UCF Themed Experience Work
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In 2023 I found the UCF Themed Experience Master's program through Disney's Aspire program. Looking for a way to expand my experience and find a path into a more creative side of themed experience, I applied and was lucky enough to have been accepted into the program for the fall of 2023. Being in this program while working full time has been challenging, but I have met and been able to collaborate with some amazing people.
Throughout this program we worked on several projects in the 3 primary courses, along with opportunities to take electives that also challenged us to creative varying experiences. It has become clear over iteration after iteration that my passion and strengths lie in storytelling and worldbuilding. While my primary interests lie in the live entertainment realm of themed experiences, the examples below show a range of work from the concept for a small theme park, to a ride exit queue, to an intimate mobile live entertainment experience. |
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Deep Current Outpost
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Collaborative Project Studio - Spring 2025, Chaz Moneypenny
Creatures by Me. DCO Logo by Anthony Aguilar & Max Camacho
Collaborative Studio was the culmination of the three varying degrees of projects completed throughout the program--from food truck-style projects in Small Project Studio, to mid-range experiences in Immersive, to now a large scale experience. The biggest difference apart from size, is that the main focus of the class is to work as a group to conceptualize an experience. With 9 of us in the class, we decided to work as one large group on a project that looked to celebrate sea life and our connection to that realm with a fantastical story and visual landscape that allowed us to tell a story of conservation and collaboration between worlds. Think something along the lines of Pandora at Disney's Animal Kingdom, but with mythical creatures and humanoids from deep in our own oceans, inspired by Arabic architecture and visuals.
Throughout the process I was trusted to take on the role of Story Writer and delve deep into the history of this world we created together, bringing to life the Kaymani people and their little slice of home in the Deep Current Outpost.
Throughout the process I was trusted to take on the role of Story Writer and delve deep into the history of this world we created together, bringing to life the Kaymani people and their little slice of home in the Deep Current Outpost.
Project Team
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Anthony Aguilar
Creative Director |
Alex Nadeau
Assoc. Creative Director |
Mary Hosford
Show Writer |
Anabeth Koopman
Scenic Design |
Dallas Kirkland
3D Design |
Max Camacho
Prop Design |
Rachael Majdali
Creature Design |
Analiese Melendez
Aquatic Design |
Rachel Yee
Estimation |
Welcome to the Deep Current Outpost
You have been invited by the Keepers to come explore the Deep Current Outpost, a piece of the underwater civilization of Kay’aman. To celebrate the annual surfacing of the Outpost in this location, the Kaymani people have prepared a celebration of their culture to share with you on the surface. Experience aspects of their life underwater in this mini exhibition that’s been brought from the depths to share. |
Entry Concept Art by Anthony Aguilar
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Researchers from the Keepers of the Deep--a secret society dedicated to maintaining a relationship with the Kaymani society and keeping them safe from prying eyes--have been anticipating the arrival of the Deep Current Outpost for some time and are excited to welcome members into the Outpost, new and old alike.
Guests have been invited to an open house event put on by the Keepers to showcase the connection between the Kaymani society and our own to current members, new recruits, and trusted friends of the Keepers. Here they will be able to explore a small piece of the civilization that exists beneath the surface, learn about the Kaymani society and customs, encounter both familiar and unknown creatures that the Kaymani have endeavored to conserve, and discover the mysteries of this ancient and alien society.
Over the course of the day, guests will experience a bazaar or festival of sorts, celebrating the Kaymani society as well as the connection between them and the Keepers of the Deep that has contributed greatly to both parties understanding of the natural world around us all, particularly the one beneath the waves.
Guests have been invited to an open house event put on by the Keepers to showcase the connection between the Kaymani society and our own to current members, new recruits, and trusted friends of the Keepers. Here they will be able to explore a small piece of the civilization that exists beneath the surface, learn about the Kaymani society and customs, encounter both familiar and unknown creatures that the Kaymani have endeavored to conserve, and discover the mysteries of this ancient and alien society.
Over the course of the day, guests will experience a bazaar or festival of sorts, celebrating the Kaymani society as well as the connection between them and the Keepers of the Deep that has contributed greatly to both parties understanding of the natural world around us all, particularly the one beneath the waves.
