Abstract

Thematic design is a praxis employing architecture yet distinctly independent from it; a postmodern, interdisciplinary language for the planning and execution of built environment projects. This lexicon has its roots in film grammar, first expressed with the opening of Disneyland Park in 1955. One key mechanic of these environments is the role played by multiplane camera technology in articulating immersion. As developed by the Disney organization for animation, this complex apparatus allowed numerous planes of artwork to be photographed simultaneously, addressing problems of parallax and depth. A half century before computer-generated imagery (CGI) and virtual reality (VR) made their debuts, the multiplane provided a technological simulation of a scripted virtual world. This article briefly outlines how animators, filmmakers, and art directors leveraged the effects of this early “virtual reality” device—characters inhabiting environments and moving through disparate planes—and fused these ideas into the built environment with the design of Disneyland Park. Through both exterior schema and the interior scenography of dark ride attractions, multiplane immersion forms the conceptual and structural antecedent to the first-person point of view virtual environments as now visualized by contemporary game engine software.