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
  Sharpening the senses    
  As 2016’s Tunnel of Hell had gone down well with visitors, I definitely wanted to see what else could be put inside the enclosed walkthrough structure. After all, Winston Churchill once said “If you are going through Hell, keep going” – so that’s exactly what I did, and created a new show for 2017!
 		  
  With the idea of a journey into Hell ticked off the list, I decided that I needed to think up something entirely new for the tunnel. It would largely follow the same layout as last year, but I wanted it to feel like a totally new show, so it needed new sets, props and a whole different cast of moving figures. Fortunately, there was an idea for a theme that I’d had stored away in my mind for about three years.
 		  
   
Image credit: Merlin Entertainments
  In 2014, I visited the London Dungeons, just ahead of Halloween. The attraction offered perilous encounters with some of London’s most villainous rogues and rascals, including a close shave with Sweeney Todd, a visit to the gunpowder stores of Guy Fawkes, and a narrow escape from a knife-wielding Jack the Ripper!

In total, there were around twenty different shows, and also two rides; a boat ride through the darkness to the famous Traitors’ Gate to begin, and a drop ride to certain doom to finish!		  
  It was a stunning and immersive experience.
At least, it was until the fire alarm went off about halfway round and we were all evacuated... Thankfully, there was no fire. Nor was it part of an unconvincing retelling of the Great Fire of London.

Still, I must be only one of a few who can claim that they’ve been led along the South Bank to a fire assembly point by Henry VIII, and it was well worth the unexpected interruption to the tour to attain this distinction!

Back inside… each set featured a collection of visual tricks and special effects, and was cleverly designed to envelop you in a different historical time period.

A lot of the fun and excitement was generated by the performances of the actors within each scene. Ranging from the mischievous to the dangerous, characters sneered and jeered at visitors, variously inviting them to ‘try out’ torture implements, navigate disorientating passageways, and even stand on the gallows to await ‘execution’! 		   
           
    Image credit: Merlin Entertainments        
  Remembering this experience, I decided that I would transform the tunnel into a dungeon for 2017!

It could have all sorts of deadly devices of torture and torment, and a gang of axe-swinging and blade-wielding figures that loomed at guests as they walked through. None of this would actually be deadly of course, but the idea was perfect - I wanted this to be the most jumpy and scary show yet! 		 
                                     
  Creating new characters  
  Something that I wanted to improve on this year was the sounds. I really wanted the figures to actually ‘speak’ to visitors, instead of just roaring and groaning. The performances of the actors at the London Dungeons were one of the key components in bringing each scene to life. Their shouting, taunting and emoting to the guests really added a lot to it, and I felt that adding some vocal effects of a similar style for my own characters would create a much more coherent and engaging experience for those walking through the show.
 		  
Of course, I could have gone another step further and recruited some live actors to lurk behind each of the windows along the trail, but I suspected that this would probably traumatise some of our youngest visitors! Writing some scripted lines to be recorded as original voices for each of the moving figures would nevertheless make each encounter more 'human'.

But which characters would appear?

Developing the initial ideas for each scene inside the dungeon was a surprisingly quick process, as I had lots of possible ideas. I used the grisly horror stories of Edgar Allan Poe for some early inspiration.

This felt like a great universal theme that would be instantly recognisable; everyone has an idea of what a dungeon might be like, and it was great fun thinking up things to tantalise and terrorise those who would venture inside.
       
  Image credit: Merlin Entertainments     Illustration by Harry Clarke for Edgar Allen Poe's
Tales of Mystery and Imagination (1919)		  
  My basic layout was this… waiting at the entrance would be the ‘axeman’, a menacing hooded figure holding a big axe. Then as visitors moved further inside, they would be startled by a grisly man warning them of the dangers ahead. Next, they would encounter a guillotine, being operated by a snarling figure who would invite them to be the next victim! Further round there would be a man being stretched on a torture rack, and to finish, visitors would witness a figure hanging in a noose, who would suddenly drop through some trapdoors by way of an execution!

Writing and drawing this all out on paper is always the easy part! At this stage, I didn’t really know what half of the figures would look like, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to make the other half work! But all in good time… I decided that I would produce the recorded phrases for the figures first; the voices would help to conjure up visual ideas as to how these characters would look and move.
 		  
  Voices of the dungeon  
  My own minimal acting skills were certainly not going to be sufficient to create the sort of drama I was after, so I found a very talented voice actor, Darren Altman, to do the job for me! Darren has produced a huge body of voice work for radio and television, online platforms, video games and beyond. I sent him the script I’d written, full of silly puns and warnings about avoiding the axeman and sharp blades, and he sent me back a demo track. It sounded fantastic; he was definitely the right man for the job!  
    One afternoon we did a recording session over the internet. I had by this point decided on the latex heads that would go onto each figure (left) so I showed photos of these to Darren as we recorded each track, to help with creating a sound to match.

Darren came up with distinct voices for each character within seconds! He was also able to suggest ideas for extra sounds; it was incredibly impressive! I remember having a big smile on my face all the way through the recordings; it was great to hear the characters being brought to life for the first time!

We recorded multiple different phrases for each figure. This would allow for playback of a randomly selected track each time a scene was triggered, and give more variation to each journey through the dungeon! 		 
  Read the script used for the recordings
(.pdf, 0.5mb)		   Hear part of the demo - clip from Darren's demo
read-through of the first scene tracks
(.mp3, 1.0mb)		  
                                     
  A funny sort of fear...  
  People of all ages, some from as little as two or three years old, come to visit, so when I’m designing the props and figures, I’m always a little unsure as to what level of gruesomeness I can get away with! The Tunnel of Hell was stocked with monsters and wailing figures that jumped out from the darkness, and I was surprised that even our youngest visitors seemed to cope with these sudden encounters, without running away terrified!

This year, I planned for the theme to be considerably more macabre, with a pathway littered with torture, beheadings and hangings! But this would all be created in a very bloodless and silly way, and I felt that so long as there was a good dollop of gallows humour in the mix (quite literally in this case), it wouldn’t give anyone nightmares afterwards!

The new voice effects would be a great way of heightening the atmosphere for visitors. I wanted to enhance this further with a new set of graphics and signs. This has always been one of my favourite ways of getting visitors’ minds onboard with whole concept. It can also have the effect of creating more excitement, anticipation or fear!		  
    Once again, the London Dungeons provided some good inspiration. Their brochures and advertising material made great use of puns and witty warnings to entice guests to their attraction in much the same way as the characters inside it!

I created several of my own signs styled as wooden boards, each with a daft inscription offering tips on how to survive the experience!

Visitors were advised to ‘keep their heads’ and hurry along - ‘chop chop!’ – to avoid meeting a gruesome end at the hands of the axeman!

Other signs, warning of things such as the use of smoke and strobe lighting, were all refreshed with the new theming too. 		   
  But what about the effects and characters that these signs and sounds referred to? As things stood, they didn’t exist. I had all these crazy ideas on paper for animated figures and props; most significantly more ambitious than in previous years. It was time to start thinking about how they could be created for real…