Welcome To Madame Tussauds (Entrances from around the world)

As I am thinking about the entrance and exit of Madame Tussauds I decided to look at how the Madame Tussauds buildings in the rest of the world look like on the outside and I wanted to look at their entrances in comparison to the one in London and think about their branding and surroundings. In my RVJ I looked at images of most of the Madame Tussauds attractions in the world but here I am going to look at and evaluate the best I can without having actually been to these attractions, the building, the surrounding and the branding of some Madame Tussauds. What I found interesting is each building is individual some of them don’t even use the classic MT colours of Red and Gold. I think this analysis will help me when deciding how the exterior of my design for Madame Tussauds should look especially the entrance.

Madame Tussauds – New York

“Madame Tussaud’s New York’s striking exterior on
42nd Street, between 7th and 8th avenues, will set the tone for the exciting
experience that waits inside. The ten-story building will be vibrant with color
and dynamic in design. From the rooftop, a giant hand will reach out above the
crowds, presenting from its fingertips
information. a vertical Madame Tussaud’s marquee that spans four
stories. A glass-enclosed viewing platform, over an inviting atrium-style
entrance, will allow the guests inside to enjoy the excitement of 42nd Street
from two stories above. “

This is an excerpt from a press release when Madame Tussauds NY was being built. Its exterior is extremely interesting, incorporating the gold hands. I am unsure why though, apart from the part of Madame Tussauds where you can make the wax hand I couldn’t really see the significance of a hand however you cannot deny that it gives the building that extra edge and makes it stand out from other buildings. Having been to Times Square and the area around it you do have to make a real effort for a building to stand out from the others because there are so many around which is probably why this Madame Tussauds has such a strange exterior. The colours used in the exterior seems to be gold and purple rather than the usual Madame Tussauds colours that are Red and Gold. Even though the building is impressive and definitely enticing and intriguing drawing in the crowd, I don’t think that it has the feel of Madame Tussauds from the outside. The do however have the classic images of various celebrities that can be found inside which brings in the classic branding of Madame Tussauds.

Madame Tussauds – Hollywood

“Upon arrival at Madame Tussauds Hollywood guests are immediately struck by the building’s exterior, a continuous form of faceted planes sheathed in a glass skin with varying degrees of transparency depending on the time of day. As people move at all levels the transparent walls will create a moire’ pattern while affording guests a spectacular view of the legendary Hollywood Boulevard which has itself undergone significant revitalization befitting the Madame Tussauds ambiance. The Madame Tussauds Hollywood experience begins when guests sashay down the red carpet, like at the Oscars®…”

As you can see from the images this Madame Tussauds is heavily branded with Gold and Red which are the usual colours of Madame Tussauds with images of celebrities on every inch of the building. Even from the images you really get a feel of how exciting this place is. Madame Tussauds Hollywood is also very heavily movie star themed because of its location it seems the obvious choice. This is clear from the outside of the building too with the large movie reels that you walk between on the red carpet! The other thing that interested me about the entrance and exterior of Madame Tussauds is that there was a feature figure of Marylin Monroe outside. From the images it does not look like it was always there but having a feature figure on the street near the exhibition can really entice the crowds to come in.

Madame Tussauds – Blackpool

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Madame Tussauds in Blackpool is the first UK Madame Tussauds that is not in London. As you can see from the photos it is heavily branded with Red and Gold and really stands out from its surroundings. In Blackpool there is an element of tackyness to the whole city which is why the designers could go all out and heavily brand this building. However even though it might be slightly over branded I really do think it makes the experience more exciting when it is really obvious where you are going and why you are going there. The entrance is double doors underneath a circular canopy with the name of Madame Tussaud above it. Even though it is not an exciting entrance the outside definately gives off enough energy to drown the entrance out.

Madame Tussauds – Washington DC

This is the Madame Tussauds in Washington DC, this one is branded as the most intellectual Madame Tussauds as it has the presidential gallery in it full of past and present presidential figures in the U.S.A. Because of this I expected the building to look slightly classier on the outside and for it to look a lot more appropriate and attractive for smart and intellectual people to come rather than just a tourist attraction. The company have still made the most of the red colour and have the classic windows with images of celebrities in.

Madame Tussauds – Amsterdam

“Peek & Clopenburg building which houses Tussauds, corresponds in its architecture with the nearby Royal Palace. An enormous roof has been added on the top of the building, to accommodate Claas Janszoon – the world’s largest animatronics’ wax figure, 5 meters (18 feet) tall, greeting you at the very beginning of your visit. While the Madame Tussauds cashiers are located on the street level, two big elevators bring visitors to upper floors of the building. During your visit, you will slowly walk down, ending for the last two floors on a small, grey staircase.”

 

 

This Madame Tussauds is deceiving  from the outside it looks like a very classic building which could mean that there was a very still and classical gallery inside. However this Madame Tussauds is supposed to be the on that uses the most technology, starting with the anamatronic figure on the outside. I think that this building is nice, that it is not overly branded but yet it still gives over the message that something exciting is happening inside.

