Tag: featured

A Haunted Blueprint Pt 5: With A little help from my Friends.

Posted on by Kevin Butler in AeternumVale

There are many things that can make a haunt successful. Especially year after year. I need to talk about dedication. Not only from you as the person who is putting it on year after year, but from anyone else who is helping you.

When this first started, I was putting in long hours trying to create something amazing. Christian Merchant, a close friend, was there when the idea first came to fruition. He saw the small room I did year after year and when I told him I wanted to expand he thought it was a fantastic idea. It was taking that idea and making it a reality that really threw both of us off. It was a very big project to take on especially for one person at the time. Then Christian realized how serious I was. I had the walls built and I started working on the first brain and creating some programs with my raspberry pi. I showed Christian and he was sold. He helped me completely finish and build that first year.

There were a lot of friends that showed interest initially but just like every thing else in life. ideas are fantastic on paper but no one will ever believe you until it is all in place. So I would have to say maybe half the people that were initially interested didn’t get fully on board until they saw some real progress from my side. I don’t blame them, people usually don’t follow through on stuff of this magnitude.

Let me make this clear: I wouldn’t have half of what I have without the help I receive. I am truly grateful to have such amazing friends that are willing to help push the project forward. Like many of you I have a day job. This is what I do after hours, or on the weekends. Its really the only time I can fully devote to it.

Now that you are aware that this isn’t the only thing I do, and I don’t have all the time in the world to devote to it you might be able to understand where I am coming from when I explain that there are certain projects I will always deem as necessary, and others I deem as secondary.

Directing a play/show/concert will always come with critical decision making. You have to decide when and were to put the effort in especially when working with deadlines. Every year I have 100 projects I would like to work on, or ideas I would like to have completed. You need to choose what is most important and assign logical realistic time tables to each project.

This past year I had more help then ever before. Starting from the 2016 year halfway through when everyone realized how serious I was, they started to get serious too. My friend Rob was fully on board (He is Aeternum Vale’s other author), but his brother Josh wanted nothing more than to help out but was working out of town. So in 2017 Josh ended up being my right hand guy helping coordinate a ton of efforts. He would ask which projects needed to get done or what we needed to work on.

One of the most memorable moments came when josh was asking me about some projects and I let him know we simply just didn’t have time for these things to get done we may have been weeks away at this point and we had some more important things to take care of. Well I wake up on a Sunday morning at 9 am and I hear someone outside in the garage. I head out there and see Josh.. working. Must have been for hours. EVERY project I told him we didn’t have time for was done. I was absolutely speechless, kudos to you josh I know your reading this, that shit was amazing.

The growth that I have seen every year and the amount of excitement is absolutely amazing. I would love for this to continue over the next few years as we continue to grow and expand. Always remember, surround yourself with like minded people and you can and will have success. This goes out to the whole Aeternum Vale Attractions Team. You are all amazing, and thank you all for everything that you do.

As always stay scared my friends.

 Author: Kevin Butler

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Timor Ignotum: A Dark Past – Part 2

Posted on by Rob Breault in AeternumVale

Welcome back Readers,

…paralyzed by fear – I start trembling. With the hairs standing up on my arms and neck I feel a chilled breath hit the nape of my neck—That wasn’t my heartbeat…

The door slams shut.

I jump and turn in terror then fall over backward, dropping my flashlight on the ground; it rapidly spins as it slides across the floor giving a strobe-like ambiance. Each pass around as the light aims in the direction of the door, I see a brief glimpse of a translucent figure, seemingly female, appear closer with each pass of the light. I cower cringing my head to the side raising my forearm in front of my face, palm facing outward. I shut my eyes in an infantile manner as if the tightening of my eyelids even harder would make the apparition disappear and somehow bring me solace. A moment passes and nothing happens; I start to open my eyes slightly to see if whatever it was has gone away, however, the spinning of the flashlight has stopped and was not facing in the direction I was attempting to see. I strain my eyes attempting to adjust to the darkness when I hear a female voice whisper in my ear. I sit paralyzed and yet somehow, I am feeling a little safer and even more curious as I hear this singular word spoken from the apparition. What could it mean? I wonder. I cautiously scoot toward the dimmed light of the flashlight beam facing the wall to my back and slowly reach to grab it. I grasp the flashlight and vigilantly pan the beam to my front, aiming toward the door. Nothing… whatever it was it’s gone now. I comfort myself. I pick myself up and headed my way back toward my truck. I can’t help but have my mind plaguing the events that occurred and cannot seem to stop thinking about that word I heard whispered to me… Steal? Steal what? I wonder. I get to my truck and head home for the night not being able to think about anything else, trying to connect everything I have witnessed and what could have possibly been stolen and by whom.

