he was very interested in Island culture and things like that. And now Walt Disney was a perfect casting director of looking to these people. And he would pick like Bob Gurr who's kind of a seat of the pants engineer who really extended himself in places. He had no business, kind of a hot rodder. That's building a monorail using an electric electrical department out of the studio where the wiring's burning up in the train with the Vice President

Host:

For our audience. I mean, Bob girth in Disneyland, if it moves good chance, Bob Gurr designed it - to an extent the Autopia, the monorail....

Eddie Sotto:

Well, omni-movers - he took these moving world's fair vehicles and upped the game into a ride of where the engineering helped you watch the show. Omni-Mover is a chain of vehicles that were very high capacity, like a pod, but the pod is aimed only when you want it in real time at the scene you want someone to look at it like cutting a movie. So the omni-mover is like an editing tool. It used to be, if you're in a train or, you know, in a boat, people can look anywhere they want, well that doesn't allow a designer to focus your attention. The omni-mover could focus your attention. It was started at the world's fair in 1939 by a designer named Norman Bel Getty's, but, but Gurr made it something that's, that was far more, command-able, but that's another good example of an engineer, just kind of exploring the boundaries of where they're capable and look at me. I mean, I use movies, set designers as my education, and I ended up where I'm at. I mean, so I feel like, you know, taking your personal, personal passions too, and building that in as a good thing.

Host:

Absolutely. I do. I do have to ask about Disneyland Paris though, because it it's, it's hard to explain. Usually if you go to a Disney park, the first thing the establishing shot of the park is the train station. It's the classic opening shot at, in Florida, in California and most of the parks, but in Disneyland Paris, it's different because the first thing you see is the Disneyland Hotel, which sits right in front of the turnstile. And I know that you were really led that idea. You kind of had the idea of pitching that to Eisner and to everyone else at Disney saying, why don't we put a hotel here and, and what was the inspiration for that? How did that come about?

 

 

Sideview of the turnstiles from the Disneyland Hotel, Disneyland Paris (Photo: Jeff Urbanchuk © Disney)

Eddie Sotto:

Well, I would love to tell you, it was some brilliant thing that, you know, you think of on the way to work, but what happened was is there because they adverse weather, we had to kind of show ways of, of covering people from the rain. And of course, before online ticketing and things, you know, you calculate - the operations people said, well, you're going to have like, you know, a mile long line in front of every ticket booth to buy tickets in the morning and so forth. So they gave me a footprint of how much roofing you would have to put over those ticket booths. So I drew this big roof and to make it look pretty, I kind of followed the Hotel Del Coronado, Grand Floridian look of roofs, but because there was so much roof there, it needed some sort of an iconic thing.

The Disneyland Hotel, Disneyland Paris (Photo: Jeff Urbanchuk © Disney)

Eddie Sotto:

It can't just be a big ugly roof because there goes your establishing shot, like you said. So we did a drawing and I only put one or two floors on it. It was like, you know, a series of suites and then pitchedd the idea. So why don't we, Michael Eisner said we were never going to just spend all that money on a roof. I said, well, what if it paid for itself? What if it was like a hotel with one or, you know, one or two floors to at max and people could look into the park and it would be of an extension of Main Street, like a, like a trolley resort is like Coney Island has hotels and the railroad takes you out there to, you know, an amusement park, similar paradigm for that. And he thought that was a good idea. Marty Sclar said well, what about the grand hotel on Mackinaw Island?

Eddie Sotto:

But because immediately, you know, the green light goes on and people go, let's make it 40 stories. 50 shows it turns into this monster, which I did not want. I never wanted the hotel to be that big. Yeah. Someone on Twitter tweeted a picture of Fontainebleau, the big Chateau and said, Eddie, did, you do gardens in a Chateau because that whole region Loire Valley has chateaus and gardens. And that it's a very French thing to do is to approach the Chateau at Disney. I wish I would've thought of that because then I could have justified it that way. It would have sounded like French culture. But no, it was a bunch of happy accidents and it was all I could do to get the scale of the windows down. So for main street, it didn't look, you know terribly monolithic back there, but it worked out, I guess

Host:

It's, it's, it's beautiful. And, you know, it's, it's convenient. It's, you know, November in Paris, it's not exactly the time to be outside a lot. So, you know, having that cover and, and, and convenience was very good. And, and, you know kind of a follow-up to that. I do want to ask about the Main Street, because that is always the most recognizable aspect to a park. I would save that, that, you know, a Disney park is, is the Main Street, but France had its own challenges because French culture, you know, high-speed train is 10 minute ride from essentially, the beautiful grand avenues of Paris. And then you're tasked with creating a typical kind of turn of the century idealized American main street. So close to Parisian culture and French culture. What, how did you approach that so it could satisfy and be accepted by that audience that was being drawn to the park?

