Written by Jon Stojan
The Walt Disney Company unveiled plans to take the entertainment industry in the Middle East to new heights on May 7, 2025, when it announced that it was commencing work on Disneyland Abu Dhabi. The new theme park, which experts predict could open in the early 2030s, will seek to be, in the words of Disney CEO Bob Iger, “authentically Disney and distinctly Emirati,” bringing to life “timeless characters and stories in many new ways.”
To be authentically Disney, the park will undoubtedly turn to animatronic characters, which have been a part of Disney’s aesthetic for decades. To ensure that these robotic characters have the elements needed to wow audiences, Disney may require the talents of outside vendors like Emmy Award-winning special effects artist and animatronics entrepreneur Lee Romaire.
Romaire, founder of Romaire Studios, has contributed to numerous live-action creature, character, and animatronic projects for Hollywood studios and others. For 25 years, he and his studio have captivated audiences with live-action creatures and characters featured in films, YouTube videos, theme park attractions, and even on event runways.
As the Middle Eastern entertainment industry seeks to court new audiences through Disneyland Abu Dhabi and beyond, Romaire possesses the expertise and experience that will be essential to them.
Giving audiences the realism they demand
When Disney introduced the world to audio-animatronics with its Enchanted Tiki Room in 1963, Disney’s first theme park attraction featuring audio-animatronics, audience expectations were vastly different from those of today. It was decades before hyper-realistic visuals would become common in movies, shows, and live entertainment. Audiences expected less in the area of realism.
Today, however, audiences expect much more. To be engaging, animatronics need to deliver a high level of realism in both look and performance, which Romaire has found to be a critical component of his animatronics success.
“When I first started working with theme parks over 20 years ago, they were no longer taking a cinematic approach to their live-action animated characters like they did decades before, so I decided to focus intensely on delivering that quality for them,” Romaire shares. “My studio expanded the work we were doing in that area, eventually developing the capabilities to produce complex and intricate animated mechanical effects for multiple theme park companies.”
Engineering for believable performances
Giving live-action creatures and characters the capacity for motion is just the start of the animatronics process. They also must be engineered to perform in a way that is believable to audiences. How they move within a setting, engage with other elements of the show, and even react to audiences must be considered to achieve excellence.
“Today’s top-tier animatronics studios, of which there are only a handful, including us, have made believability a core element of their design process,” Romaire explains. “The development pipeline carefully considers the creatures and characters we bring to life, engineering the tech that forms the foundations of their movements to mirror those crafted by the animators. By considering the entire animation performance the animatronic will be a part of, developers can deliver a more fluid experience that empowers greater overall believability.”
Romaire’s work on Frank Ocean’s animatronic Robot Baby, “Cody”, which the musical artist carried on the Met Gala runway in 2021, illustrates the importance of performance believability. The unique animatronic was designed to appear as if it were engaging with Ocean and the fans who lined the runway to catch a glimpse of his green-skinned escort.
“Our studio created a looping program to guide the baby’s movements,” Romaire says. “Frank engaged with the baby in a way that made it seem like the animatronic was reacting to him. The performance made spectators think the baby was engaging with them, looking directly at them, and waving. It was a magical project that I’m thrilled to have contributed to.”
Persisting through significant challenges
Developers in the Middle East entertainment industry face several unique challenges. Extreme climate conditions — with daytime temperatures regularly reaching 100 degrees Fahrenheit or higher — can impact the performance of animatronics and other technology.
“Our company does a lot of simulations and testing for factors like extreme heat or cold,” Romaire clarifies. “We regularly sign contracts where our work needs to last 20 years with 95% reliability.”
The cultural sensitivity required in the region also necessitates special considerations, which, combined with local climate and other factors, make the already complex task of animatronics development even more challenging. Succeeding under those conditions requires not only expertise and experience but also persistence.
“Creating cutting-edge entertainment technology often requires making the impossible possible,” Romaire says. “Regardless of the challenge you are handed, you must have tenacity and a firm belief that you can overcome it. Our studio was once entrusted with a project that involved creating an insanely challenging hand-held animatronic prop that had to retract, extend, and glow simultaneously. Others had failed for decades at completing the project. Today, we have our names on the patent for that technology because we refused to believe it couldn’t be done.”
Maximizing the impact of animatronics in entertainment requires creating robots that aren’t robotic. To captivate audiences and keep them coming back for more, animatronics must be realistic and believable, two characteristics that often can only be achieved through persistence. Studios that can provide those qualities will be the ones that breathe new life into Middle Eastern entertainment.
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