New I-Drive attraction to immerse visitors in world of Lonely Dog
Lonely Dog has traveled from paintings in New Zealand and through a 300-page novel to arrive at a fresh attraction coming soon to Orlando’s International Drive.
The Lonely Dog Immersive Experience is expected to open late this month. Its centerpiece is a theater setting with dozens of projectors pointed at walls in multiple directions, down to and including the floor.
“It’s a jaw-dropping experience to walk in,” said Cliff Dew, producer. “You go into a movie theater, there’s one projector and one screen. You go into our space and there are 35 projectors, and you’re not walking in it — you’re in it. You’re in the show. You’ve become, viscerally, a part of the whole experience.”
The imagery in the experience comes from paintings by Ivan Clarke, a New Zealand-based artist. His original Lonely Dog piece featured a fully clothed, standing canine watching a departing ship as darkness falls. Over the years, his whimsical series expanded to 200 works to portray a land filled with dog and cat characters.
Eventually, Clarke and writer Stu Duval created a “Lonely Dog” novel that expanded those characters’ world. The new Orlando attraction is an animated 30-minute adaptation of that book.
“It’s a great story about a society of cats and dogs where the cats rule, and dogs are the underlings. They’re not at war with each other, but they’re kind of on opposite sides,” said Rob Pearlman, producer.
“And it’s music-based. The cats like opera, jazz and classical, softer music... where dogs like more dirty rock ‘n’ roll and blues.” Pearlman said. Although the “Lonely Dog” book included some lyrics, Geoff Pearlman, the producer’s brother, was brought in to compose complete songs.
In the Orlando attraction, visitors will see movement added to Clarke’s paintings to present a plot with an orphan origin story, underwater whale sequences, a chase scene, multiple locations (Catside, Houndside, Freedom Swamp), singing felines, tomcat terrorists and, of course, Lonely Dog (given name Arthur Snout) playing a five-string guitar. Characters include high-fashion chanteuse Celia Creme and Rolph Flannegan, the narrator of the story.
The story unfolds on many flat surfaces surrounding the audience, who stand or sit on benches. There are free-standing, multisided columns that also are for the show. While one area might showcase the main character of a scene, other spots in the room might zero in on details or present special effects.
The finished product was achieved without the paintings leaving New Zealand. Producers had the images photographed in gigapixel resolution.
“We then sequence them, roughly based on the novel,” Pearlman said. “Where there were storyline gaps, we produced animation to fill in the paintings.” Clarke produced some new works for the experience, too.
The tiny scans of the paintings are stitched together to “manipulate that painting, animate it so that it becomes live,” Dew said.
Dew was first exposed to Lonely Dog at a licensing event in Las Vegas. He was primarily drawn to the logo of the main character, a sketched profile with the dog in a skinny tie, dark sunglasses and ears flapping in the breeze, he said. The rights had already been purchased by another company but eventually they were transferred. Dew was initially interested in merchandising and a possible TV series based on Lonely Dog.
That was four years ago.
“I was working with a company in Italy, doing a Renaissance immersive experience,” he said. “And I woke up in the middle of night and said, ‘Hey, why don’t we do this … but Lonely Dog?’”
Dew said 87 locations in 37 states were considered for Lonely Dog Immersive Experience. It ended up just beyond the southern edge of the parking lot for Orlando International Premium Outlets. It’s a stand-alone, 22,000-square-foot building that Central Floridians might remember as Reebok store location.
Now there’s a statue of Lonely Dog out front.
The space is more than what was needed for the theater, so producers added a gallery of Clarke’s works, a room where visitors can make art that’s projected onto a wall, a multi-stop selfie station that includes a Lonely Dog front porch photo op, and another room that will feature a bluesy musician on select nights plus snacks and drinks.
The lobby includes merchandise for sale, including T-shirts, prints, puzzles, tumblers, ear headbands, figures and the “Lonely Dog” novel.
It’s all come together in a global-pandemic atmosphere, with the music coming from California, animation done in Mexico, fresh art from New Zealand, Dew sometimes in Italy and site work in Florida.
Dew and Pearlman have never (literally) been face-to-face with Clarke.
“We haven’t met him in person. But he’s good friends with our principal investor, and they’ve seen it, and they agreed that it honors his work,” Pearlman said. “He’s seen it on FaceTime and things like that, but he’s never seen the space.
“I think we’ve done a really good job of bringing his art to life and kind of bringing it to a new audience.”
Admission tickets are listed on the attraction website for late April dates. Regular admission is $57.08 ($39.45 for ages 3 to 12). There are discounts for military members, students and seniors, as well as a “family pack” and group admission rates for 10 or more people.
For more information, go to lonelydogorlando.com.
