Bran Ferren story

Writer: Amy Robinson

Word Count: 2,551
<hed>Dichotomous Genius
<subhed> Inside the mind of Bran Ferren.
Interviewing the man that made Fast Companys list of the 100 Most Creative
People in Business can be a bit of a daunting task. Especially when combined
with fact that the subject just happens to be the rare genius who transcends
genres. Is he a scientist? Absolutely. Is he a creative? Without a doubt. Bran
Ferren defies all of the cultural labels we use to define ourselves, and he is
thoroughly unapologetic for doing so. He is both an engineer and a creative force
to be reckoned with. His genius has been harnessed by everyone from Disney to
Lockheed Martin and his CV looks like that of a modern-day Leonardo Da Vinci:
visual effects on movies like Little Shop of Horrors (for which he was nominated
for an Oscar); design input on Disney Worlds Tower of Terror and TestTrack
rides; creation of the MaxiMog vehicle (designed to support scientific
explorations, research, and location photography anywhere in the world); and
inventor on more than 100 patents. The product of artistic parents, Ferren began
tinkering with electronics at an early age and left high school at 16 to attend MIT,
which he subsequently left to forge his own path to knowledge. One part
technological whiz and one part artist, Ferren is best characterized as
charismatic and approachable. He seems to cherish his role as mentor and
teacher, not only with his co-workers, but with pretty much anyone who has the
pleasure of making his acquaintance. Luckily, we were given that opportunity.
Lights: There have been a lot of technological advances in the live event industry
over the past few years. Can you describe some of the most innovative events
youve either seen or been a part of?
Bran Ferren: I think that by and large most of the innovation that takes place is, in
fact, not technological, but its creative. And its important to keep that in mind. It's

not the tools that create remarkable live events, but the ability to entertain to
fascinate, scare, terrify and how those tools are applied. Or what is the story
from my perspective? I like to treat effects, at least these sorts of things, as if
they were characters and you choreograph them for the sequence of events
thats taking place. I think if you had to pick the biggest breakthroughs in recent
years, whats happened most recently is in projection. And with the advent of
very high projection imaging and the advancement of very high output projectors,
combined with enough computer horsepower to do real-time mapping such
that you didnt dynamically change the configuration of the stage while mapping
images onto it I think thats opened up a whole new set of creative possibilities
that were impractical before.
We used to do projection mapping with film but it required very precise
synchronization and coordination. You didnt have the ability to have live
dynamics that changed what the map looked like in real-time because we had to
pre-compute all of it. So I think that's opened up a possibility. Also, since
projectors and display systems notably LEDs display systems have
reached the output stages where, first of all, they are usable in anything from full
daylight on down, the implication to a lot of events is not so much the brightness
for daylight, but the fact that they now become the light source. Then you are
actually designing imaging as a way of shaping light, and I think thats a really
interesting set of possibilities that we didnt have the ability to do before, simply
because there wasnt enough light output.
Lights: Millions of people have seen the TED Talk you did on the Pantheon being
your first foray into design and engineering working together to create a singular
vision. Why did you choose that as your topic?
Ferren: It was really about: whats it take to change the world, and how do you do
that? And what struck me as being interesting was the experience when I visited
the Pantheon as a kid. It was the first time that I actually appreciated what art
and design and science and engineering together could do. And upon later

reflection, the notion that that experience, created by the designers, engineers,
and builders of the Pantheon was able to reach 2,000 years into the future and
change my way of thinking about things, struck me as being a rather powerful
combination. So, it started the thought process of: what are the next Pantheons?
What are the other things that are going have the ability to do that? Change the
course of civilization? Change the way we think about art and design? Change
the way the artists, and designers, and engineers of the future will think about
what they do?
While there are quick answers, like the Internet, my sense was that the
Internet is more like the bricks and mortar used to build the Pantheon. It's the
bricks and mortar for how people are going to invent fundamentally new
experiences which, incidentally, will cross into theatre and applied design. It will
cross into transportation and the way cities are built. I think the next really big
thing is self-driving cars. When you look at the reinvention of the automobile, its
the first fundamental change in the DNA of the automobile in over 100 years,
since its been invented. It will change the way we think about life: commuting,
work, cities, pollution, environment, almost everything, and so that seemed like a
reasonable topic for a TED Talk.
Lights: Switching sides on that: do you see any potential pitfalls in some of this
technology in terms of how we relate to one another as human beings?
Ferren: As I said from a long time ago: technology is the stuff that doesn't work
yet. I mean, if you have a new technology, generally its kinda flaky; doesn't work
that great, but you are going to struggle through with it. As soon as it really
works, you don't think of it as technology anymore, you just think of it as part of
our world. There was a time in the design of chairs when one didn't know how
many legs to use. You use one, turns out that it falls over. You use two, its a little
more stable, but you either fall left or right or front or back. You use three, thats
kind of workable. Four seems pretty good, even more stability. You can keep
adding legs, but there is not much advantage, so we sort of decided that most

