{"id":15514,"date":"2024-08-07T08:06:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-07T12:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/?p=15514"},"modified":"2024-08-05T11:10:01","modified_gmt":"2024-08-05T15:10:01","slug":"engineering-magic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/2024\/08\/07\/engineering-magic\/","title":{"rendered":"Engineering Magic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As chief creative officer at Walt Disney Imagineering, Bruce Vaughn \u201988 has had a hand in developing some of the parks\u2019 most popular rides and attractions. <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Every year, tens of millions of people around the world visit a Disney theme park, where they are swept into immersive experiences populated with beloved characters from their favorite television shows and films. From classic rides like Space Mountain to newer offerings like Star Wars: Galaxy\u2019s Edge, there is an overwhelming sensation of magic at work in all things Disney. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But peek behind the curtains and you won\u2019t find magicians. Instead, you\u2019ll find the team at Walt Disney Imagineering \u2014 the storytellers, engineers, artists, and scientists who are the creative force behind Disney\u2019s most popular rides and attractions. It\u2019s one of the most sophisticated R&D firms in the world, and it\u2019s been guided by the imaginative vision of its Chief Creative Officer Bruce Vaughn \u201988. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vaughn is the first to admit that his path to helming the creative output of Disney Imagineering was unconventional \u2014 and, in many respects, unlikely. Hailing from a family of lawyers with a strong Colgate legacy, Vaughn seemed destined for a legal career when he graduated with a degree in English literature. But this meant turning his back on his true passion \u2014 filmmaking \u2014 which he had cultivated as a child growing up on a steady diet of Indiana Jones<\/em> and Star Wars<\/em> films. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese films blew my mind, but I wasn\u2019t obsessed with the characters like my friends were,\u201d Vaughn says. \u201cI was obsessed with George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. So I got an American Cinematographer<\/em> magazine and started reading everything I could about these people who were making movies.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n

\n
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Bruce Vaughn ’88<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

After graduation, Vaughn spent a summer cleaning pools near his home in Sag Harbor, N.Y., biding his time until he could apply to law school, when he learned that a film crew was shooting Star Trek V<\/em> at a set nearby. Vaughn\u2019s father had a client who knew Bran Ferren, a renowned creative technologist who was running special effects for the production, and Vaughn\u2019s dad arranged for his son to tour the set with the production\u2019s general manager. It was only two weeks later \u2014 when Vaughn received a phone call telling him he was hired \u2014 that he realized that his visit hadn\u2019t been a tour, but a job interview. \u201cThat was the only job interview I\u2019ve ever done in my life and I didn\u2019t even know it,\u201d Vaughn recalls with a laugh. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vaughn\u2019s first job in filmmaking wasn\u2019t glamorous \u2014 he was a truck driver for the Star Trek<\/em> production \u2014 but during the long nights on set he befriended one of the cameramen who taught him how to operate a camera after his shifts. It turned out to be a serendipitous apprenticeship. When another cameraman on the production had to make an emergency flight out to California, Vaughn\u2019s mentor roped him in as a stand-in cameraman. Overnight, Vaughn found himself working side by side with the film\u2019s director of photography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the film wrapped, Vaughn briefly attended law school before realizing the legal profession wasn\u2019t for him. He dropped out and contacted Ferren about getting back into the film business. Ferren took Vaughn under his wing at his firm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBran is a true Renaissance man and he made me his righthand person, so I jumped into career development instantly,\u201d says Vaughn. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ferren\u2019s talents and Vaughn\u2019s hunger to learn the film business paid off, and before long the firm was hired as a consultant at Imagineering. At Disney Vaughn had the chance to flex both his imagination and project management skills, starting as a writer and climbing the ranks until he was the director of the R&D group, overseeing a team of engineers pioneering robotics and other technology used in attractions. His leadership skills propelled him to chief creative officer, succeeding the legendary Marty Sklar, who had helmed Imagineering for decades (a role he inherited from Walt Disney himself). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During his tenure as chief creative officer, Vaughn has helped craft several of Disney\u2019s immersive experiences such as Zootopia at Shanghai Disney Resort and the World of Frozen at Hong Kong Disneyland.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After more than 25 years at Imagineering, Vaughn says he\u2019s still impressed by the creativity and raw intellectual horsepower of his colleagues. He compares his job to that of a jazz musician, which calls for constant improvisation and collaboration. \u201cThis is truly a collaborative business; there\u2019s no going solo,\u201d Vaughn says. \u201cWe\u2019re very dynamic, and we\u2019re open 24\/7, 365 days a year, around the world. I find myself wired for that.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As chief creative officer at Walt Disney Imagineering, Bruce Vaughn \u201988 has had a hand in developing some of the parks\u2019 most popular rides and attractions.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1260,"featured_media":15517,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2380,2372,2381,2382,2371,2375,2377,2386,2374,2384,2379,2376,2370,2385],"coauthors":[1717],"class_list":["post-15514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-endeavor","tag-apprenticeship","tag-attractions","tag-cameraman","tag-chief-creative-officer","tag-creative-officer","tag-films","tag-george-lucas","tag-honk-kong","tag-rides","tag-shanghai-disney-resort","tag-star-trek","tag-steven-spielberg","tag-walt-disney-imagineering","tag-world-of-frozen"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/palXSH-42e","amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2024\/08\/HKDL-Frozen-land-night-e1722455607854.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1260"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15514"}],"version-history":[{"count":32,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15514\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16234,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15514\/revisions\/16234"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15514"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=15514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}