Last week, YouTuber James St. Ogne, who creates videos for the Art of Engineering YouTube channel, came forth with allegations that the Disney+ series, Behind the Attraction, had used some of the graphics he created for a video on the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror in the show's own episode on the iconic ride, and had done so without permission or credit. Looking at the graphics used in both, it was difficult to imagine any scenario when the ones used in Behind the Attraction weren't lifted from the original YouTube video, and it turns out that they were. Brian Volk-Weiss, producer on Behind the Attraction has reached out to St. Ogne and apologized directly for his work ending up in the show. The episode is set to be updated to include St. Ogne in the credits.
James St. Ogne brought the graphics issue to the forefront via Twitter, and so it was there last evening that he revealed that Behind the Attraction producer Brian Volk-Weiss had spoken with him about the issue. Without getting too specific, it appears that Volk-Weiss admitted that the graphics used in the show had come from Art of Engineering, but the producer took full responsibility and apologized on behalf of all parties involved, including Dwayne Johnson's Seven Bucks Productions.
While we will likely never know the full story of exactly what happened, Brian Volk-Weiss apparently did explain the situation to James St. Ogne, calling what happened a "chain of mistakes." Jeremy Samples, who is credited as graphic designer on the episode, was absolved of any wrongdoing, and as producer and director, Volk-Weiss is taking full responsibility for those mistakes. As part of the mea culpa, The Tower of Terror episode of Behind the Attraction is being reedited and the Art of Engineering creator will be given a credit for his work that was used.
Needless to say, this is a somewhat surprising outcome. I'm not sure anybody expected an apology to come out of this, but it's wonderful to see exactly that happen. And it's equally good to see a creator get credit for his work. Under the circumstances that's probably the best possible result. It's hopefully a good lesson for all that when you screw up you should apologize and make amends.
As of this writing, the episode of Behind the Attraction has not had its credits updated yet. It's unclear just how soon that will happen, working through the massive machine that is Disney probably takes time, but here what's important is that it will happen. While it's almost certainly frustrating for James St.Onge that this happened in the first place, he appears to be happy with the outcome.
