Jasonwclark
August 5th, 2008, 02:35 AM
Don't You Miss Halloween?
I'm just going to throw this out there; I think we should throw a Halloween Party to shame all others. Maybe not this year, since we've got the NZ workshop lined up, but perhaps next year, so we'll have plenty of time to plan it and get things right. :devil:
Brief digression: I don’t know if any of you from the Bay Area remember The Old Mill (http://books.google.com/books?id=Py8u3Obs4f4C&pg=PA21&lpg=PA21&dq=Gyros+world+of+terror+old+mill&source=web&ots=9DvjJOeP5J&sig=xakR0T-vjcn8zNjtF70XGndXhuE&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result) shopping center off San Antonio and Central Expressway, but my dad used to run a restaurant out of that place called Bourbon Street (and later a nightclub called the French Quarter.) After the 89 earthquake, everything in the mall closed down except for my dad’s catering business and an old AMC movie theater, which only played flicks that had been out for several months already. Utilities were paid out through demolition (another 4 years), so my Dad knocked down some walls in the old candy story, built an apartment inside the mall, and moved us there for most of the early 90s while he was setting up his company ABC BBQ/Catering By Dana. During this same period, Gyros World of Terror rented out the remaining space in the mall and built up that huge Halloween maze. Every year around late August, early September, all these gore geeks, and latex lovers descended on the place to work on molds and masks and to set up all the individual rooms. One year they even had the guys who did Universal Soldier come in to hold make up demos, and I learned all about how to use fake blood and newspaper to create zombies and corpses and such. It was pretty glorious for an eleven year old kid, but even more glorious was the fact that they left most of these props and rooms in tact during the rest of the off season. I don’t know if anyone recalls the Aliens room, but they left the queen up all year long, and the Phantasm room, and all the black woodwork that formed the maze itself. So pretty much, alongside my old man's catering company, was a full scale haunted Mall, which my friends and I had the run of for most of the year. Sorry getting nostalgic and sidetracked. The point is that this thing was a really huge deal back when I was little, and I miss it.
I have to imagine these people are still around somewhere and I think it’d be cool if we could get some of them together again. If we got a space and enough people were into it, I'm sure I could land a sweet ass deal on the food. Its a pretty big operation, they do the Stanford Graduation each year, company picnics for a lot of the IT companies in the south bay, functions at the Fairmont and things like that. My pops has also been helping to feed the firefighters during all these wildfires we've been having in Northern California.
We could do a masquerade and costume designing contest, set up Zombie sketching sessions to Thriller. Maybe hold a couple workshops on mask modeling and puppeteering in the old school style (since it doesn't get the attention it deserves these days.) Call in some of the modern day Harryhausens and really get dirty with it; the clay, the fake blood, compressed air effects, all the good stuff. I'm sure with a year to plan we could probably also get a cool musical act to kick off the party. To pull it off and really make it as glorious as it should be, however, we’d want to have enough artists on the case. CA has the coolest group I’ve met, and most of you guys are up in the city already. Plus, Massive Black is such a great name for anything happening in October.
Do you guys think something like this would be cool, worth attempting? If it caught on we could maybe do it annually, on both coasts, as another way to help support the community (alongside workshops and DVDs). If not next year, maybe something to think about for the future. :)
_________________________________________
Costume from a few years back, on a shoestring budget. I'm sure others here could do much better. If anyone wants to use this thread as an excuse to post cool masks, dummies, costumes, makeup or things related the movie Aliens, that'd also put a big smile on my face.
Right, off to bed now. Take it easy all
I'm just going to throw this out there; I think we should throw a Halloween Party to shame all others. Maybe not this year, since we've got the NZ workshop lined up, but perhaps next year, so we'll have plenty of time to plan it and get things right. :devil:
Brief digression: I don’t know if any of you from the Bay Area remember The Old Mill (http://books.google.com/books?id=Py8u3Obs4f4C&pg=PA21&lpg=PA21&dq=Gyros+world+of+terror+old+mill&source=web&ots=9DvjJOeP5J&sig=xakR0T-vjcn8zNjtF70XGndXhuE&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result) shopping center off San Antonio and Central Expressway, but my dad used to run a restaurant out of that place called Bourbon Street (and later a nightclub called the French Quarter.) After the 89 earthquake, everything in the mall closed down except for my dad’s catering business and an old AMC movie theater, which only played flicks that had been out for several months already. Utilities were paid out through demolition (another 4 years), so my Dad knocked down some walls in the old candy story, built an apartment inside the mall, and moved us there for most of the early 90s while he was setting up his company ABC BBQ/Catering By Dana. During this same period, Gyros World of Terror rented out the remaining space in the mall and built up that huge Halloween maze. Every year around late August, early September, all these gore geeks, and latex lovers descended on the place to work on molds and masks and to set up all the individual rooms. One year they even had the guys who did Universal Soldier come in to hold make up demos, and I learned all about how to use fake blood and newspaper to create zombies and corpses and such. It was pretty glorious for an eleven year old kid, but even more glorious was the fact that they left most of these props and rooms in tact during the rest of the off season. I don’t know if anyone recalls the Aliens room, but they left the queen up all year long, and the Phantasm room, and all the black woodwork that formed the maze itself. So pretty much, alongside my old man's catering company, was a full scale haunted Mall, which my friends and I had the run of for most of the year. Sorry getting nostalgic and sidetracked. The point is that this thing was a really huge deal back when I was little, and I miss it.
I have to imagine these people are still around somewhere and I think it’d be cool if we could get some of them together again. If we got a space and enough people were into it, I'm sure I could land a sweet ass deal on the food. Its a pretty big operation, they do the Stanford Graduation each year, company picnics for a lot of the IT companies in the south bay, functions at the Fairmont and things like that. My pops has also been helping to feed the firefighters during all these wildfires we've been having in Northern California.
We could do a masquerade and costume designing contest, set up Zombie sketching sessions to Thriller. Maybe hold a couple workshops on mask modeling and puppeteering in the old school style (since it doesn't get the attention it deserves these days.) Call in some of the modern day Harryhausens and really get dirty with it; the clay, the fake blood, compressed air effects, all the good stuff. I'm sure with a year to plan we could probably also get a cool musical act to kick off the party. To pull it off and really make it as glorious as it should be, however, we’d want to have enough artists on the case. CA has the coolest group I’ve met, and most of you guys are up in the city already. Plus, Massive Black is such a great name for anything happening in October.
Do you guys think something like this would be cool, worth attempting? If it caught on we could maybe do it annually, on both coasts, as another way to help support the community (alongside workshops and DVDs). If not next year, maybe something to think about for the future. :)
_________________________________________
Costume from a few years back, on a shoestring budget. I'm sure others here could do much better. If anyone wants to use this thread as an excuse to post cool masks, dummies, costumes, makeup or things related the movie Aliens, that'd also put a big smile on my face.
Right, off to bed now. Take it easy all