The Kaymani People and Their Traditions
 Ahma Concept Art by Me
Ahma (AH-ma, she/her)
The Steadfast Shark Ahma is an unimaginably large shark, reminiscent of the long extinct Anvil Shark from our world, who is believed by the Kaymani people to carry the world on the flat of her fin. The name Ahma is derived from the Amazigh world "amadal" meaning world, fitting for such a behemoth of a creature. In the Kaymani culture, it is said that the anvil sharks are her descendants, “ahma-totuh” (ahma toe-tah) as they Kaymani refer to them. The Keepers of the Deep have partnered with the Kaymani to further the research into preserving and rehabilitating the anvil shark population that still exist within Kay'aman. This research is extremely important to the Kaymani and the conservation efforts are the highlight of the DCO's main attraction, Journey to the Deep: Expedition Ahma.  Sa'haad Concept Art by Me
Sa’haad (Suh-haad, he/him)
The Great Dragon With a name derived from the Amazigh word "awsad" (Dragon), Sa’haad is the Kaymani guardian of “the space above.” Seen as a protector from threats beyond the surface, Sa’haad is a large creature whose traits resemble that of a Blue Dragon Sea Slug, but on the scale of what humans would equate to a medieval gold-hoarding dragon. Sa’haad is said to be a fierce protector of the deep ocean, defending from any outside threats from the surface world with a terrifying might, but in the presence of those it protects, is a gentle giant. Claims of seeing Sa’haad are often met with skepticism, as the Kaymani guardians are as elusive as any human cryptid, however, it is believed that the Blue Dragon Sea Slugs are descendants of Sa’haad and encountering one when travelling near the surface is considered a sign of safe travels on your journey.  Messte Concept Art by Me
Messte (Mess-t, they/them)
The Mighty Eel The mighty eel, Messte is the protector of the Kaymani from threats surrounding them in the water. It is said that their long body extends and encircles Kaymani settlements, keeping them safe from dangers that may linger in their deep ocean home. The name comes from the Amazigh word for protect, "mmesten". |
Key Nomenclature |
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Kaymani Guardian Story Moment Script Example
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 Concept Art by Max Camacho
Interactive elements and guest agency in their story was something that Max and I were passionate about collaborating on. Max had the idea to utilize shells as an interactive tool, allowing guests to affect the environment around them in a number of scenes throughout the park. After completing enough scenes to fill each color on the symbol (show on a screen on the shell), guests would gain access to a final space that housed our Kaymani Storytellers--a prominent role in the Kaymani society whose job is to preserve the stories of their culture going back generations. In this space, along with passive elements to see the Kaymani culture and history, a Storyteller would come out and active the whole room in a live telling of one of the stories of Kay'aman. The story that was fleshed out for this project is the story of the three Kaymani Guardian Creatures, Ahma, Sa'haad, and Messte, an example is included here.
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Uncover the hidden history of the Kay’aman people as you wander the Outpost. Work to connect relics of their past that can be found in nooks and crevices throughout the Outpost with stories that can be learned from elders and other Kaymani storytellers and scientists that reside within this Outpost and gain enough knowledge to be granted access to the Elder’s Nook.
Interactive Scene Concept Art by Max Camacho
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Interactive Shell Concept Art by Max Camacho
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Interactives Show Concept Art by Max Camacho
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Rides, Attractions, Entertainment, & More
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An entire park was concepted for this project, and while the primary focus for the 16 week project was the attractions, we also developed concepts for entertainment, food and beverage, and merchandise spaces throughout the park. Some of the various experience blurbs have been called out here, while an overall sheet with each experience that was concepted can be seen in the PDF found in this section.
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Park Layout Image by Anthony Aguilar. Individual Areas Concepted by their Designers.
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Join a patrol on Ribbon Rush and see if you’ve got what it takes to be a Kaymani Scout, keeping the Outpost safe from danger. Twist and turn through the caverns with your partner, the Ribbon Eel, keeping an eye out for any unwanted visitors. |
D-Ticket Concept Art by Anthony Aguilar
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Outpost Concept Art by Anthony Aguilar
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Discover the world of the Kaymani from a human perspective at the Keepers Outpost. Engage with scientists who have been researching all that the Kaymani have brought with them, and even have a chance to encounter some creatures while participating in “Kay’aman 101,” a presentation put on multiple times throughout the day by our lead scientists at the Outpost. |
See the beauty that water can hold as the fountain pools throughout the Outpost come alive at night in a spectacular conclusion celebrating life under the waves and how different peoples, coming together as one, can protect that life for generations to come. |
Nighttime Show Concept Art by Anthony Aguilar
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Restaurant Concept Art by Anthony Aguilar
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Get a taste of what it’s like to be underwater surrounded by all kinds of aquatic life while dining at the Hydronaut Hideaway. |
Splash in the tide pools of the Kreature Cove, where along with some of the natural rock formations found deep in the ocean, you can touch and play around larger-than-life versions of the cute creatures seen elsewhere in the Outpost. |
Splash Pad Concept Art by Anthony Aguilar
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Terror at Cobb's Farm
Haunted Corn Maze
Storytelling as a Theatrical Art Form - Fall 2024, Patrick Braillard
Terror at Cobb's Farm Logo & Entry Sign
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In this course we were asked to create a concept for a walk-through haunt experience. Throughout the project we were tasked with creating a marketing plan for specific social media sites, a one-page story brief, and a full technical breakdown of the experience, scene-by-scene.