chairs, if they have 4 legs or 3 legs, then they are actually just kind of fine. So
now, we don't think of that as being technology anymore. It's just a chair.
I don't think there's anything to worry about as far as technology. There is
a lot to worry about in the application of technology. People are always in a state
of denial, when it comes to the negative consequences of technology. Look at
how many people text and drive when it is clear that its distracting and when
you're driving its not a smart or a good thing to do. Why do they do it? Because
they find the advantages of texting to be so compelling in the rest of their lives
that they are willing to put themselves, their families, and other peoples families
at risk. You would argue that's not very bright, yet we make decisions like that all
the time.
You have to factor all of this in when you start talking about the negative
consequences of technology or, incidentally, negative consequences of design.
Because the reality is that you can use design to influence people. To get them to
do things that are bad for them, right? So you can use design to hurt people and
you can use art to hurt people. At the same time, you can use it to help people
and benefit mankind. And I think one should not be dwelling on the fact that there
may be negative consequences to a new technology because the reality is that
there may be negative consequences to do anything. The question is: Are we as
designers, or is society as a whole, going to choose to use these things
responsibly? And I would say, by and large, the answer is yes.
Lights: Do you think that having children has changed the way you see the world,
or how you design for it?
Ferren: Oh absolutely. It totally changes your perspective. I think it does for the
better. They are entering into a world which is different from the world we grew up
in. Some aspects of it are better, some aspects are less good. And so part of the
challenge as parents is how you introduce your kids to all of the possibilities, so
that they can find their passions and where they are going to end up being.

From a purely practical point of view, as a designer, whether it comes to

automobiles or something else, once you have a kid, you obviously think a lot
differently about, say, child safety in a car. But that's something where you might
say, Well, I don't have to have a kid to understand that. You do have to have a
kid to understand what it takes to get your child to sit in the car for a four hour car
trip, and therefore you might think differently about in-car entertainment. You
might think differently about why anyone would want a DVD player in their back
seat. Well, have a 2-6 year old and you'll discover why that actually may be a
useful thing to have. And it's just like when people say, Well, why would you
want to have a ridiculous thing like cruise control? There are a whole bunch of
these things that until you have the context and the experience, you don't actually
realize why they are there.
Lights: You have said that reading and writing are a fad, but that storytelling was
innate. What do you see as potential storytelling vehicles going forward?
Ferren: What I was talking about as far as reading and writing being a fad, is the
actual mechanical act of writing and reading. We are wired to tell stories. Its how
we learn, how we exchange information, how we teach others. At the same time,
is the way we write little symbols down and read those symbols something we
were wired to do? I don't believe it. I think we have maybe another 250 years and
then it'll be replaced by probably direct transfer based on implants: where you'll
just know something. Whether that comes to you by an implant, or whether as
Nicholas Negroponte says, You'll digest the pill with the knowledge, there are a
bunch of different ways to do it. It won't substitute for the human experience of
really being there and experiencing something. At the same time, it'll profoundly
change how normal people get their knowledge, information, and exchange
ideas. I don't see anything that threatens storytelling. We think about the
sequence of events in a given place in time and those events with characters are
how we think about our world and I believe it is how our brain evolves to be able
to do things. The technologies used for storytelling will continue to evolve and

change. When ones appear that allow us as storytellers to do fundamentally new

things, that will have a big impact potentially. But most impacts are based upon
reach. The reason the Internet is fundamental to storytelling is because it
reaches the largest audience, in the language they understand, at the lowest
possible cost. Which is why anyone in the storytelling business who doesn't take
the Internet seriously does so at their peril.
Lights: We tend to categorize children as either being good at math and science
or language and arts
Ferren: Yeah, but thats just because we are wrong.
Lights: Agreed. You are quite an inspiration to those kids out there for whom art
and science are both equally appealing, so who are some people who have
inspired you over the years?
Ferren: All sorts of people inspire me, and events inspire me. I just watched a
rerunning on cable the other day of The Shawshank Redemption. It's an amazing
movie and everything about it is great. Great direction, great score, great
photography, you look at it and it just moves you. I mean that's the power of
storytelling. Same thing for a great piece of architecture or a great piece of art. As
my dad taught me: art is not about being decorative, it's a different way of
communicating. So is theatre: telling stories with the idea of moving people,
touching people. I think the notion that people decide whether they are they
working in art or they are working in technology, its just an artificial construct that
we invented because we are lazy and it makes it easier for people to think about
things. If you go back to the Leonardo Da Vincis of the world, they worked
equally in all of these domains and that was considered normal. One of the great
things about humans is that we have the capacity to work in many different
dimensions simultaneously, and I just think it's a tragedy that our educational

system causes people to hyper-specialize at an early age. Now having said that,
if you have someone who has a passion for one particular direction and that's
what they want to pursue then more power to them. But I think it is the obligation
of schools to introduce people to a broad diversity of ideas and thinking. When
you get many of these things that seemed to be disparate, from a traditional point
of view, working together it makes you better at all of them.
Lights: Last question. What are five things you want to see happen in your
lifetime?
Ferren: Well, number one is for my daughter to grow up to have a happy, exciting
and fulfilling life where she can make a contribution to the world. That would be
numbers one through four. And then probably the fifth one is, in the time that I've
got left from five minutes to 50 years depending upon how the engineering
goes to be able to leave the world a better place than the way I found it. How
do we make a contribution so that within our ability to do and affect things, we
can look back and say, Yeah, well that actually made the world a better place. I
don't consider that to be some lofty vision. The fact that you made someone
smile. The fact that you brought them together in a theme park and created
lifelong positive and aspirational memories for them. The fact that you touched
people's hearts and gave them a new perspective and empathy about important
issues in the world. The entertainment industry is a big part of that. There are
endless numbers of ways to make a contribution and I dont think it has to be
some great high and mighty lofty thought, but I do think that ultimately we all
have an obligation to do that.