Hi, I’m Reed Schueler, Sophomore Entertainment Designer at Ringling College of Art and Design and this is my interactive learning experience, The Ultimate Food Fight. The theme is that food is an art and everyone can experiment. Growing up around restaurants, always made me feel like I was a part of this lively, fast-paced, and special world…
This has been explored in a lot of different media, everything from Bob’s Burgers, the Founder, all the way to Ratatouille and Princess and Frog, which have gotten the attraction treatment, but never in a first hand setting. This is what sets this experience apart!
So let’s get into it… The first step is Describing the Journey and Passing the torch to the guests.
Next up is the Freedom to Explore; with different Paths for everyone.
End of the Day, Come together with all the creations.
EXPERIENCE ART-BOARDS: In this Kiddo Kitchen area, kids explore a cartoony chef-character-driven storyline.
Kids enter the messy kitchen, where they are introduced to the crew of too many cooks. They watch the intense battle between the two head chefs, Udon and Orzo as they debate where to throw their new chefs in their kitchens. The Living Foods overwhelm Orzo and she stomps out of the kitchen. The kids get to explore with Udon! Hurray for experimentation!
Eventually, Guests follow Chef Udon into the Fry Trap Lab, where they sneak past a sleeping Guard Chef and are prompted to Experiment with condiments on the giant snarling cheeseburger beast. The Condiment Control Panel offers the kids a chance to sauce up the beast, as the monitors flash wild new combinations to try out, reinforcing the creativity!
After the prison guard chef wakes up, everyone is thrown outside into the back alley, where panhandler chefs encourage you to be interested in their unique cuisines. Each chef gives a speech on the food they’re promoting, aided by smells of sizzling steaks, or the heat of a boiling pot.
PROP DEVELOPMENT: I created unique pitches for an animatronic character duo in the experience.
In this phase of development, I honed in on studying the shape language of different soda machines, in an effort to translate into my style and use personification to make Spitz a real character.
Developing a scale model for the experience gave me an opportunity to explore another space within this extensive experience. This is the Fork in the Yard, summed up in this scope after separate journeys through the Ultimate Food Experience, families meet back up at the Fork in the Yard, a night-lit cityscape courtyard. This features the Panhandlers’ alley, a bustling farmers market, palettes of food processing stacked crates, and the Beverage Oracle duo, Sippz and Spittz. With an ambiance of a cool jazz-infused new york night, this courtyard offers a calm and steady nighttime atmosphere, juxtaposed to all the pandemonium our guests just enjoyed.
Overall, the courtyard area has the goal of better-educating families on the food system and the ways to improve it. The near-loop layout of the area is heavily inspired by it, however, guests may walk around the space in any sequence.
Lastly, before looping around, Guests will be met with the LAND of the LEFTOVER, where they will be taught about the truths of Best by and expiration dates.
This area will be an interactive wall where touching a gravestone, that will start a spiel about how each food TRAGICALLY got thrown out.
An exploded popcorn machine creates a “destructed highway” and play area of soft foam kernels.
A secret tunnel will allow for younger guests to explore under the wreckage and journey to the other side, with small blurbs on how food travels along the roads the kids are climbing along.
They will follow the winding highway around to the MARSHY MARKET, a swamp-themed farmers market that will educate on locally sourced growing and sustainability of new food systems. Informational signage will be explored here.
Conversely, hidden just behind will be a shady, vending machine prison that will draw guests in with a whisper and talk about dangerous processed food. A convicted giant bag of chips pressed up against the glass would loom over the area.
The strip just beyond the popcorn area will be where the parents enter the area, beyond the simple cutouts which show a stylized version of their experience. This strip will be calmer and offer an open area for families to meet back up.
That is my absolutely insane project! Hope you enjoyed it! Thank you for any feedback or suggestions in the comments!
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