Halloween Retrospective
While I wait for my leftover pizza from the Children's Choir Halloween party to reheat (it's not the kind of pizza you want to eat cold), I thought I'd share my Halloween experiences with you:
My Costume: was freakin' AWESOME this year! We went to JJ Blinkers in Antioch to procure costume pieces, having visited a few seasonal Halloween stores and not been happy with the selection. I knew the majority of my costume would be makeup oriented since I wanted to make certain whatever I wore could be easy to move around in and baggy enough to accommodate layers. I decided I wanted to be a banshee this year so I could just scream at people all night long when we went to Wohlers' house for haunting. I suppose I could have done some actual research on banshees in Irish folklore, but I was really more concerned with just scaring the liver out of people, so a lot of details about the actual historical concept of the banshee were completely ignored. We bought 3 costume pieces which can be easily reused in other costumes down the road: [1] some really great skeleton gloves from Zagone Studios, a Chicago-based special effects/costume manufacturer, [2] a nicely lined black burlap tunic from the same company, and [3] a set of werewolf fangs (uppers and lowers) from Scarecrow Inc., which were by far my favorite purchase of the season. I was a little disappointed to learn that my lower teeth are actually too crooked to use the lower fangs effectively; they kept popping out of place and I had to give up on them at the last minute. The uppers fit like a dream, though, and didn't affect my speech too much - just a slight lisp which got better the longer I wore them. The rest of the costume came from my extensive makeup collection (I really need to weed some of that crap out) and from the slime I made from Karo syrup, gelatine packets, and black food coloring. The final effect when it was all put together was effective and comfortable:
(Incidentally, that's Jeremy Gardner in the window dressed as a really cool zombie and Karl Kiessling over at the side of the shot, just out of range, presumably taking a well deserved break from the extensive set-up just before "The Haunting" at Wohlers'.)
The Haunting: What more can I say? Hands down, one of the best Halloween events EVER. We got there at about 12:45pm and Trick or Treat didn't start until 3:00pm or so, so I had plenty of time to get ready. Having a dry run with the costume and makeup for the Children's Choir Halloween party at church the day before meant that I got finished in record time, so I had plenty of time left to help "zombify" the Gardner kids, who "do dead" very well, I might add. I started the Haunting by hiding behind what would have been a manger in another season and jumping out at the kids who were old enough to take it. The original plan was to hide inside a hollow tree, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to get into it. Wohlers says he can actually get inside of it, so theoretically I should have had no trouble fitting, but in the end I decided it wasn't worth the risk of getting stuck (assuming I could work my way into it at all) and gave up on the idea. The "hide and jump" method of scaring was certainly effective, but after an hour or so of kneeling on the cold, muddy ground, my legs got so stiff they refused to work anymore. Plus, the kids tended to come in droves, so I could only effectively jump out once per grouping because all the kids who'd seen me jump out at the first kid in the grouping already knew I was there. Eventually I figured out that I could totally creep the kids out without jumping out at them at all, which saved my knees a lot of agony and eliminated the need for the element of surprise, which was only working about 10% of the time anyhow. At some point, Jeremy handed me a fake rib bone, so I started gnawing on various fake bones strewn throughout the yard, which freaked the kids out even more. I even tried to "share" my bones with the kids who were both fascinated and totally grossed out all at once. I imagine this is what it's like to be a Fantastikal - to become some kind of otherworldly creature who has entire dialogues with kids of all ages without uttering one intelligible word to anyone. It was extremely physical, but very rewarding. Even now, I can still feel Saturday's movements in my thighs and glutes. At least as a banshee I didn't have to wear Spandex, which is the number one argument for NOT auditioning to be a Fantastikal! Alas, I didn't make it to the bitter end of Trick or Treat as I'd planned: I went inside about 6 miniutes before the official Trick or Treat time ended because I was absolutely freezing. My upper body had plenty of layers, but I'd neglected to put on any tights or leggings under my shredded jeans, so my legs were literally trembling from the cold. After a couple of cups of hot coffee, however, I was just fine and I don't think I missed too much in those last 6 minutes anyhow. I'm already trying to come up with ideas for next year. I'd love to recreate the experience at our house, but it may take a while before we can build up to that level of production quality. Well, we have about 364 days to work towards next Halloween - better get crackin'!