Eddie Sotto:

Well, We didn't, I mean, we, we, the very first week I was there, I was thinking to myself, what is, who is this for? Who is my audience? And, you know, if America is known by Europeans through its films predominantly, and a few tourists attractions like San Francisco or Santa Fe, New Mexico, or New York, those are like the top three. How do you make people feel this? Because if you really look at the DNA of this, the DNA is Walt Disney is, basically handing down small town, America, the innocence of small town, America to a new American audience and Europeans, you know, it just looks like another cute village. And if you've ripped off all their architecture and put it in a blender and that's American Victorian, you know, and it's, it, it is different American Victorian is different. It's not enough different and will they get it?

The interior arcade at Disneyland Paris (Photo: Jeff Urbanchuk © Disney)

Eddie Sotto:

It is going to be a Disney mall or a story? So the first thing we did was Tony Baxter, who was my boss, who's a, of a Disney legend. We sat down and said, well, what if we turned the clock forward just enough to be recognizable? And that's when you get American jazz, you get things that are uniquely American. And maybe we do something that's a little bit more like the film, Some Like it Hot where you, you have the 1920s where it's exciting. It's not about the horse-drawn streetcars and cobblestones, you know, the Main Street because every European village looks like that. I mean, they're like, well, yeah, I came from a European village to come here and this is not as cute as my European village. So how do you do that? You know, and also make the architecture read.

Eddie Sotto:

So we started with this 1920s design, but I kinda just out of boredom didn't want to build a main street myself. I don't want to be at a photocopy building Walt Disney world's Main Street. That's not what I went there for. So we kind of turned it into a land. I mean, it was very expensive at an elevated train system in it. It was really cool, so cool. It was so expensive. And I think Michael Eisner was a little uncomfortable with straying from the Disney formula. So yeah, we we've, we, we lost it. I went back to the main street, but I wasn't going to give up, we still put tons of story. And I, I did notice living there, Europeans take their kids to museums on weekends, maybe, cause there's not other theme parks, but predominantly Europeans, like to feel good culturally, about something, they like depth.

Eddie Sotto:

They're used to depth. They grew up in those layers of, of history in depth. So I thought, well, we're going to make Main Street. I had come from Knott's Berry farm. There was a lot of history at Knots. Let's, let's make this a living museum let's make this Main Street a very cultural, not politically American, but culturally American with American artists, American illustrators, even the wallpaper will be an American wallpaper design. The lamps were going to buy them in the U.S. They'll be real antiques. This is going to be something. If you are a French interior designer, you're going to walk in and go, wow, this is a textbook of a fun romanticize, kind of like a musical like Hello, Dolly as a musical, you know, is going to be the Hello Dolly version of American Victorian. Something that Europeans will feel very reassured about, but yet it also has history. It has depth. It's not just a Disney plush mall, you know?

Host:

Yeah. And the design took into consideration the weather. You have the covered arcades that go on the side of the Main Street. And like you said, it, and it's hard for you to visualize this if you haven't been there, but you go in and you're immediately presented with a story and a narrative that, that carries you through Main Street, especially in the arcades where you even have a small little pocket where you can go and see kind of a a vignette of coming to America and Ellis Island. And and that experience, then you have actual, like you said, American antiques, some, some patented objects from the time period that are there, and it's all works with the narrative. And it's more deep that it has significantly more depth than your normal Main Street, which is, you know, getting you into the park. And....

Eddie Sotto:

Yeah, and I don't even know Jeff, if the, if the, that level of detail would be that interesting in America, people are just walk right by it. In Europe I heard the first year I was still on the project at the time I asked the operations person, like who's running the whole park. I said, you know, what's the, what's the deal with Main Street. He goes, people are actually spending two hours in main street before they go into the other land. So they need, they love to read all the plaques and we, and because each arcade leads to another story. And I think this is one important thing to think about is in the story thing is, is what happens in the context of whatever it is you're designing, you know, and, and all the details are sensory, everything matters. So if you're engineering a rollercoaster and it's too noisy, that's going to get in the way of the soundtrack on the rollercoaster that we have to think holistically. We have to think in a sensory way. Well, I have to do that with story. So one arcade leads to Frontier Land, the old West. Well, that was about Liberty and Liberty is about the, you know, the kind of conquest of the West. So it prepares you mentally for the next land. The other arcade led to Jules Verne and science fiction and all this. So we put in the Jules Vernian world leading up to Discovery Land of how people thought the future would be.