Days had passed and still, I have not figured out what truly happened that night. It wasn’t until the following year when I had received the next curious case, that things began to start making some sense.

 

Author: Rob Breault

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A Haunted Blueprint Pt 4: Reverse Feng Shui

Posted on by Kevin Butler in Uncategorized

What is Feng Shui? It is a system of laws considered to govern spatial arrangement and orientation in relation to the flow of energy. That is the direct definition of it anyways. So what on earth does it mean and what does it have to do with a haunted house? Well, I am so glad that you asked. It literally has everything to do with a haunted house.

Most of the time when people think of feng shui, they think of arranging a room to make it look pleasant, or nice. this is the act of practicing feng shui. When it comes to haunted houses we want to reverse everything that feng shui teaches. This is because when someone walks into one of your rooms, you want them to feel uneasy, you want to feel like they don’t belong. When patrons have the uneasy feeling, they are much easier to scare.

Let’s take a moment to talk about poison arrow. First, let me give some credit where credit is due. I first heard the term and learned about it from Allen Hopps from Dark Hour. He is an incredibly gifted haunter and just by watching his videos and watching the lectures he gave has opened my eyes to the bigger picture. Anyways Poison arrow is a type of negative energy that is emitting from an object that is pointed directly at you. The worst feeling in the world is walking into a room to have a bunch of strangers just pointing at you. Well, little do we know that the same can happen with objects. such as cabinet doors pointing at you, knives on a table, even random markings on a wall. All of this affects us negatively and puts us in a state of unease.

I will let you know right now, I don’t claim to know everything, in fact, I am a firm believer that we are all still learning but applying simple concepts such as this can really improve a scare.

Things that we can do to negatively affect our sets. Well, we just talked about poison arrow, so that’s one part. Obscuring the exits (this is why a maze is perfect for a haunted house). Obscuring the exits gives a sense of being lost, heightening anxiety and increasing the fear response in humans. Even obscuring the entrance can provoke a heightened sense of anxiety. For all those wondering why they didn’t even want to go into the haunt the last few years, I got you ;). Clutter, dirty rooms, No one ever wants to spend more time in a dirty room. The smell, Yes we use the sense of smell in our haunt. there are even smell cans you can buy that smell of blood, trash or anything else unsettling that you are trying to accomplish. Remember you are creating a scene and you want to draw in the guest, it needs to be believable to get a good scare.

Its all about presentation and setup. You are creating a world, an alternate universe if you will. The patron that is going through needs to believe they are part of this now. The only way we can do that is with the detail. They need to believe that all props are real, and its even better if they feel they are actually in danger, even though they will never be. If you are already anxious before stepping foot into any of my rooms, I got you. If you are too scared to go through, I got you.

As always stay scared my friends.

 Author: Kevin Butler

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A Haunted Blueprint Pt 3: Tools Of the Trade

Posted on by Kevin Butler in Uncategorized

I mentioned the pic-a-boo and the boo-box in the first part of “A Haunted Blueprint”. I am willing to bet that not many of you know what these actually are. Simply put, they are a brain. These control everything from sounds to lights to animatronics. You attach a trigger to it (IE Motion sensor, tripwire, or pressure pad) and it plays the “Scene” that you dedicated to that trigger.