I conceptualized a haunted corn maze that would function as a normal maze during the day, but transform into the haunt experience at night. This is inspired by my memories of the starlight corn maze experience at the Great Vermont Corn Maze and how even a non-haunted walk through corn at night can be absolutely terrifying. Guests would be guided through the experience by a live actor and learn that local legends are true--the corn must be fed or else it will feed on YOU. When Jerry Cobb was bought out of his corn maze last year, he warned the company taking over that they needed to take the legends seriously and respect the traditions that kept the maze and its visitors safe. Join the Maizonix team as they open their brand-new franchise location and find out what happens when you refuse to feed the corn. |
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Terror at Cobb’s Farm takes place through a functioning corn maze by day that transforms into a haunted maze by night. However, on the opening night of this maze, when the last group of the day cannot be found, staff could not properly set up for the haunt. Corporate management insists that staff must start walking groups through and “figure it out.” As guests are escorted through the maze, it becomes clear that the legends are true and the corn is hungry. They’ll encounter half-hearted Maizonix scare-actors who had no time to set-up, a confused guide who is surprised when actors are not in place when they are supposed to be, and threats that their guide has never encountered as they uncover the horrors that unfold when legends are not respected and the maze starts to feed itself on anyone it can find. Culminating in a close encounter with the blood-filled mutant corn king that has been feeding on anyone it can find.
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The Corn King Concept
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Key Elements:
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Escape in Time
Story-Driven Escape Experience
Immersive Experience Studio - Fall 2024, Pete Carsillo
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The project we were tasked to complete in Immersive Experience Studio was an immersive, themed experience, that took place in a venue no larger than 20,000 sq ft--excluding outdoor and backstage/facility spaces. We took this project from blue-sky concept to full fledged pitch over the course of a 16 week class, presenting the concept at various stages to panels of industry professionals.
I chose to create a story-driven escape experience called Escape in Time. Have you ever wondered how cool it would be to see a supernova in action? Or travel through time to see a famed saloon performance in the old west? Well, the Escape in Time Agency has you covered. With their mission to make time travel more accessible to the masses, the folks at the ETA have set-up a state-of-the-art facility to allow the average consumer to experience the thrills of time travel. With their patented portal technology their Travel Agents have been able to set-up a number of different excursions to choose from with more always on the horizon. |
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The Escape in Time Agency (ETA) was established with the mission to bring the technology of time travel to the masses; make it available to your average consumer. The experience begins online with a themed website where guests can book their excursion of choice for a specific date and time.
Through this venture, the folks behind the ETA hope that with more exposure, time travel technology can become more integrated into the everyday, and they intend to be the leading name in the Time Travel Vacation Industry. When guests arrive, they are checked in by one of the ETA Travel Agents who get them checked in and have them complete any paperwork. They then meet their Tour Guide who will be leading them during the excursion who will go over any other onboarding details such as the rules for Time Travel in this location, if the people at their destination know if you’re time travelers, and a general overview of what’s to be expected during this trip. From there, guests are led down to the departure area, a basement space where they will see a number of portal doorways, as well as a full-sized time engine that is powering this technology. They will be brought to the portal that is setup for their destination and transported through the doorway into that space. There they will be able to interact with the world around them and the cast as the story plays out. When it becomes clear that things are going very wrong, the guests are evacuated back through the portal and are let in on some information previously left out. The technology can be temperamental and sometimes gets stuck on the wrong timeline, but this is a common occurrence and their guide is confident they can still have the promised experience, they just need to figure out what went wrong. Some of this temperamental technology information will be seeded in disclaimers and other places in the website. |
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Guests are then taken back on the excursion for as many loops as it takes for them to resolve the problem (with cast and crew adjusting things to keep the whole experience under 2 hours). Once they are able to have the promised experience, guests are escorted back to the lobby while the tour guide thanks them profusely, asking them to leave them a good review because “their luck is always so bad, but the make it work” or “they can’t afford another negative review just because the tech malfunctioned.
From there, guests are free to hang in the lobby, buy merch, book another excursion, all while being in this pristine Travel Agency environment that is a stark contrast to the industrial basement setting where the transport actually happens. |
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Floorplan & Exterior
Time Machine Centerpiece
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Exterior Concept, Street Corner Location
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Lower Level/Basement, Houses Each Escape Room.