Host:

Yeah, that alternative future, like, you know, America, New York and in 2020 with that kind of turn of the centuryfeel.

Eddie Sotto:

Exactly, so context is always important. But as an experience designer, I find that you can engineer or design for one thing, but it sets off or wrecks the experience in the other. So you want to think about, okay, what, what does it smell? Like? What does it sound like? I'm a matter of fact, Mission: Space. We were going to do it with a rollercoaster to create G-forces instead of a centrifuge. And we quickly learned that the, I didn't have enough confidence that we could engineer out the vibrations and imperfections of the harmonics of track into the vehicles. So people would, no matter what you did, you'd still feel like you were moving in a forward direction. You could never quite get that out. So I thought, you know what? This is just too hard. I also don't think it's fair to ask engineers to do things that are, you know, beyond the laws of physics either, unless we could simulate it in some other way. So I'd rather find a way for everyone to win and say, well, look, let's let's, we can do this with G-forces. We can mock this up. And, you know, there's, there's different, different approaches.

Eddie Sotto:

Absolutely. I guess tying it back to that idea of like you said, every detail matters. And, and I think that that is critically important because I would imagine that when you're designing for an experience and immersion you know, doesn't take much for somebody to be knocked out of the story. And, and that ties in with engineering and a little bit, because, you know, you're designing something. And at the end of the day, the end user is going to interact with that. And, and what you design is going to define a piece of the built environment that they interact with on a daily basis. And even though you might be designing one piece of a larger system, that one piece that you're focused on is it's always going to be critical because that detail only adds to the success of the system.

Eddie Sotto:

It's totally true. Experiences are systems. They are sensory systems, so you create an expectation and then you need to kind of be able to fire on all cylinders, you know, in that system. So when you, that's why the audio guy is important, speaker placement is important, but yet visuals are there. And if it's out of whack and you know, like, I, I look at myself as an orchestra conductor, and I've got, you know, all these different disciplines that are there, there's lighting, there's this there's that, there's all these various things. And, you know Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. I remember they, they replaced the track. Well, they perfected the track. And so I asked Tony, I said, well, what do you think of the new track and how it is? He goes, you know, is it the same? He goes, no, they took all the, now they have computers to do it.

Eddie Sotto:

It's so perfect. The thing feels like glass. It doesn't feel like an old train part of the threat of the ride, like a wood rollercoaster versus an iron coaster. The vehicle kind of goes in flight, it does a little mini airs within the tolerance of the rail. So you always feel this vibration, which creates a precarious anxiety in the guest. So, you know, when you do these things, like you need to think about all the side effects of what it is you're designing and engineering and building, you know, even the way the seats are done, you know, and operations will say, we'll cram more people in, you know, make the seats more vertical and you say, well, yeah, but then they wouldn't be able to see the scenery. Now I'll give you a good story. Like Rise of the Resistance, the new Star Wars ride uses free ranging vehicles in it.

Eddie Sotto:

But because of COVID, they put these big plastic clear partitions into great distancing. The problem is all the show lighting, which is designed at, you know, various angles in the ceiling reflects off of those panels. So now you can't see the show now, you're, it's almost like a half mirror seeing all this stuff that everyone works so hard for you not to see. So these little things can completely destroy the experience like the Ratatouille ride in Paris is a 3d movie in certain scenes, but the vehicle never quite gets close enough to crop off the bottom of the screen. So you're always conscious, you're watching a movie in three out of the five scenes, so you're no longer in it. There's no reason to be in it. If the vehicle was only a foot closer, it's magic.

Host:

I noticed that - I actually notiiced that.

Eddie Sotto:

All these things are fragile. I guess that's my point. Experiences are fragile.

Host:

Absolutely. No, it's a really good point. And I'm going to be heading down in March to Florida. So it's going to be interesting to see how the experience differs with all the plexiglass dividers, and I understand why they're doing it and they have to do it, but how that's going to affect the show.

Eddie Sotto:

It's going to be a magic killer.