My Costume: was freakin' AWESOME this year! We went to JJ Blinkers in Antioch to procure costume pieces, having visited a few seasonal Halloween stores and not been happy with the selection. I knew the majority of my costume would be makeup oriented since I wanted to make certain whatever I wore could be easy to move around in and baggy enough to accommodate layers. I decided I wanted to be a banshee this year so I could just scream at people all night long when we went to Wohlers' house for haunting. I suppose I could have done some actual research on banshees in Irish folklore, but I was really more concerned with just scaring the liver out of people, so a lot of details about the actual historical concept of the banshee were completely ignored. We bought 3 costume pieces which can be easily reused in other costumes down the road: [1] some really great skeleton gloves from Zagone Studios, a Chicago-based special effects/costume manufacturer, [2] a nicely lined black burlap tunic from the same company, and [3] a set of werewolf fangs (uppers and lowers) from Scarecrow Inc., which were by far my favorite purchase of the season. I was a little disappointed to learn that my lower teeth are actually too crooked to use the lower fangs effectively; they kept popping out of place and I had to give up on them at the last minute. The uppers fit like a dream, though, and didn't affect my speech too much - just a slight lisp which got better the longer I wore them. The rest of the costume came from my extensive makeup collection (I really need to weed some of that crap out) and from the slime I made from Karo syrup, gelatine packets, and black food coloring. The final effect when it was all put together was effective and comfortable:
(Incidentally, that's Jeremy Gardner in the window dressed as a really cool zombie and Karl Kiessling over at the side of the shot, just out of range, presumably taking a well deserved break from the extensive set-up just before "The Haunting" at Wohlers'.)
The Haunting: What more can I say? Hands down, one of the best Halloween events EVER. We got there at about 12:45pm and Trick or Treat didn't start until 3:00pm or so, so I had plenty of time to get ready. Having a dry run with the costume and makeup for the Children's Choir Halloween party at church the day before meant that I got finished in record time, so I had plenty of time left to help "zombify" the Gardner kids, who "do dead" very well, I might add. I started the Haunting by hiding behind what would have been a manger in another season and jumping out at the kids who were old enough to take it. The original plan was to hide inside a hollow tree, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to get into it. Wohlers says he can actually get inside of it, so theoretically I should have had no trouble fitting, but in the end I decided it wasn't worth the risk of getting stuck (assuming I could work my way into it at all) and gave up on the idea. The "hide and jump" method of scaring was certainly effective, but after an hour or so of kneeling on the cold, muddy ground, my legs got so stiff they refused to work anymore. Plus, the kids tended to come in droves, so I could only effectively jump out once per grouping because all the kids who'd seen me jump out at the first kid in the grouping already knew I was there. Eventually I figured out that I could totally creep the kids out without jumping out at them at all, which saved my knees a lot of agony and eliminated the need for the element of surprise, which was only working about 10% of the time anyhow. At some point, Jeremy handed me a fake rib bone, so I started gnawing on various fake bones strewn throughout the yard, which freaked the kids out even more. I even tried to "share" my bones with the kids who were both fascinated and totally grossed out all at once. I imagine this is what it's like to be a Fantastikal - to become some kind of otherworldly creature who has entire dialogues with kids of all ages without uttering one intelligible word to anyone. It was extremely physical, but very rewarding. Even now, I can still feel Saturday's movements in my thighs and glutes. At least as a banshee I didn't have to wear Spandex, which is the number one argument for NOT auditioning to be a Fantastikal! Alas, I didn't make it to the bitter end of Trick or Treat as I'd planned: I went inside about 6 miniutes before the official Trick or Treat time ended because I was absolutely freezing. My upper body had plenty of layers, but I'd neglected to put on any tights or leggings under my shredded jeans, so my legs were literally trembling from the cold. After a couple of cups of hot coffee, however, I was just fine and I don't think I missed too much in those last 6 minutes anyhow. I'm already trying to come up with ideas for next year. I'd love to recreate the experience at our house, but it may take a while before we can build up to that level of production quality. Well, we have about 364 days to work towards next Halloween - better get crackin'!