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Lobby/Entry
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Sleepy Hollow Ride Exit
Queue & Gift Shop
Universal Creative Lab - Spring 2025
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Step into the eerie enchantment of Sleepy Hollow with a unique retail destination inspired by the timeless legend of The Headless Horseman. |
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In the Universal Creative Lab, we were broken up into teams of two and each assigned a section/scene in a Sleepy Hollow ride, utilizing the blueprint of an existing space at Universal Orlando. Each team was standalone and did not have to align with the others to create a cohesive ride.
I worked with Victoria Garcia on the Exit and Retail space for the prospective ride. Within this, I focused more on the design and story of the exit leading up to the retail space, while Victoria worked on visualizing the retail space itself. I worked on building a model of the pathway over attempting to create 2D concept art, and had a separate scale empty model of the shop for size reference. |
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With the ride culminating in the fabled chase between Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman, we envisioned a space where guests were retracing their steps back to the Van Tassel estate where the party happened the evening before--the forest around them transitioning from evening to morning as they move forward.
Through this walk, they would see traces of the Horseman having turned around, and upon arriving at the Van Tassel estate (retail space), would see one set of doors slightly busted and moving further in, would see one of the tables surrounding a statue of the Headless Horseman broken and roped off, the statue turned to face them with a menacing glance. They might swear they notice a flicker of red in the eyes, or a bit of smoke coming from the horses nostrils, but surely it's just a trick of their eyes. |
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The Waiting Room - Mobile
Mobile Entertainment Experience
Small Project Studio - Spring 2024, Aram Ebben
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The Big Idea |
You’re here. You’re waiting. For what? You don’t know. For how long? You can’t tell. You’re here until your number is called 
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In Small Project Studio, we were tasked with creating a mobile experience. This could be a merchandise cart, food stand/truck, entertainment experience... As long as it was fully mobile, it was fair game.
With Phoenix Tears Productions, I conceptualized and experience called "The Waiting Room," something that beginning development at the time of this class. We knew that this was the type of experience we wanted to take on tour to Fringe Festivals across the US once we debuted it at Orlando Fringe, so I took the opportunity to concept a blue-sky idea of a mobile trailer for our experience. Ultimately settling on the camper-style trailer design for this project, we had to pitch 3 concepts. The other options were the boom box-themed trailer, and a more simple tent-style booth set-up using a converted van as the performance space. Having developed the experience more post-class, if this were to ever come to life, I would lean toward the boom box trailer option.
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The Experience
The Waiting Room is an experience that is being presented by WAIT FM, an independent radio station that seems to not be tied to a location and pops up all over with their live, in-person broadcasts of this Waiting Room experience.
A mixture of immersive theater, audio drama, and alternate reality game, The Waiting Room as an experience is, at first glance, meant to be a weird piece of experiential theater. For those that decide to participate, small clues are dropped throughout the experience--largely through the audio tracks, that hint at and lead to a larger world to be found and interacted with long past the in person experience. For those that decide to go looking, they will learn just what is behind WAIT FM and their Waiting Room experience.
The waiting part of The Waiting Room is accompanied by silent disco headphones playing 3 different audio tracks, which guests are welcome to switch between at their leisure--their number will be called across all three channels.
A mixture of immersive theater, audio drama, and alternate reality game, The Waiting Room as an experience is, at first glance, meant to be a weird piece of experiential theater. For those that decide to participate, small clues are dropped throughout the experience--largely through the audio tracks, that hint at and lead to a larger world to be found and interacted with long past the in person experience. For those that decide to go looking, they will learn just what is behind WAIT FM and their Waiting Room experience.
The waiting part of The Waiting Room is accompanied by silent disco headphones playing 3 different audio tracks, which guests are welcome to switch between at their leisure--their number will be called across all three channels.
94.4 WAIT FM
Our red track features DJ Dusk with 94.4 WAIT FM, the faux radio station that is acting as the host for the experience. mixed in between songs from real independent artists, DJ Dusk invites listeners to share stories and enter into a giveaway for a relaxing vacation that definitely isn't more than it seems... DJ Dusk is crucial in directing guests to their website, waitfm.com, where much of the underlying mystery unfolds. |
Little Chirps
On the green track, you'll find more of a talk radio vibe, with Little Chirps, a shorter track filled with guest segments from advice to calming meditation, to Chicken's Corner. This channel also features ads for Watcher Brand products--here to make your life a breeze. It is also a place for us to be able to include local ads for other shows at the Fringe Festival we might be at. |
Hold Line
The blue track is your typical phone hold line with music that slowly warps as time goes on, and a voice popping in with messages that just get weirder and weirded. The voice seems particularly worried that you haven't filled out all your forms. She also directs guests to the website to ensure their forms have been filled out prior to being called. |