Their Jobs Look Like a Ride in the Park

Neither Rick Bastrup nor Richard Ferrin ever really got Disneyland out of their blood. Both worked there as teens. Later, they met and formed a company, R & R Creative Designs Inc., while both were working as security guards at Disneyland Hotel. These days, they work for the competition.

For the past 14 years, R & R Creative has been building a reputation as “show designer” for some of the biggest names in theme parks, including Six Flags Magic Mountain, Universal Studios-Florida and MGM Grand Movieworld in Las Vegas.

In themed entertainment, show designers create the theme and design of rides and other attractions at amusement parks. Without show designers, rides like “Pirates of the Caribbean” would simply be a boat floating through a channel of water. R & R and companies like it help decide that it would be better to float that boat through battling pirate ships and scenes of pirates’ stolen treasure, and down waterfalls.

Bastrup, 44, admits he has been in love with theme parks since visiting Disneyland and Pacific Ocean Park in Santa Monica as a kid with his parents. The first rides he ever created were at his parents’ Anaheim home--where he would cart neighborhood kids around a course in a wagon while he narrated.

The 34-year-old Ferrin has likewise been a theme park buff since childhood and has made it his life’s goal to build rides. Ferrin even spent his honeymoon carting his bride to every amusement park between Orlando, Fla.--home of Walt Disney World--and Washington, D.C.

But it wasn’t until the two men met that their dreams became reality. Though they insist that all their work is collaborative, Bastrup and Ferrin clearly have distinct strengths that make the partnership work.

Bastrup writes the scripts for the rides and selects and records the music and sound effects. Ferrin, an artist by training, sketches the designs, creates logos and makes miniature models of the projects. He also has extensive training in the technical side of the field--in computer design and lighting. Ferrin is also in charge of checking on the safety and maintenance of the attractions that are crucial to selling a design.

R & R, like many small companies, started operations in a garage. During their off-hours, the two avid model builders would get together to design fantasy rides. “We had no idea where it was going, we did it for fun,” Bastrup said.

What began as an after-hours hobby has turned into a highly successful company. R & R declined to reveal its revenue, but industry watchers estimate that such a company would take in more than $400,000 a year. Competing companies said the design phase of creating an attraction usually represents about 10% of the total cost. So, for a $5-million ride the design group would receive about $500,000.

Since 1990, R & R has helped open eight major attractions at theme parks across the country. Most recently, the company opened two multimillion-dollar rides at MGM Grand--the Backlot River Tour and Grand Canyon Rapids.

The Backlot River Tour is a riverboat ride that showcases movie special effects. The boat captain accidentally steers guests through movie sets where fictitious movies, such as “The Temple of Gloom” and “Jungle Storm,” are being filmed. Among the special effects the rider sees are a volcanic eruption inside the temple and a helicopter battle scene in the jungle.

Grand Canyon Rapids is a simulated raft ride through high canyon walls, into caverns in the canyon, down a creaking mine shaft and through an old Western town where a shootout is taking place between the marshal and a pair of bandits.

The rides at the MGM Grand are among the most high-profile projects R & R has completed in the past few years. But it is a water ride at a Denver water park that has possibly been their best work to date.

“It is the first totally covered water ride in the world,” said Rick Fuller, spokesman for Hyland Hills Waterworld, where Bastrup and Ferrin built the award-winning water ride “Journey to the Center of the Earth.”

The concept behind the ride is that while Hyland Hills was being built an underground river was discovered by construction crews. The ride proceeds through hot springs and swamps that are home to dozens of animated dinosaurs living below the water park. It won the 1993 award for best new water park ride from the International Assn. of Amusement Parks and Attractions, and a top award from the World Waterpark Assn.

Perhaps more important, the company has gained respect from those in the business. Kate Steinberg, executive vice president of Image Engineering, a theme park design company in Burbank, called R & R’s work “very creative.” Jim Hackett, president of Anitech Systems Inc. in Valencia, a manufacturer of theme park equipment, said R & R has a reputation for creating original designs that integrate all the necessary safety standards. “One of the reasons they are successful is because people trust them,” said Hackett.

Fuller at Hyland Hills said “Journey to the Center of the Earth” was well worth the $2 million the park paid for it. Visitors often wait in line for up to 90 minutes for the five-minute underground adventure, which shows clips of old monster movies, especially those with dinosaurs, for those waiting in line.

Industry experts said there is plenty of work for show designers, a trend that should continue. Additional theme parks are being built across the country--Magic Mountain recently announced a water park addition in Valencia, and a $700-million theme park is planned at Sheraton’s Desert Inn in Las Vegas.

Most of the large amusement parks, such as Disneyland, have in-house designers who conceptualize the themes of their rides. R & R is one of the few independents that has broken through that barrier and done work at major as well as minor parks, including Adventure City and Camelot in Anaheim, and Castle Park in Riverside.

Right now, the R & R team is “taking a breather,” said Bastrup, but not for long. As new attractions are scheduled to be built in Las Vegas and California during the next few years, Bastrup and Ferrin said they plan to be involved.

O.C. Enterprise / R&R; Creative Designs Inc.

* ABOUT THE COMPANY

Location: Anaheim

Owners: Rick Bastrup and Richard Ferrin

Business: Theme park show design

Founded: 1980

* OWNERS’ REFLECTIONS

Where did you get your money to get started?

We hardly needed any. We both had other jobs when we started and this was a hobby that we did at home when we weren’t working. We needed only enough money to buy glue and tweezers and supplies like that.

Where did you go when you needed advice?

One guy, Dave Bradley, who built carousels, gave us a lot of advice. We talked to people who had a lot of experience in the business. They helped us out by introducing us to other people in the business and taught us about potential clients.

What was your biggest challenge?

This is a very different business. The most difficult thing was understanding how all the different parts of it come together.

What advice would you give to someone starting a new business?

Identify who your potential clients are and listen to what they want. Your relationship with your client is as important as the product you make.

Was there something you did not think of when you started your business?

We did not consider how important it is to please the client. We were designing rides that we liked, but now that it is the way we make a living it is really important to develop a relationship with clients. We work very closely with them and provide a very personal service.

Whose idea was it? How did you get started?

We had been designing some rides and we just started contacting some of the local amusement parks to see if there might be work for us. We started small by designing logos for some of the rides and also by installing music systems for some of the rides at parks such as Wild Rivers in Irvine. Source: R&R; Creative Designs Inc.; Researched by HOPE HAMISHIGE / For the Times