 

 

 

 

Here are some more pictures of other Madame Tussauds buildings and entrances around the world.

Las Vegas

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Berlin

Vienna

Hong Kong

Shanghai

 

Development of Initial Ideas (#1)

I came up with a couple of ideas for the Music and Sports section, drew out sketches and created mood pages for them in my RVJ and whilst I was discussing them in my tutorial I discovered that I was basing my ideas around the way you enter each section and the way you transition between each area of the exhibition.

So my first development of my idea was that I am going to focus on the use of the corridors, staircases and other transitions into the different areas of the museum. I feel that it is a great use of the space and that keeping the corridors as part of the attraction will keep the visitors involved with the exhibition even when transitioning between the areas. At the moment most of the corridors are dull, they have tried a little to include photographs and the occasional figure in transitioning between areas but it doesn’t really engage with the audience the way that I feel that the Madame Tussaud’s brand has the potential to. I think possibly the worst transition was from the royals, to the influential people, to the world leaders. There was almost no transition it was one large room and it had 2 very recognisable groups of figures that were in context (The Royal Family, and World Leaders – David Cameron outside 10 Downing street and President Obama in The White House) with a group of figures that may not be so recognisable that aren’t in context in between them. This is something that I wish to avoid in my design, with the use of the corridors as possible exhibition space it could leave more space for most figures if not all to be in context.

Seeing as I am looking at the transitions within the exhibition, I also think it would be appropriate for me to look at the entrance and exit of the exhibition. As I felt that the Authentic History should be closer to the beggining of the exhibition, I was thinking I could possibly include this as part of the entrance.

Concept For Music and Sport Area

For the Music area of Madame Tussauds I have come up with an initial design of walking through backstage onto a stage. These O2 priority adverts is where I got some of my inspiration for this idea.

The third video with Pixie Lott specifically towards the end shows the feeling I really want to give the visitors when they step from back stage onto the stage. I think this could be an exciting concept for the music area and I will develop this idea further at a later date.

Similarly for the sport area I was thinking that you could come into it through a tunnel like the way footballers come onto a pitch.

Motion Detection Technology

Motion Detection technology is used quite a lot in exhibitions to make it interactive. I have seen examples of it used in light festivals and music festivals such as Glastonbury. It is where things change digitally based on the way a body moves near it/on it. For example it can be a flooring and the floor changes as people walk over it.

Or it can be on a wall or a screen

Here is an example of where it can be used for advertising and to catch people’s eyes in the street.

There is already some of this technology used before in Tussauds in a really small area near Shrek’s figure leaves fall off a tree and they move on the projection on the floor depending on where you stand. It is a nice use of the interactive technology however it is in such a small area that it can go un-notice I observed this area for a while and saw it was particularly popular with young children. they enjoyed watching the leaves move and then got very excited as they realised it was them who controlled the movement of the leaves.

I think that motion detection technology is a really nice form of technology that can be used be people who don’t understand technology it is also obviously fun for children and I think it could really add to some of the environments for the figures.

 

Virtual Mannequins

Virtual mannequins are a sort of projection onto the shape of a person, of a person talking and moving so it almost looks like that person is there in real life. At the moment they are 2D but I’m almost sure at some point in the future they will become more 3D and lifelike. The reason that I thought these might be good for Madame Tussauds is that the whole exhibition is made out of figures of people and these mannequins might be an interesting way to change-up some of the exhibitions by having talking figures.

http://virtualmannequin.co.uk/#!/main

They are used in a lot of work places like airports and shops to talk about a product or to give instructions all the time to make sure that most people who see them will hear what they have to say. On that website that produces them they say you can even use them at a meeting instead of being on a screen you can be projected onto a mannequin. Here are 2 examples of how the virtual mannequins work.

I thought they might be a good feature for areas where I am trying to create an atmosphere of having the experience in being in that figures environment for example, Umpires/ball boys at the tennis match.

Holograms

Forever 21 fashion shows in Europe

Coachella 2012 (Tupac – hologram ,Snoopdog and Dr.Dre perform)

Tupac who was shot and killed in 1996 performs at Coachella Festival as a hologram

 

Photos Of Madame Tussauds

Augmented Reality

This is the technology I keep hearing about everywhere it is innovative interactive and exciting and I feel like it could definately be used effectively in the concept designs for Madame Tussauds in 2023. It is a way of adding things into a video in real time so that you can effectively be interacting with objects/people/anything taht aren’t really there however on a screen or through a screen it can look exactly like that thing is there with you in real life.

The reason I think this type of technology could be used effectively is becasue of Madame Tussauds’s tagline of “who do you want to meet?” what I could do is design a set for an augmented reality video to take place and other could watch on a screen and the footage could be put onto a video and given or sold to the visitor on their way out of that particular exhibition. Or what could also work well is by using augmented reality with your mobile phone and image recognition.

