Halloween Experience
   
         

  > INTRODUCTION
a fascination with imagination
  > THEME PARK MAGIC
inspirational rides and attractions
  > A PHANTOM PLOT UNFOLDS
a 2003 test from Disneyland ideas
  > THE HAUNTING BEGINS
five years of Halloween, 2004-2008
> BACK FROM THE GRAVE
2010-2011 with new technology
  > A 2013 RESURRECTION
a mix of new and age-old effects
  > DAWN OF THE UNDEAD
2014 show, part one
  > THE ZOMBIES EMERGE
2014 show, part two
  > A CHANGING CONCEPT
2015 show, part one
  > BUILDING PNEUMATIC FIGURES
2015 show, part two
  > ROLL UP, ROLL UP!
2015 show, part three
  > INTO THE TUNNEL...
2016 show, part one
  > MAKING MONSTERS MOVE
2016 show, part two
  > TO HELL AND BACK
2016 show, part three
  > SHARPENING THE SENSES
2017 show, part one
  > A MAGNETIC ATTRACTION
2017 show, part two
  > THE BIG EXECUTION
2017 show, part three
  Developing a new theme for 2015    
  Ideas and inspiration for Halloween come to me all over the place! For the 2014 display, I already had several ideas stored in my mind a whole ten months before! Some of them became the props and effects that eventually appeared. For 2015 however, I was having a bit of trouble thinking of something new to try.

The zombie infestation of the previous year had worked well, and to begin with, I was thinking about going down a similar route; theming it around a ‘contamination zone’ inhabited by people infected by a deadly virus. These unfortunate individuals would be held in cages positioned near the path, and would be reaching out at visitors, wailing and moaning. The porch was to become a ‘de-contamination chamber’, whereby upon visitors approaching, sirens and lights would go off, and they would be ‘decontaminated’ by means of a blast of fine water spray!

Quite an interesting idea, but I needed a killer proposition that would make it exciting and different from all the previous displays. Where could I go for some more inspiration? Surely only one place - Blackgang Chine!		  
  An animated discussion  
  In the summer I visited the Isle of Wight park and went through Rumpus Mansion, the walkthrough haunted attraction with animated figures and scenes based around the goblins and monsters of Celtic mythology. There, I decided that if I was going to do another Halloween display, it would finally have to feature something that I had always wanted to learn how to do, probably since the experiences first started! Something that Rumpus Mansion and many other haunted attractions use - animated figures moved using compressed air!

My new contaminated cohorts would be far more ghoulish and threatening if they were to lunge towards and reach out at visitors, in a ferocious and frenzied way that animation by pneumatics could no doubt provide!		    
      Several years previously, prior to working on the 2010 display, I had contacted David Buckley, a robotics and animatronics engineer with a very impressive portfolio of robots and moving figures, including their control systems.

David worked on the installation of the figures in Rumpus Mansion at Blackgang Chine in 1993. He had shown me photographs and explained how the figures were put together.

< This image from David, taken during construction in 1993, shows the control boards and pneumatic system that works the redcap figure (in the image above) in the first scene of the attraction.

Seeing these again, I thought - what better man to ask about my new animated project!

  
  Image credit: David Buckley                      
  "...I realise that it would be highly dependent on the size and the weight of what I wanted to move, but essentially I am imagining a near enough human size figure, made from a frame using lightweight PVC pipe, with a polystyrene head and rubber mask, and foam lagging arms (so fairly lightweight). He will be stood in a ‘cage’ – surrounded by ‘bars’, with hands attached to the bars. I would basically like him to rock backwards and forwards as though he is shaking his way out of the cage. What I would do is fix the bottom half of his body to the floor of the cage (so it doesn’t move), and then fix the top half to it, so that it can pivot backwards and forwards.

I understand that I would need to make it so that the pivoting half has a resting position – leaning forwards, for example. Then when a valve is opened, the air forces the figure to pivot the other way, and then it returns to the original position when the valve is closed again? This movement can be quite violent and quick – in fact I think it would look better this way!..."

Part of my email to David explaining my original ideas for the figures, July 2015		  
  I was delighted when David replied with a very helpful email, detailing all the pieces I would need to get started. Excellent! Now I had the support and advice of a wonderfully willing and helpful pneumatics expert to help bring these figures to life. This was going to be good! But in the meantime there had been developments with my ideas, and the whole theme of the display was about to change…  
                                       
  The carnival arrives...  
  Since I first started doing the Halloween Experience, the music and sound effects have always been, for me, one of the most important elements. The right music can really heighten the atmosphere, and over the years I had spent considerable time picking out and editing tracks that I thought would best match the theme of each display.

I remembered a computer game called ‘Madame Fate’, which is a hidden-object game that is part of the ‘Mystery Case Files’ series developed by Big Fish Games. This particular edition is themed around a carnival, and Madame Fate is a mysterious fortune teller whom the player must help to determine which of her fellow carnival workers is plotting to kill her! It is a wonderfully immersive challenge with a great creepy carnival soundtrack that runs throughout the game. Upon hearing the music, I thought it would be great to use for Halloween! But of course, it simply wouldn’t fit with the theme of doomed individuals being taken over by a deadly virus. 		   
    Image credit: bigfishgames.com  
                                       
  Now, as I mentioned previously, ideas come to me at no particular time, and on this occasion I was ironing a shirt to go the pub (!) when the biggest and best idea of the whole thing came to me - if that carnival music won’t fit the theme, what about fitting the theme to the carnival music!