Host:

Yeah, well, I, I do want to go into a little bit of what you're working on now, a lot of design work, I know that you've done with you know, for audience, the background of Eddie's screen right now is an aircraft interior, which which his firm designed which was award-winning. I believe he won an award for that. And you've also been doing some designed for automotive and I believe some, some nautical design as well. What else are you looking at doing, what do you have on the front burner?

Eddie Sotto:

On the front burner? We do have a lot of things in development. We have a concept that we're putting together to revive malls. I'm very concerned about malls. My number one concern is, is that all the work we've talked about, fragile experiences and engineering, all the squatted hours and risk and everything else everyone's put in, I think is being destroyed by making theme parks stadiums in shared experience. You go with your family into a hospital. I mean, theme parks are basically outpatient, psychological outpatient for people because they can't take the world they're in. When we go there and you need, these escapes are more valuable than you think, emotional and shared experiences. So I put together a small hit team. I thought, you know, it's, we're shooting too low to say, let's make cute masks and sell them. Sure. The function you need masks.

Eddie Sotto:

I'm not, I'm not getting into the mask, no mask thing. But what I am saying is that if we can create a safe bubble and use technology to create a main gate experience, where once you go through, you do not need a mask. Not because we don't care about you, but because it's so safe, like going through TSA at the airport, if it was more like an airport where people I can relax, I'm not wary of you. I mean, psychologically, when you're looking at other people and saying, Hey, you're, you're too close to me, man, in a way, I don't know. You just sneezed. Let's go shoot that person. Cause they sneezed, you know, and we can't have a world like that. That's what shared experiences are about, is where everyone can get along. And it's a small world after all. So I put together a small group of very smart people.

Eddie Sotto:

Some of them are engineers, they're doctors, they're physicists, computer engineers and said, okay, Eddie wants the, is this Eddie wants a main gate that when you go through, it has to be almost instant result. It has to be over 95% bulletproof accuracy, asymptomatic, forget it. It doesn't matter what stage you're in. You know, if you have it, it knows. And preferably it has to be operational feasible that it's not clinically based. You can have nurses running around and, and it's also seamless for the guests. They just walk up, they hardly even know and I want to make it fun. Give me something I can make fun. So we did some research and I don't know if there's more than one company working on this, but our favorite method I'll just say is terrahertz, sensed breathalyzer, meaning you use a terahertz us micropsipy I guess, to a terahertz scanner to scan someone's breath and read the harmonics of the virus.

Eddie Sotto:

And by the way, it can be tuned like a radio to sense variants or other viruses, not just COVID. So it's future-proofing for people, but within 60 seconds, the result is out of machine learning. So the machine only gets smarter. This is not where you go, Oh, we just bought this and now we have to go have doctors start over finding another vaccine. No. So suddenly the controversy of whether you're vaccinated or not, all those things go away and literally you blow into a duck call, kind of like a little breathalyzer. Each individual does that. They get their own it's disposable, whatever. Maybe on a screen it's put into a machine by a cast member. So a minimum wage person can run this. And while your bags are being looked at, Jeff doesn't even know what his family's doing, his bags, we don't even talk to you unless you're the sick one.

Eddie Sotto:

So over 95% of the people are going to probably not be sick at all. So imagine how you could change the world and get people's jobs back, go back to full capacity. You know, so we are testing this here in the USA and we're testing it in Europe, I believe right now. So there's testing going on. I've been on Fox Business talking about it and, and you know, we have to get the FDA, we got to go through. I'm not happy with this until it's proven just like you are with any, you know, it's not a bridge till it's a bridge.

Host:

Absolutely. So that your target is, And understandably so re large retail areas where people get aggregate as in the.

Eddie Sotto:

Airports. Yeah.

Eddie Sotto:

It's also portable. Jeff, it's portable. This thing is small enough to be a rack, you know in a hotel lobby or in your private room, we're talking about one for private jets where if you flew to a foreign country that didn't have changing crews would, if it could be tested in a minute, very low cost test and then get on the plane. And that's, I mean, this is game-changing, I don't want to do any masks and I'm not here to design the next shield and ruin a ride. I've worked too hard on it. So did a lot of other people, so does any artists at a concert, they deserve the crowd. So, you know, so, so did the Lakers, so does anyone, you know, would you want to root for your home team? Don't you want what your dad gave you of going to the game?

Host:

Absolutely.

Eddie Sotto:

Yeah. Come on.

