ROLLERCOASTER

I enjoy roller coasters. "A good ride, a drop, a rush, the up and the down." Movies do much the same, except emotionally. I write scripts as well as books. A key element is pace. It is one of the things I strive for in my haunt. PACE is a word simple yet complicated. It is easy to say, difficult to execute, not because it is difficult, but because you will not believe me. I have yet to go through a haunt that utilizes this simple word, other than my own attempts. I classify most haunts as scream and run. Most guided haunts I classify as talk and scream.

One of the best-decorated haunts I ever visited had creatures to chase us through the whole haunt; I imagine increasing customer flow. Verdun Manor is a richly decorated haunt. I know this because I have been through it before it opens. I have been through it during peak operation and the crush of people flowing through keeps me from making the same observations. One advantage to a customer not seeing all that there is to see is that they may want to come back and see what they missed.

When I help with a haunt, all I hear is how scary, scare this, scare there, scare here, everywhere a scare, "E I E I O." People ask my opinion on how to scare. Somewhere I have made a mistake. How do you scare someone? A simple question that has more than one million answers or solutions.

You must prepare your customer. Do this with visuals before they even enter. The facade, waiting area and actors observed by customers before they enter. How many scenes does your haunt have; scare sequences does your haunt have? What emotions are you trying to evoke from your customers. Well, besides the obvious one. A good haunt goes for as many different emotions as it can. It is this play between emotions that provides the ups and downs. It is also the play of the senses, another article.

For which emotions are we going? Startle; a nervous reaction. Fright; a more serious reaction. Laughter; at the scene and at one's self. Anticipation; believing that something is about to happen. Comic relief; a scene designed to evoke laughter. Gore; gross out the customer, not necessarily blood, maybe vomit (he he he). Disbelief; viewing the impossible. Terror; the ultimate emotion and the one we all strive to give our customers. And other emotions to varying degrees. Emotions make the peaks and valleys of your haunt; the more emotions you stimulate, the more successful the haunt.

List all your scenes, rooms, events and scares. Organize them first in sequence through the haunt. Next, rate each on a scale of one to ten. You must be honest and realistic. True we all produce only fantastic scares. Last rate them according to the emotion you believe they will evoke. If the only emotion you have is fright/terror then you need to rethink your haunt, because you are not being honest with yourself. I discovered many years ago that my scenes have different results with different people, ages, sex and ethnic group. Another ingredient is mindset. I, the creator, have no control over my audience. No one does.

It is not possible to scare the bee gee gees out of your customers every time. Some scenes work better than others. Use this to your advantage. Place weak scenes between good scenes. This becomes part of setting the pace. I have organized my haunt to gradually build to a climax. I even have an anti climax that only a few brave souls get to enjoy.

A scene that evokes more than one emotion is high on my list. One of my favorite scenes is "The Wall." The room has a small half circle stage with a rotating wall. The customers enter the well-illuminated room. They see a sign on the wall "Creature on Break." Negative comments and words of verbal let down follow, then one or more of the customers quote the sign out loud. The customer group fills the room and then the revolving wall begins to rotate. At the moment of rotation the bright theatrical lighting becomes medium flash strobe lighting. The actor, in a robe with no mask, makes a loud sound as the wall rotates. Their vision is seriously impaired, the customers only see the wall rotating, opening to them, they hear the loud sound and their imaginations fill in the blanks. The customers scream and fall all over themselves. In his left hand is a very large hammer, he is shaking his right hand, as if the hammer had hit it, and he says "Yeow, that hurt." The customers relax and laugh at themselves and the scene.

This one scene has evoked three emotions; Disappointment, Fright and Laughter. The more emotions you evoke by your scenes, the better. Immediately after this scene we nail them to the wall from both sides causing them to run for their lives. It might not appear to be PACE, but it is. I took them down, I propelled them up, I gently lowered them and then I shot them higher. Next, I do nothing for a while, they are treated to ghost illusions, displays and more. Do not get the wrong impression, there must be calm before the storm, my haunt gets progressively more intense. It only works because I let the customers relax (relatively speaking) between sequences. Each period of rest is more intense than the last, but the customer does not know this. I am slowly elevating emotional levels in the customer. The distance between scenes decreases, the intensity of each new scene intensifies and the mind games played vary with an assault on the senses. They are walking through my movie, experiencing a roller coaster ride of emotions and if I am successful they exit with a smile or on the run.

Once you have digested this information it will be possible for you to apply it to your haunt. Examine your customer path and consider establishing a pace for your victims, er, customers. Another key element is proper use and exploitation of the human senses. I will cover that next.

JB Corn

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