106: A Look at Theme Park Operations as Creative and Cultural Industries

Catalyst is a Creative Industries podcast, from Chapman University. Each episode features Chapman students who have completed a Podcasting course through the Center for Creative and Cultural Industries at the university. Students who had no podcasting experience or technical ability in the genre before taking the course were able to contribute all the segments to Catalyst this season with the goal being that they will take this ‘hands-on’ experience and carry it over to the launching of their very own series. Each episode of Season 12 will feature one to two different interviews conducted by CCI students, exploring different aspects of the Creative and Cultural Industries.

Our episode of Catalyst starts this week with an interview of Jenny Pershon, a live performance technician specializing in audio and video effects. Jennings Gibbs-Barger talks to Pershon about her career from her beginnings where she worked at such theme parks as Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm as a tech behind the scenes at some of their live performance shows. They discuss how Pershon now works as a freelance contracted live technician, specializing in audio and video effects, for live immersive experiences. Pershon talks about the differences in working for a company like Disney versus working as a freelance contractor as well as the advantages and disadvantages to both. They also talk about what the day to day looks like for her now as a freelance technician and discuss where they think the future of live immersive experiences is headed.

The second episode of the week features Nathan Slevcove’s interview with McKenna Madison, an Intern with the Disney Company in the area of Costuming. The segment starts off with the pair talking about McKenna’s overall job as a seamstress, which then leads into a more in-depth account of the role she plays.  Madison elaborates on her duties as a seamstress, which include such tasks as repairing costuming of the Disneyland Park mascots, maintaining the specialized animatronic costumes, or simply mending the thousands of thousands of pounds of fabric pieces that exist in the park as part of normal operations.  McKenna, although describing it as a rigorous challenge, describes how she takes it on with a smile, and they conclude the interview with her hopes of moving up to becoming a costume designer.