Behind the Scenes with the Boo Crew

From our first meeting in August until the walls came down in November, many of us lived Castle Dredd. We got the building permit,; we wrote and recorded the story used in the intro; we did all the pr and print media, sponsorships, etc.; we planned the rooms and scares and produced most of the special effects; we built and decorated every room.  Here is how it came together.		40 x 200 foot side yard where Castle Dredd will be erected. Walls start to go up in early September.
But my parlor has a TREE in it!	The graveyard sits right next to the school building. Not very scary until we put up black plastic and paint a backdrop on it.  In blacklight it's terrific.

Some of the most impressive tombstones I've ever seen were made from massive 6" thick blocks of foam found in electronics shipments. Brian, our Gravedigger, wears many heads....er, hats.  Others had 'sculptures' made of tissue mache. One was lighted with tiny white Christmas lights and said VACANCY...with an arrow pointed down.

 

More walls, and now the basic layout of the rooms is set in 'stone.'  Last year the walls were all black, this year they'll have to be repainted and we'll need twice as many. The 8' x8' walls are made of plywood braced with 2 x 2s and attached to lodge poles driven into the ground. Our inspector was impressed with their sturdiness. When the rooms are planned, actor corridors are also.

The spider cavern turned out not as simple as we'd planned, but Danny Rosales came to the rescue with some fancy ropework on which to hang the webs. We wanted a tunnel effect with an actor corridor on each side, but not solid walls between actors and patrons. The rope trick did the job beautifully. A serendipitous happening: when the strobe was placed over the spider, it cast an enormous spider shadow right at the beginning of the cavern that seemed to be moving. Hehehe.

Now that the walls are up, the decorating can begin. Left is the dining room. Dawn Freude's Scream Team at work here "wallpapered" the walls with gold stripes, hung draperies, made a fireplace with crackling (cellophane and Christmas lights) fire,  created luxurious chairs from styrofoam and folding metal chairs, and just generally set a terrific stage fit for a king...or Lord Dredd.

The Dungeon walls start to take shape. Every stone on every wall was handpainted and they look very, very real with low lighting and well placed spider webs. Julie even built a barred cave for her hungry dragon. She also built the dragon.

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