A Halloween Experience themed around an old, creepy Victorian carnival, filled with animated freakshow exhibits in cages, eerie sideshow figures, and a spooky fortune teller! I instantly felt that there was so much more potential in the carnival idea that I immediately booted out the deadly virus concept in favour of this new theme! I’d got it! It was time to start developing!

 		  
  Signs and visuals to conjure a mood...  
  Something that I have looked for and admired in the best dark rides and attractions is how effectively they take the visitor away from their normal surroundings and immerse them in a new environment. This can begin to happen even before a visitor sets foot inside...  
        For example, attractions at Blackgang Chine are embellished with signs pointing the way to each; they have different styles that match the themed areas of the park.

I think this sort of thing adds a lot to the overall experience, and helps to capture a consistent feel.

Visually, they give the visitor an idea of what they're about to experience before they enter the attraction. They hint at whether it will be frightening, or enchanting, or magical...		  
  I also love how signs can be a great way of expressing humour in attractions.

In 2014, Blackgang Chine opened Restricted Area 5, a new, refreshed version of their popular Dinosaurland, featuring enormous animatronic dinosaurs foraging among themed walkways.

Many of the signs in this attraction contain advice to guests that should be heeded to avoid being eaten by the inhabitants... Needless to say, maximum comedy value is extracted with heavy use of puns and witty warnings!		        
        I used some of these ideas as the basis for the signs at the 2014 zombie-infested display.

The signs at the entrance, warning of a 'zombie outbreak', were a great way of grabbing the visitors' attention, and putting them on edge as they ventured up the path!

I also added some humour with various smaller signs along the chain fencing, advising visitors on how to avoid the clutches of the undead! 		 
  For my new carnival display, signs like these would help to link all the different props and elements together.

I got really involved in the designing of artwork and graphics, and I made several signs that were to be printed onto A2 sized boards and positioned around various parts of the garden.		  
  Expanding the carnival concept with graphics and signs  
    The fun began in coming up with the weird and wonderful exhibits that would appear in the carnival. This diverse theme would give me the opportunity to design props based on illusions and magic, as well as the monsters and weird creatures to go into the cages!

< I looked at lots of real and imitation posters advertising sideshows and travelling exhibitions. These featured a host of strange and peculiar oddities, including a ‘bearded lady’, a ‘wolf boy’, and a ‘two-headed girl’, as well as more disturbing and deformed individuals!

> Wonderful old theatre posters, advertising the illusions of master magicians such as Harry Kellar, Howard Thurston and John Maskelyne, made me want to include some sort of 'cabinet magic'-style prop in my display. I would later design a 'transforming head' effect of the style in these posters. This is discussed in more detail later in this section...		    
    < I came up with the idea that all the figures and characters at the carnival were governed by a mysterious ‘Big Brother’ type figure who is never seen, and known only as ‘The Master’! The sinister clown face was added to several posters with unsettling messages urging visitors to become carnival exhibits!

I wanted to mimic the ramshackle feel of old travelling shows, so many of the graphics were styled as letters hand-painted onto wooden boards, and I then mounted these signs on wonky signposts that were hammered into the ground.

> The graphics to the right were to be cut out and added to the main signs at the entrance, and were designed to advertise the display in the same way that old Victorian carnivals had big posters and banners outside them, with phrases such as 'Witness the Absurd and Bizarre!' to entice curious visitors.		    
    < This sign was intended for an interactive feature in the display. I was very keen to include a fortune teller as a character; I gave her the name 'Madame Zelda'. I thought it would be quite cool if there was a way in which visitors could have their fortunes ‘told’ as they encountered this part of the display.

How exactly I was going to do this was still in discussion at this point (!), but in the following pages the effect is described fully. The idea was that this sign would be mounted over a touch-sensitive device, on a wooden post near the path. A visitor would put their hand onto the sign, and it would be this action that triggered the necessary electronics.

I liked this as a concept as it mimicked the idea of palm readings and matched well with the fortune telling part of the display. I had never attempted an interactive effect in the Halloween Experience before either, so it was something new to experiment with!		  
  For lighting, I wanted to give the impression of a carnival that was abandoned and run-down, and I thought it would be great to include strings of red festoon lights, connected to a dimmer, which would be controlled to make them flicker on and off occasionally. Lighting for other scenes could also flicker in a similar way, creating moments of darkness to heighten the atmosphere.

This would be the first display to use a dedicated 'atmospheric' lighting sequence. Whereas in 2014, much of the lighting was switched as part of the motion-triggered scenes (ie. only briefly illuminating a scene or figure when triggered by a visitor), for this year, almost all the lighting was controlled as one combined sequence - a VenueMagic timeline running a DMX cycle on a loop. The individual triggered scenes instead focussed a lot more on sound effects and movement.

I'd come up with some good ideas to enhance the visual feel of the display, but what about the creepy carnival cronies themselves? It was time to build some pneumatic figures to bring them to life!