Ed Haro designs multimillion-dollar entertainment complexes in an office that's a converted Hollywood sound stage. It's not as glamorous as it might sound. "We work in a 40-foot-high concrete box, full of dust, with theatrical lighting and some funky art," says the designer of GameWorks computer theme parks, currently going up around the United States. "Everyone's all stuck together in one big room, so you can hear one another's personal phone calls, and the firing of a pneumatic piston from the mock-up lab in the center of the office."
GameWorks, a partnership between Sega, Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks SKG, and Universal Studios, plans to build nearly 100 centers around the world - partly to compete with game centers currently being planned by Disney and Sony. Ed works at Stage 35, GameWorks' central headquarters, housed on a huge back lot of Universal. His job is to help decide what GameWorks interiors will look like, from batting around conceptual sketches with co-workers to using Alias Wavefront to build 3-D renderings of the proposed spaces.
"Obviously there will be a sign on the front of each building, but when you get inside, we get to decide what will be there," says Ed, who used to design attractions for Disney, including Spaceship Earth at the Epcot Center. According to senior vice president of design Jon Snoddy, the idea is to brand each GameWorks site with the personality of its designer. "I want people to say, 'This is a Stewart Bailey project,' or 'This is by Mark Sutz,'" says Jon, referring to the big guns that he and Spielberg have recruited.
With only 3 of the 100 GameWorks centers done - in Seattle, Las Vegas, and Southern California - the designers at Stage 35 are looking for more talent to put the twists and quirks in the buildings' interior design. Jon and Ed plan to hire a designer at a "medium level." (When I press Jon for a job title he says affably: "A designer, computer designer, whatever. Titles aren't that important to me.") But he does stress that this is a job for someone experienced in designing 3-D spaces - a budding game designer would only be frustrated.
Since coming up with realistic sketches on the fly is part of GameWorks' culture of brainstorming, a designer for GameWorks should be able to sketch ideas quickly with a paper and pencil. "I'm not looking for a designer who goes away for a few hours and comes up with the perfect, photographic version of an idea," says Jon. Fundamentals are important, but eventually new designs get translated into computer-generated flythroughs. Ed also stresses "the ability to really dance with the computer" and expects a minimum of two years' experience with Alias Wavefront. He's also interested in recruiting a woman - the design staff is almost 75 percent male, reflecting much of the industry. Salary is around US$55,000, and one of the perks is working with some of the celebrities in the design field.
This article appeared originally in HotWired.
