I’ve been designing Halloween since I was 8 years old.
Along the way has been a long and storied history of researching different styles and means of going about that.
It started long ago, I don’t remember just how young I was, but mom found some documentaries on how commercials were made. And, she promptly made us watch them. Attempting to drill into us not to believe what you see, or ask for every toy out there…
I watched them SEVERAL times. I WISH I still HAD that documentary somewhere. It opened the door in my mind. The heck with the intended message, it opened the doors of HOW one goes about creating those illusions!
And, as I sit here tonight watching the Pitchmen marathon (RIP Billy), I realize I’m going to miss this show. It was as close to those old documentaries as there is on TV. All the behind the scenes stuff, all the magic…And what’s more, for the eventual creation of the snake oil salesman, you HAVE to have Billy Mays in mind for the character.
From those first documentaries, it was Raiders of the Lost Ark, reading and watching everything I could on how they went about actually making the effects. Making those bugs do what they did. At one time, I actually wanted to be a bug wrangler…(not that there’s much market for that these days when they just CGI everything) And again with Arachniphobia.
As I’ve grown older, and more sophisticated in my ability to actually make these things I’ve only been researching, my understanding of all of this has only expanded to where now, I no longer see as others see.
I was watching America’s Got Talent the other night, and this magician was on. I recognised the contraption from the very get go, having built a model of a similar one before determining it would be too costly to make a full size one for Halloween. The judges were amazed, I could only chuckle.
Haunted houses, and the like are no different. I’m more interested in seeing how they do everything that sometimes the experience is lost.
A curious thing this year, though. Going into the year with our season passes at Lagoon, I enjoyed Dracula’s Castle more. However, now having been on both it and the Terroride about 50 times this year (they are among Talia’s favorites), I’ve come to REALLY appreciate the Terroride.
While Dracula’s Castle is filled with BIG props and animatronics, the Terroride is filled with TONS of SMALL things. All things us home haunt folks can build. A simple head turn, and people jump. A head turn…back to my roots…