Howl-o-scream 2009 (tampa)

Holy crap, this looks awesome!



I've been to both the Tampa and Williamsburg Howl-o-screams at their respective Busch Gardens. And while Williamsburg is very good (and close), Tampa is phenomenal. They (both) have such a fine attention to detail, a dark but cheeky sense of humor, and a mastery of timing and atmosphere. Think about how often Disney rolls out a new ride; it's positively glacial. Howl-o-scream reinvents itself EVERY year and it does it very well.

I'm guessing that Williamsburg is a little more kid-oriented (starts during daylight, doesn't go as late, haunts aren't as dark) because the park has been in operation longer and has more of a reputation as family-friendly. Don't get me wrong - there's nothing wrong with that. I have a young one, and I'd certainly want her to have fun with Halloween on her first few experiences. So I can definitely see taking Baby Charlie to Williamsburg in a few years. Tampa wouldn't be until (much) later.

The Tampa Busch Gardens is newer, and I think they must have planned for a more adult demographic when designing not just the park, but especially Howl-o-scream. The whole campaign is very slick, very professional - the website does a great job rescuing vampires from the Twilight-inspired wussiness they've gone through in recent years without ugging them out like some have done in recent years.

I really wish I could go to Tampa this year - all of the haunts look fantastic, especially the Nightshade Toy Factory.

marionette update

So the sculpey didn't work. However, I did ask around to people who had done similar projects and I've procured a U-Bolt which works nicely. I've bolted that into a wooden square. The styrafoam wheel now sits on top of the wooden square, and the whole set up works nicely, EXCEPT . . .

The wooden casing that I built for the motor interferes with the U-bolt. ARRRGGHHH! So this means that I will either have to make a new top for the wooden casing, or do away with it altogether and just have the motor by itself.

I'd like to stick with the casing, if at all possible. It keeps the motor from falling over and protects it from the elements. Plus, I spent a lot of time working on it. But in the end, getting the damn puppet moving is the main thing that counts. I'll post again when I've made more progress.

Recommended book

I recently picked up Kelly Allen's book, "So you want to be a haunt entrepreneur?" and I heartily recommend it for anyone wanting to start out in the haunt business. While there are a lot of books out there that instruct you how to make masks and props, this one focuses on the business side of things.

The advice is sobering. Allen covers things from making a business plan in order to procure a loan, to hiring professionals and volunteers to staff your haunt, to getting insurance and protecting yourself financially and legally.

I'm glad that someone took it upon themselves to write a book like this, because it's not the most glamorous subject to write about in regards to haunts, but it's maybe one of the more necessary aspects to it. The idea of making props and bringing spooky ideas to life is just so exciting that no one wants to think about the business side of things. But all it takes is not having insurance when a cast member breaks their neck, not having legal protection when someone sues you, or not getting that loan when your business plan is shoddy or non-existent - to kill your dream or not enable it to happen in the first place.

On "plan B" . . .

One thing I love about making props is the problem solving involved. It's good to run into snags occasionally, because then you have to figure out a way around them. Of course, too many snags is bad for any project. Too many snags means that maybe there's something wrong with the conceptualization of the project.

I'm currently trying to get a motorized marionette ready for Halloween. The central working of it is based off of a small but powerful rotary motor which goes about 33 RPM. Imagine a record player, if you will. If you put a raised track on top of the turntable, and then had arms on pivots moving along the track, then you could attach a marionette to the ends of these arms and have a pretty cool automated prop (see diagram above).

My "turntable" is a styrofoam wheel from a craft store (I picked this because it's light weight). My problem is that the motor is powerful enough that it grinds a hole in the wheel, so the motor keeps on going, but the foam wheel stops.

I've tried a few solutions for this, including a cap on top of the motor shaft. Today, I tried making the part I needed out of baked Sculpey clay. Of course, the motor ground this out, too. So FINALLY, I figured it out. I'll buy a U bolt and just bolt that bastard to a block of wood (the inside of a wooden square, actually). Wheel is then attached to wood, and viola!

Perhaps this won't work, but at the moment, the challenge is keeping me going.

National Haunters Convention

I got tickets for the 2010 National Haunters convention in the mail today (thanks Rob!). This show looks awesome, and the word of mouth about previous incarnations of the convention is very good. I'm definitely looking forward to attending.

If I'm able to find a few other haunt enthusiasts in the Roanoke Valley, it would be great to go as a group.

Baby Charlie, the flying monkey

I promise not to flood the blog with baby posts; I'll only do it insofar as it relates to the central topics of the blog.

A few months ago, my wife and I had our first child, Charlotte. A lot of my desire to make Halloween cool again is being done for her. Of course, she may grow up and think it's lame, but I'd like her to have a lot of fun, healthy experiences with the holiday and then let her make up her own mind.

One of my favorite experiences with Halloween involved making my own costumes, which I typically did every year. They were often very absurd and imaginative (like three headed skeletons), and I won quite a few awards at Halloween parades. I might never have done this if not for my mom making me some fantastic Halloween costumes when I was little. One year (2 years old, I think), I was a black widow spider. The cool part of the costume was a silver web which splayed out behind me.

So I've been putting a lot of thought into Baby Charlie's costume for this year and I'm thinking . . . flying monkey! I sort of want to start now, but she grows so freakishly fast (nearly 16 lbs. at 4 months - GAH!!!), it's impossible to tell how big she'll be in October. I'll include pics as the costume progresses.

I'm also wondering what etiquette is for trick-or-treating with very young children. She obviously won't be eating any candy at her age. In part, I want to show her (and my workmanship) off, although I don't really know the neighbors, so I guess I have no one to brag to. I may decide to go with some of the schenanegans of my youth and claim it's for a demanding older brother who's trying to maximize his candy haul. This lie was hardly ever believed when I was a kid, but pretty much always resulted in extra candy, anyway (usually with a knowing wink). As an adult, the scam is perfect - who's actually going to think I'm lying to them for a snack-sized Snickers?

Trick or treat!