Host:

That's the thing, because I mean, a lot of our firms are engaged in this to an extent because they're, they're doing the work, a lot of the machine learning and the AI that goes into helping, let's say municipalities, potentially gage, you know, concentrations of, of a virus through, you know, wastewater streams or things like that. But they're also looking forward and saying, okay, what's the building going to look like? What's the next office. If we're in the process of designing an office building, what's it going to look like? And how are people going to interact? How and solutions like this are, are, are important because they play a role in how the design flows to what's required by the people who work in there and demanded by the, by the employees.

Eddie Sotto:

Exactly. I'm sure your audience would have a lot of questions. So I've put it on. I created a studio is one of our studios with just these individuals in it. And it's called futureproofexperiences.com. If you go to future proof experiences, I'm sure you'll all one word dot com. You can see later, there's what we're doing. The technologies we've adopted, that are in testing where we are with this. We also do agent-based simulation of venues. So we can show you mask or unmasked. We can show you lots of various things to help clients figure out really what is the best solution for them. So what Sotto Studios has done, and the company we're working with is called Ram Global that builds the core technology. We want to wrap it, experience around it. So we're the official experience designers to create the desk at the elegant hotel, or to create the airport experience or the stadium experience where the mascot is going, come on, let's see you, you know, blow that noise maker and then you do it. The kids are like, let's do that again. That was so fun. I would name an experience without it. Yeah. And we want to get you to forget about the germs and just have the fun again.

Host:

Yeah. And that's that I think we all want to be there and want to, yeah. We'll make sure to put that link into the show notes as well. For any of our firms out there who are embarking on, on large projects, or even just one, a little bit more of a idea into design you know, how do they get in touch with you at Sotto studios?

Eddie Sotto:

Well, you could email, you know, we have an information box info at Sotto Studios and of course, you know, imagine an engineering firm that collaborates with a creative firm to land a contract. I mean, I have, I have engineering firms call me elevator firms, vehicle firms saying, Eddie, if we can package your experience design in with our engineering, we'll have a competitive leg against the other people that we're going up against. Yeah. So, you know, like when Calatrava steps in the door and you're doing a bridge, everybody listens, well, I'd love to be your Calatrava or your design entity for some of your firms or things that are there. I'm not a, I deliberately started doing other things beyond theme parks, but it's always about a really positive customer experience and re-imagining things. So Sotto Studios dot com info at Sotto Studios our airplane page, if you want to go see that as Sato luxury, which has some really cool renders.

Host:

Yeah. It's, it's, it's beautiful stuff. If I could only aspire to own something like that,

Eddie Sotto:

It's funny, people call me and they go, I'm about to come into a lot of money, you know? And I'm like, well, good, good. You know, when's that going to happen? Well, I've already, I just want you to know I've chosen the Sky Yacht One. That's what I want. I, every other plane is boring compared to what you're doing. And I said, well, you know, you could put it in any week. We could do something just for you. You know? It depends.

Hots:

Absolutely.

Eddie Sotto:

It's fun.

Host:

Yeah.

Host:

Well, I do appreciate your time and enter the experience and what you bring to the conversation. It's, it's, it's great. And you know, thank you also for contributing so much to, you know, a lot of people's experiences and like you said, it's an escape, it's a place where people can go and kind of put the world in a box and just experience something different. And for people like you and, and your fellow designers who can create something tangible out of fantasy, it makes the world a little bit better of a place to live in. So thank you for that.

Eddie Sotto:

Well, if I might just thank you and my just add that, you know, everybody, every, every waiter in Hollywood as a screenwriter, you know, screenplay in his pocket, right. Everybody has ideas, but it takes a unique blend of can-do attitude. And that's, to me the whole thing with the right team and these things are team efforts. And of course, you know, I'm selling Sotto Studios and my approach to these things. But what I also sell is the packaging of the very finest talent and, you know, creative engineers inspire me. I mean, I have just as much fun around that table as anybody else. And we all, we're all friends, we all get along and they say eh, look at, look at this kind of cool thing I'm going to do. And, and I have to say excitement is contagious, you know? And it could be a rocket powered cocktail shaker who knows if we, whatever we actually did. One of those once, it only looked like the rocketeers backpack. Anyway, thanks so much, Jeff, for the opportunity to meet your very talented audience and you know, it's why they call it Imagineering. Right?

Host:

Exactly. Well, thank you again, Eddie. And this has been another episode of engineering influence podcast brought to you by, at the American council of engineering companies until next time stay safe and we will see you next time.