Sean Bradley
Sr Member
Hey all,
Some of you may or may not know that for the last 5 or 6 weeks since Dragoncon I've been very busily working as project manager on a Haunted House attraction for the company that I work for, Laserdome in Manheim, PA. Pretty much as soon as I got back from the convention I started on building a modular haunted house from scratch at my day job with a crew of 2 full timers and 3-5 part-time volunteers.
The base structure of the haunted house is two 45 foot trailers that we bought for cheap from a nearby reconditioning facility. We parked these on the far end of our lot, and built a interior maze structure between the two. Customers go up the steps to enter the first trailer, wind through it and exit out the side door down some steps to the interior courtyard. After winding through the courtyard, they go up the steps to enter the second trailer from the side door, wind through it, and exit out the rear of the second trailer. It takes about 6 or 7 minutes to go through it you don't start running inside.. most people are in a hurry to get through..
Our production schedule allowed for about 4 weeks of serious construction (framing walls, building decks and stairs, and framing sliding door systems). Beyond that we spent additional few weeks time painting everything, creating murals and backdrops for the entire walkthrough, and then decorating and installing all our special effects within the space. We worked right up to and slightly past the opening weekend, October 3rd, and are still tweaking and making changes here and there.
My involvement with the project was to frame and build the majority of the interior walls and doors, manage the mural painters (making sure they had what they needed and approving their designs for the murals). I also designed, built, and painted the front of the haunted house, creating a faux facade that makes the two trailers look like an actual house... and at that one that a car has crashed into!. I themed the exterior and interior of the car crash, and several other key projects throughout the interior spaces (I don't want to give too much away!)
Last weekend I filmed several video walkthroughs of the haunted house, following through with groups that were seeing it for the first time. Afterward I filmed a walkthrough myself, asking the actors to play to the camera as they would any regular attendee. I wanted to take the best of these videos and edit together a longer version of the video showing peoples reactions to the various scares through out the house, but our volunteers and others have been extremely anxious to see the video.. so I handed the footage I shot off to another employee who quickly edited together a rough cut to put up immediately. I still intend to do something better with all of the footage I have, but thie video is the 'quick and dirty' version for the volunteers to use to choreograph their timing.
So heres the video, and I'll follow it up with some photos I shot:
I'll have some additional photos later of the construction and the... uh.. 'theming' of the car (the rest are on my computer at home).
So lemme know what you think guys! I'll have to get some better shots of some of the stuff (you just can't see all the work that went into this with the video in nightvision). Lemme know if you have any suggestions or questions about it. Also we could use some views, comments, and ratings at YouTube!
And now that this is done, I can get back to finishing up the Arbiter and getting the 'making of the Arbiter' photoset annotated and uploaded. I'm on it!
See you soon!
-Sean
Some of you may or may not know that for the last 5 or 6 weeks since Dragoncon I've been very busily working as project manager on a Haunted House attraction for the company that I work for, Laserdome in Manheim, PA. Pretty much as soon as I got back from the convention I started on building a modular haunted house from scratch at my day job with a crew of 2 full timers and 3-5 part-time volunteers.
The base structure of the haunted house is two 45 foot trailers that we bought for cheap from a nearby reconditioning facility. We parked these on the far end of our lot, and built a interior maze structure between the two. Customers go up the steps to enter the first trailer, wind through it and exit out the side door down some steps to the interior courtyard. After winding through the courtyard, they go up the steps to enter the second trailer from the side door, wind through it, and exit out the rear of the second trailer. It takes about 6 or 7 minutes to go through it you don't start running inside.. most people are in a hurry to get through..
Our production schedule allowed for about 4 weeks of serious construction (framing walls, building decks and stairs, and framing sliding door systems). Beyond that we spent additional few weeks time painting everything, creating murals and backdrops for the entire walkthrough, and then decorating and installing all our special effects within the space. We worked right up to and slightly past the opening weekend, October 3rd, and are still tweaking and making changes here and there.
My involvement with the project was to frame and build the majority of the interior walls and doors, manage the mural painters (making sure they had what they needed and approving their designs for the murals). I also designed, built, and painted the front of the haunted house, creating a faux facade that makes the two trailers look like an actual house... and at that one that a car has crashed into!. I themed the exterior and interior of the car crash, and several other key projects throughout the interior spaces (I don't want to give too much away!)
Last weekend I filmed several video walkthroughs of the haunted house, following through with groups that were seeing it for the first time. Afterward I filmed a walkthrough myself, asking the actors to play to the camera as they would any regular attendee. I wanted to take the best of these videos and edit together a longer version of the video showing peoples reactions to the various scares through out the house, but our volunteers and others have been extremely anxious to see the video.. so I handed the footage I shot off to another employee who quickly edited together a rough cut to put up immediately. I still intend to do something better with all of the footage I have, but thie video is the 'quick and dirty' version for the volunteers to use to choreograph their timing.
So heres the video, and I'll follow it up with some photos I shot:
I'll have some additional photos later of the construction and the... uh.. 'theming' of the car (the rest are on my computer at home).
So lemme know what you think guys! I'll have to get some better shots of some of the stuff (you just can't see all the work that went into this with the video in nightvision). Lemme know if you have any suggestions or questions about it. Also we could use some views, comments, and ratings at YouTube!
And now that this is done, I can get back to finishing up the Arbiter and getting the 'making of the Arbiter' photoset annotated and uploaded. I'm on it!
See you soon!
-Sean
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