They come in many different sizes, usually the bigger the size, the more scenes you can do with one controller. Every respectable haunt will have some type of brain that is working behind the scenes. These are how you are able to cue up lighting sounds and lights (apart from lightning machines which they make). Some places use them for guns or cannon blast. It really only depends on what effect you are attempting to do. I used them last year to trigger Dr. Steele’s voice over the intercom, I also set up alarms and loud sounds timed with the air blaster. Really the way you use them is endless.

But the brain is only a small part of the production. I also like to use raspberry pi’s. For those of you that don’t know what these are, they are literally just a mini computer about the size of an over-sized credit card. One of my favorite uses is a looped video playback. Pick an Mp4 file, toss it on a USB, and put it in my raspberry pi which has been configured to just continually play any movie that the USB has on it. Great for picture scares/video blogs/people stuck in a tank.

Projectors, I figured this one went without saying, but the amount of fantastic effects you can do with a projector is almost endless. Always love the creepy crawlies coming out of the stone floor or wall, that’s a good one.

I almost don’t want to mention fog machines, only because there are many places that can’t even use them. It all comes down to if you are ventilated enough to disperse the fog when/if an emergency arises.

The sound is a big one. I have a leg up in this area only because I have been in bands since I was a young kid. The amount of pro audio I have is ridiculous. You need loud, clear sound. A lot of the effects you have rely on quick loud sounds to get jump scares, plus we always play some type of backdrop music that makes sense with the haunt. Last year we had rips right from fallout itself, not sure if anyone noticed but we thought it was a nice detail that we added.

Last but certainly not least is lighting. Lighting is a crucial part of any haunt. specifically the lack of. I have many different colors, for all sorts of occasions, it depends on what I am attempting to do in that set at any given time. Black lights are always super popular and allow for different effects. We had some great concoctions of Dr. Steele’s elixir last year. It glowed in the black light.

Ultimately your tools of the trade are going to be everything you can get your hands on. With enough ingenuity like we talked about in the previous blog, you should be able to create something that is not only fun but scary as well.

As always stay scared my friends.

 Author: Kevin Butler

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A Haunted Blueprint Pt 2: Ingenuity

Posted on by Kevin Butler in AeternumVale

When I said I had a lot to learn, I wasn’t kidding. Even though I had been doing it for a few years, there is a right way and a wrong way. Do you want to get a scare? Or do you want to get a laugh? Most homeowners buy the store bought animatronics and call it a day. I wasn’t any different.

Let’s walk into any generic Halloween outlet and buy that cool animatronic that’s for sale for 300$. I’m going to stop you right there, any real haunter is going to laugh you out of the park. Let me tell you how I use stores like this now. I walk in with an idea, these stores are more like a home depot or a lowes to me, I look at what they have and what I can make it into.

Sometimes buying the animatronic, stripping it down, adding your own flair to it is more cost-effective than creating your own. I mean if that’s what you are going for that is. Some of the limited motion these devices have isn’t exactly the best. We are intuitive though, so you need to have an open mind and use it how you see fit.

One year I used an old animatronic to be triggered by a motion sensor that would pull a string and move a rocking chair. From where the patron was standing the rocking chair was moving by itself, but in fact, I just used the motor from an old animatronic. Which brings me to my next point, NEVER THROW ANYTHING AWAY.

I have this great philosophy, the worse it looks the better it is. One of the key components to having successful set design is the uneasy feeling that you get from a room. The use of reverse feng shui is something I am constantly going on about. I will go over this in more detail in another blog post but just know that when it comes to Horror design, I rely on this an absolute ton.

Getting back to my main point is, I feel everything can be used more than once, for more than one purpose. Most of the time your sets aren’t going for a super clean *new* look, so what does it matter if something is beaten an battered? It doesn’t. Most of the time we take time to stress a set to make it look old anyway.

Old paint, old props, old costumes, old blankets. All of this is something to be aware of when creating your sets. You must be creative, think outside the box. Find new ways to use old props. Every year I use the sign from previous years somewhere within my haunt. I try to make it so that if you look closely enough you can see it, as a throwback to the previous years. Can you find last years sign when you come this year?

As always stay scared my friends.

 Author: Kevin Butler

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