September 2008 - The Parklander Magazine

ARTS&ENTERTAINMENT
By Bill Johnson
F“For an artist, doing creative work for Disney World is like painting for
the Pope during the Renaissance,” says Dan Daddona as he describes
his feelings about the state of his artistic career and the development of
his business. But that’s exactly what he’s doing - creating things such as
huge life-like creatures and realistic fiberglass trees, the kinds of things
that captivates us at Disney World and Epcot Center. The work is the
culmination of nearly 35 years of experience, successful projects and a
hard-earned reputation.
At Daddona Studios on NW 16th Lane in Pompano Beach, Dan is
busier than a one-arm wallpaper hanger, as they say. Fourteen employees
are at work designing and building amazing interiors for a wide range of
businesses – restaurants, medical offices, retail stores, nightclubs,
museums, malls, entertainment centers, theme parks and what could be
called “theme rooms” for the rich and famous. “What we do,” Daddona
says, “is theme interiors.”
The studio is more than an art studio; it is a manufacturing plant. On this
day, one of the most imposing objects in the space is a fiberglass octopus,
the body of which is about 50 feet across.Tentacles more than 15 feet long
are being attached. On a tour of the shop, Daddona explains that the huge
octopus was first carved from foam and covered with fiberglass. The
tentacles are designed and built to be moving parts –
a specialty called “animatronics.”
The octopus is one element in Daddona’s most challenging project,
designing and building the theme elements for a 20,000 square foot
restaurant in Kansas City, Kansas, called “T-Rex.” Twelve-foot jellyfish
were made of transparent material and include more than a thousand
strands of optical fiber. The wings of two pterodons stretch nearly 30
feet and are translucent so that light can pass through.
In the studio’s manufacturing space, huge, realistic styrofoam and
fiberglass trees are taking shape and are stacked against a wall. Daddona
stops to talk with a craftsman about how they’re going to create “moss”
on the trees and how they’ll create the texture of bark. A large rowboat
or skiff is taking shape and will find its way to a theme restaurant that is
among Daddona’s clients. Stacked in a corner of his office are the molds
of several octopus tentacles that wrap around the hostess station at the
Living Seas restaurant at Epcot Center.
To do all this, Daddona’s team needs a variety of skills.They make molds,
they sculpt, they do fine carpentry and metal work. For some projects,
Daddona believes they’ve done things that have never been done before.
Describing various projects, Dan Daddona talks fast and takes – or makes
– constant phone calls necessary to run a thriving business, much of which
has little to do with art. On the telephone, he’s asking about federal workplace
safety requirements because he wants to have the proper mechanical
lifts to install a several-hundred-pound octopus over a shark tank.
64 SEPTEMBER 2008