Or like in this talk using image recognition as a tool for augmented reality. Rather than a DVD copy of the experience they could be given a still image from the footage and just by pointing thier mobile phones at the image the footage would play. Using this type of technology with the mobil phones is simple and an easy way to allow visitors to view exhibitions with augmented reality – with most poeple today owning a smartphone it is also a great way of using new technologies without scaring people off using it. It can also be used around the exhibition anywhere as it is augmented REALITY it means that there need to be no specific (or obvious) differences in the way the room looks which mean

New Technologies that could be used in my concept design

After visiting Madame Tussauds I have already had a few ideas of ways that I can enhance the experience for my designs. However what I have to remember is that I am redesigning for the year 2023 which means that all sorts of new experiemental technologies today will be well established and trusted in the world of design by then.

My first port of call was to reseach innovative technologies that have started being used in exhibition design today and will look into other technologies that may be available by the year 2023 that might be appropriate for the Madame Tussauds exhibition. Throughout my research and with the help of a presentation lara gave I think that these are the 4 types of new technologies that I will be looking at using within my designs. I will list them and then look at each one in more detail.

1. Augmented Reality – By using motion sensors and other forms of computer communication this allows you to view real environments in real time that are being modified as it happens. Artificial graphics of objects and environments can be overlaid on top of the “real world”
2. Virtual Mannequin- using projection technology you can have a moving projection of a person that stands moves and talks.
3. Motion Detection Technology – when a digital image/environment changes depending on the movement it detects
4. Projection Mapping – This is a way of projecting video onto irregular shaped screens software is used to warp and mask the projected image to make it fit perfectly.

I noticed some of this technology being used in Madame Tussauds already, for exapmle motion detection was used in a small area where there were leaves falling off a tree near Shrek’s figure and the projection of the leaves moved depending on where people were standing on the projection area. I notices that people specifically children enjoyed this which is why I think that it could be an effective form of modern technology to incorporate more of in my  designs.

The other thing I am aware of is that people do not like new things, especially technologies that they have never heard of or used before. Even though I am designing for 2023 I am definately going to consider this in my designs and keep some of the exhibition low technology and simple as a method of not frightening off older visitors or those that aren’t so interested in new technologies.  I also like regular projection and think it worked really well in some of the exhibitions in Madame Tussauds so this is also worth considering in my desings.

My Visit to Madame Tussauds and Merlin Studios

Madame Tussauds (13th Jan 2013)

Merlin Magic Making Studio (11th Jan 2013)

These are my 2 investigating industry blogposts about visiting Merlin Magic Making studios and Madame Tussauds.

Even though I wasn’t very impressed by my trip to Madame Tussauds I definitely didn’t understand the concept of Tussauds or their brand properly until I visited. There was definitely a lot of opportunity for redesign.

The things that stood out to me so far from both visiting and our briefing with the creative directors of Tussauds were:

• Themes – themes within the exhibition supporting the figure/figures that are in a space. I noticed that some of the figures in Tussauds seemed out of place when they weren’t in context. It is also more fun for the visitors to take photos of the figures in context.
• History – how can I make the history of Tussauds more relevant and exciting for the visitors? would making the history more known to the visitors make them appreciate the exhibition more?
• Transitions – If the exhibition is themed and split into sections then how can the transitions from section to section become more dynamic and fun for the visitors?
• Making sure all the visitors get to see all the figures
• Interactive and Fun experiences by using simple techniques, e.g. perspective tricks and photo opportunities

The main thing that stood out to me in their talk with us though is that they haven’t given us a budget, this opens up the project hugely as we don’t have to think about the cost which means that we can be as experimental as we want! There are no limits to the design for this project so I am hoping throughout the course of the module I will be able to come up with an innovative and exciting design for Madame Tussauds.

 

Preconcieved Ideas. What do I Think about Madame Tussauds before my visit?

I decided to record what I think about the concept and idea of a exhibition like Tussauds before I visit I thought it might be interesting to compare and discuss what I thought about the whole experience after my visit compared to what I thought before. This could also be useful for my design concept at a later date as thinking about how the public who haven’t visited the exhibition by the way it is marketed and reviewed and what they actually experience when they are there, for example how to live up to expectations.

To start off with the idea of a waxwork museum wasn’t that interesting to me. I never really understood the attraction of going to  see still figures of famous and influential people. However through the research I have done I have got more and more excited about the prospect of going to visit such an exhibition. To start off with the art of building such a model is down to the most intricate details such as the size of the pupil and eyelash colour are considered, in some of the reviews it describes Madame Tussauds waxworks as the greatest art they’ve seen. I am not expecting to be blown away with the originality of the art but I am definitely going to appreciate the hard work and perfectionism that goes into creating such models. I was interested to find out that some of the models can move and that they have real people sitting around as still as they can pretending to be waxwork models and other interactive activities going on. This makes me a little apprehensive because it might be a little bit too much and may ruin the authenticity of the experience. Initially I would think that this is an attraction to young families together generally from abroad and other tourists. I think there will be a really fun and exciting atmosphere almost as if we were to meet the real people. I think I am most looking forward to see the range of  waxwork models as there are 400 waxworks altogether including pop stars,  Bollywood stars, sports personalities, influential characters  superheroes, politicians and more.