Happy Harmony Celebration

My friend, colleague, and mentor, Mike Davis, the Vice President of Entertainment for Universal Studios Japan, contacted me about designing a street show for the park. I was thrilled to learn that Sylvia Hasa would be directing the project. We have all been friends and colleagues since our time in the Entertainment department at Disneyland.

During my first visit to Universal Studios Japan, Mike kindly gave me a tour of the park. We watched the original parade that had been running since the park's opening. The directive was to take the floats from the existing parade, strip them down to their steel structures, and then design the street show around these frameworks. I created designs based on Sylvia's initial concept, which evolved into an even more brilliant idea that featured characters from Hello Kitty, Sesame Street, Peanuts, and Shrek.

Working with my producer, Emelia Gordon, she facilitated having white models constructed of my float design concepts. This helped the creative team visualize the floats' volume, shapes, and bold graphic sensibility, ultimately leading to revised full-color models.Cynthia Nordstrom's costume designs were adorable. She captured the same dynamic, bold, and graphic shapes that happily harmonized perfectly with my float designs. The cherry on top of this project was Bart Doerfler's energetic and super fun choreography for the characters and dancers.

I also had a great time collaborating with the USJ Entertainment team and Muriyama, the scene shop that constructed and developed the exceptional finishes on the floats. I have immense respect for their thoughtful, hard work in helping to create something truly celebratory.

Enjoy my design sketches, color renderings, and models that were developed in creating this super fun project. Oh! And don't forget the images of the final product.