Universal Orlando is flexing its creative muscle with “CineSational: A Symphonic Spectacular,” the new nighttime show at Universal Studios Florida.
The show takes place over the park’s lagoon—right across from the Central Park area—and combines lights, fountains, pyrotechnics, lasers, music and a fleet of drones to create a 22-minute spectacle that can simply be described as incredible.
CineSational, as the name suggests, features cinematic moments with references from films like “Jaws,” “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” “Back to the Future,” “Shrek,” “How to Train Your Dragon,” “Fast and the Furious” and more.
THE POWER OF MUSIC
Although films are prominently featured in CineSational, the show is about the power of music—specifically about the film scores that can inspire us and conjure up an emotional response.
From the beginning, the team wanted music to be the main thread running through the show. The idea started with film soundtracks and the rest of the show was built around that.
“Music started first on the entire show. Visuals came later,” Senior Director of Entertainment Creative Development Michael Aiello said. “We knew we wanted to have that as our blueprint and roadmap when we started because everything informed from there, even the narration on either end. We didn’t even write until were were able to write to the music.”
The soundtracks all have different themes and tempos and range from the orchestral sounds of “Jurassic Park” to the high-energy, pop-driven “Can’t Stop the Feeling” from “Trolls.” The goal was to find a way to make them all transition from one to the next without feeling segmented.
Aiello and executive creative director Jason McManus spent a lot of time with composer Tim Heintz to nail the show’s musical flow.
“It was us sitting down with Tim and talking about ‘how do you combine all of these that make it feel like a seamless experience,'” Aiello said. “And Time came with all of his amazing knowledge and conceptually started charting that path.”
A NEW TYPE OF SHOW
With CineSational, Universal wanted to do things a little differently by expanding what it had offered in previous lagoon shows.
Several tech upgrades were made for the new show. The grid in the lagoon was expanded to accommodate more fountains. CineSational features 228 fountains, nearly double the number used in Universal’s last show, “Cinematic Celebration,” which ended its run in 2023.
“We increased the number of moving fountains as well because we definitely learned on the prior show that that level of movement really helps evoke a lot of different emotions visually,” Aiello said.
More lighting was added to the buildings around the lagoon, from Transformers: The Ride to Lombard’s Seafood Grille. The projectors were switched out for 4K laser projectors, a big improvement over the prior show.
“Laser projection just allows color to be more vivid, more bright, certainly on our buildings,” he said. “It increased our definition of what we were able to map on water. Water is a very precarious surface to project on. But these images, as opposed to the prior show, have much clearer definition even on a surface you know is always moving, always changing.”
Another change, one that might go unnoticed by many, was to the lights in the fountains. In previous lagoon shows, when the fountains moved the lights would remain static. Now, the lights move with the fountains, according to Aiello, making the colors more vivid throughout the show.
Universal also decided to try a new element for the production—drones, more than 600 of them. But if there’s one thing people should know about CineSational is that it is not a drone show. Drones are just one piece of the much larger production.
The team carefully considered exactly how the drones would be incorporated into the show. There were versions of the show that had the drones at the very beginning. Spoiler alert: In the final version, the first drones don’t appear until about five minutes in.
For the team, it was important that the drones didn’t overshadow everything else.
“When we were working so hard on everything else, we wanted to make sure if we were going to incorporate [the drones], that it was no different than the lights on our rooftops, the fountains that move,” Aiello said. “That it is an additive in helping us tell our visual story. But we did not want it to overtake the show in a way that allowed for the guest to basically ignore everything else that was happening in the show.”
The drones aren’t always present in every scene. Sometimes they appear to create a character or two in the sky. At other times, they appear to create a color effect, like dancing hearts in the “Trolls” section.
IN WITH THE OLD AND THE NEW
CineSational also celebrates Universal Orlando’s past, present and future, with the featured soundtracks tied to attractions.
“Ghostbusters” and “Back to the Future” were once attractions featured at Universal Studios Florida. “Fast and the Furious” and “Trolls” are part of the current lineup, while “How to Train Your Dragon” and Universal Monsters are among the properties that will be featured at Universal’s upcoming theme park, Epic Universe.
The show also showcases what Universal can do with its nighttime spectaculars. And, based on what the team created with CineSational, the future is bright.
