Practice In The Off Season

Posted by Grant Brott on Apr 12, 2010 in Props | 0 comments

So for some of you who have been following my blog regularly you may have noticed the lack of posts in the past week. Just wanted to give you a heads up that they will keep coming and I plan to start adding some more variety in too. However i wanted to touch on something that I have seen happen with me during the off season. Halloween approaches and you start to cram to get everything together and setup with scenes, mazes, props and the like and then once it is over it magically all goes away and you wait an entire year to start it again. This is not the way to do it.

Over the years and through experience and reading other haunters blogs and watching videos I have come to realize that my favorite holiday and hobby does not need to be limited to 1 or 2 months out of the year where I work like a slave to get everything ready and can hardly enjoy the end result. Instead once Halloween is over and you get everything cleared out and stored start again. Begin planning for the following year, work out floor plans, schematics whatever you need. Then once a month or every other weekend or even every weekend if the significant other will allow it work on props, scenes, maze walls or whatever else needs done for the coming year. Research and make purchases throughout the year so your not hit all at once and strained financially.

Another thing if this does not work but you want to stay active and keep up with haunting is check out local stage companies and theater groups. I have a friend I meet through a stagecraft class I took at the local college who works at a dance studio and they do musicals every couple months and during the time between shows he is designing, building and painting the sets for the shows and working out lighting. This is a great way to learn some extra tricks and theater is a great place to learn some amazing lighting tricks.

Now back to the reason I was gone for a week. I was working the show Disney’s Alladin for my friend. I helped build and paint part of the set, helped with some props, amazing the uses haunted house props have. I ended up using some plastic chains and pirate treasures for the cave scene for the show. I spend two days helping set up and tear down the set and all the lighting, got to work some spot lighting and get some more exposure to lighting design and the different effects it has. Then on top of that I got to stay active in what I love doing so I wont be rusty when Halloween rolls around again.

If you love haunting but have never been a fan of performing arts then you should check out your local colleges and theater groups to see if they offer courses on anything because I will tell you what there is a wealth of information you can learn that can all be applied or tweaked and applied to what we haunters love doing. My local college offers set design, stagecraft, lighting design, costuming, makeup, prop building and acting courses and all sorts of other courses that fall right into the Halloween haunting world. If these courses are offered near you then check them out because you will pick up at least something that will be useful.