Just like you wouldn't go into a game without a game plan, you shouldn't begin building a scene in your haunt without a game plan. You may have blueprints for your room ready to go, but if you just build a room without the future scare in mind, you will not be able to use a room or scene to its fullest potential. Also, if you do not keep your future scares and actors in mind, the chances of something going wrong and getting someone hurt become far more possible. The same way any room or building has a blueprint, your scares have a blueprint as well. Certain scares, like drop panels, break away walls, and drop scares, require more building and mechanics than a regular room with four walls and a few doors. This is why the building and construction team must work hand-in-hand with the creative team before the season begins.
When creating a scare, your creative team needs just that, the freedom to be creative. With any kind of freedom, there has to be some sort of guideline or else freedom becomes chaos. So, the creative team may have these grand and elaborate ideas, but without someone to give them restrictions, these ideas can become dagerous, costly, and a pain in the ass for any building team. On the flip side, if a building team begins creating rooms without talking to anyone before hand, once the season starts, your creative team will have nothing to work with, have strict limitations, and essencially they will have their hands tied but still be expected to swim, which will cause great resentment and tension with any future building and design projects. Lack of communication between departments will be the downfall of any business (not just a haunt).
So, what's the right way to plan a scare so you can build the scene? First, the stage manager, construction team, and owners meet to discuss budget and how much play room each department has when it comes to building anything new. After, the stage manager would talk with their creative team to get ideas flowing, keeping the building team in mind and shooting down any ideas that are too extreme or too risky. (Like, there is no way you can have someone jump from a two story balcony, land on a tiny hand railing, then jump through a window, breaking the glass and setting off a massive pyrotechnic display. All of that is far too extreme, difficult to reset, dangerous, and a building nightmare.) Once the new scare and scene ideas are decided on, the stage manager would pass the plans along to the construction team for approval. This will give the building team the chance to give a final word on what can and can't possilby be done in the given amount of time and in the practical restrictions that come with any building project. After everything is agreed upon and finalized, NOW the building team can make their blueprints, find their measurements, get any supplies they may need, and begin building the scene with the scares in mind.
By using this method, haunts are less likely to waste time and money building rooms that will serve useless once the season begins. Nothing is worse than making a room to later discover that your actor can't move well inside the room or can't successfully hide from groups. Could you imagine walking into a room and seeing a ghost stuck in a corner because they can't get around a prop or the group? That isn't scary.
This method doesn't only help when it comes to actors. This will also help when you wish to incorporate animatronics. Nothing sucks more than when you spend a ton of money on an animatronic, and when you finally get it to your scene it blows out a fuse or doesn't even fit in the scene. When it comes to dealing with anything electronic, your multimeter is your friend. (A multimeter is a tool used to read the voltage of any wall outlet.) You always want to know what kind of voltage any future props may need to function. Read any electric lables closely and keep the voltages marked down somewhere for any future refferece. The last thing you want is to start an electrical fire or blow out a fuse, creating safety issues and costing you more money. With building, everything needs to be planned percisely. This is why it is important to have your stage manager and construction manager work very closely with one another. Your stage manager will let your builder know what looks cool and what will make a scene work, while your builder will tell your stage manager they can't do that one thing because it can't be built without looking dumb or being too dangerous.
Now, I'm no building expert. I've taken a few shop classes here or there and helped a little when it came to building projects at Ravenwood Maner. If you haven't noticed yet, I lean more on the creative side. But, having seen both ends of the spectrum, I've learned that when the creative and building teams work together this way, things run a lot smoother. I've visited a few haunts where they don't use this method and just scatter actors around and just work with what they have. I've seen those haunts struggle to get scares and it just pains me. Nothing upsets me more than seeing a haunt (or any kind of show) waste or overlook their potential to be the best they can be. I'm not saying this method or way of thinking is the correct way to do anything. You may have found another way to get your haunt built that works better for your type of haunt (which I would love to hear about). I just know that this method has worked in my past experience and will probably be the method I use when I open up my own haunt one day...twenty years from now...when I'm old and grey...and hopefully less dramatic than I am right now. (Which, let's be honest, is highly unlikely.) Let me know what you think? Is there a better way to go about building your haunt?
Until next time, stay spooky and happy haunting!
-Jaz
Join the #SpookSquad at http://www.facebook.com/southernspooks.haunt
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