Haunted House Walk-through in Burbank

If you're in the Burbank area and want to go through a Haunted House, check this out!:



These people go all-out every year and the donations they get go towards a good cause!

AMERICA SINGS

(Okay, I realize that this is not Haunted Mansion related material BUT it does tie-in because Marc Davis who designed most of the Haunted Mansion also designed the extinct 'America Sings Attraction at Disneyland that used to be housed in what now is 'Innoventions" or the Carousel Theatre. Plus, it's easier to keep just one Blog.)

I have fond memories of this attraction. When I saw it a kid, the one thing that tripped me out were the vultures in the Old West sequence because they were always glancing around even when not featured on stage. I swore they were alive and keeping an eye on me. That was the magic of Disneyland for me. There's not really any of that in the park anymore (well besides the Pirates).

I also had the LP (record) and I would play it all the time and even hold puppet shows for my friends. The only puppets I had were "Kermit" and "Fozzy" from 'The Muppet Show' so imagine the Muppets doing 'America Sings'. Later, when Marc visited the studio, I had him sign my album.

That soundtrack had so much character. I was reminiscing with a friend about growing up and how we didn't have VHS much less DVD's, no Cartoon Network, no Disney Channel. All we had was to listen to stories on records. It was then that I realized that what it was doing was conditioning us to one day become animators. Why/How? Well, when we listened to the portrayals of the characters, we were actually imagining a visual in our minds of what they looked like, what they were doing and how they felt. That's pretty much what we still do today. We listen to the voice track and imagine.

After the attraction was removed, the only thing I had left as a memory was that soundtrack (now on CD). I would listen to it and those same memories would be called to mind. Now that I was an animator, I could finally make my dreams literally come true. So, I got this (crazy) idea to do an animated version of the attraction.

I storyboarded the whole thing myself and then picked a few scenes and started to animate.

Notes/Disclaimers: For some reason the intercut animation doesn't play correctly at speed. I was going to post the rest of the sequences but what I found was that my movie files are not able to update fast enough to make it worth watching-sorry. BUT Sequence 1 does kind of work so check it out!:



Remember the shadow of the beer drinking rabbit (Where is my my Wandering Boy) in the window of the saloon as the mother rabbit with her multiple children weeps outside?



Here's a picture of the mechanics behind-the-scenes:



One day, I found this piece of conceptual artwork that Marc Davis had done for the Wandering Boy.



Anyways, I saw this and said."This HAS to be animated!" So this is what I did:
(Note: the lip sync is not finished)



Another shot I animated was a short one. It was of Saddlesore Swanson going, "Hee-Yah!!!!" (It was one of those things I animated that luckily worked on the first try-go figure.) Now this test I recently did in color. I wanted to do a look that was true to the period of which the attraction was originally conceived and was true to Marc Davis' conceptual art and design. I wanted to use my actual animation drawing but yet color it digitally. The trick was, I needed closed-off lines for the color to be contained when filled. I developed a special process in order to do that and this is the result.



Here is a description of that "special process" (I know, gimme a break--but hey, where else can you get license to make yourself sound important other than on a Blog?):




When I finished the storyreels, I took them to Alice Davis (the widow of the late Marc Davis) and screened it for her. She loved it. As it played she recounted so many memories and stories about the attraction many of which can be found on the historical DVD of the 'America SIngs' attraction available from the Extinct Attractions Club on the internet.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this post and maybe in the future I'll post more animation as I finish it.

(BTW- a "shout out" to my friend Julian who teases me by asking if I'm going to build Space Mountain out of Sculpey in my front yard.)

UPDATE: 9/14/09
So I was at D23 this weekend drawing at the Walt Disney Animation Studios "booth" (Well, actually it was a desk placed in the remote corner of the convention center hallway--just outside the restrooms) and someone came by who knew my Blog and it inspired me to keep going with the project so as soon as I came home, I dug out teh stuff again and started doing some Color Models for scens that I animated that I plan to put into color next (Disclaimer: I'm still working out the colors so...):









Thanks everybody for your support!!!

The Pirate Ship

So this year, 2007, a former co-worker of mine put me in touch with someone who wanted to meet me. This person puts on an amazing display! His name is Peter Montgomery. He wrote his own software to be able to automate run his show unattended. He also built animtronics that rival what one would see at Disneyland. We got in touch with each other and agreed to help each other out. I would help him build a ship and he would help me build animatronics.

This year, he wanted to build a (life-size) sunken pirate ship on his front lawn. So I drew up some ideas. Here is the initial concept:



Then it was a matter of plotting out the size and placement:





Here is part of the metal framework he welded together:



Then I drew up some plans on how to assemble the hull exterior to and around the frame. We went trhough a few design approaches because we wanted to avoid seeing the metal famework as much as possible. Here are those plans:









Here's a drawing of the ship's wheel:



The original plan was to use cardboard but then he got a deal on huge sheets of half-inch styrofoam so we decided to make it out of that. Here are some work-in-progress pictures:






I took the above image into a paint program and drew on to of it to see how I envision it to be:



Here's a view from the reverse angle:



He also wanted to do a "dock scene" and make his front doot the entrance to a tavern so here are some sketches I drew up for the general layout and tavern signs:







Here's a picture of the finished sign:



Don't ask me how I have time to do all of this! I took a hiatus from work for a few weeks and was able to work on it about 4 hours per day. Peter must have put in 10-12 hour days. In all, it must have taken us 3 weeks from the time the metal frame consruction was built to completion.


Tuesday, October 30th, 2007
WE MADE THE FRONT PAGE!

...of the Glendale News Press section in the L.A. Times!

Here's a link to the article (Sorry, you'll have to cut and past the URL-I can't get the Link function to work):
http://www.glendalenewspress.com/articles/2007/11/02/news/gnp-halloween30.txt

Here are some pictures of the "close to finished product":



(I carved out and faux painted the signs and stenciled the writing. I also decided to make the arrow out of the skeleton of a dead fish. At the last minute, I came up with adding "DEAD" to Tavern ahead. That's why its written in red "blood" paint.)


(I faux painted the wood texture on the boxes and Peter's friend, John, followed it up by "aging" it with a dark gray wash. Then I painted the lettering.)


First, the entire ship was painted black, then both Peter and I went over it with a wash (using a spray bottle and rag) of two separate colors to create the aged wood appearance. (I carved out the jagged opening with a hot knife.)


Peter and his friends did a fanatsic job rigging up the mast and making the crow's nest. Peter distressed it by cutting-away pieces of the mast and inserting styrofoam to fill the inside of the hollow sonotube. The step-ladder can show you the scale of the thing. I think it's about 15 feet high!





The rocks I formed out of heavy-stock paper that is used for protecting floors during construction. Then I faux painted them using black and brown paint.




The skull I made with wire mesh and plaster wrap and DAS sculpting compound. It was then faux painted by my friend, Ernie. Originally, the jaw was hinged and was going to open and shut with a soundtrack of laughter but alas, time was up!





Here's a short clip of the animation that Peter did for his show. Both he and his writing partner (who voiced the crow) wrote the script. His friend, Dan Bond, did the voice of the skeleton. It's funny banter-you have to see the whole thing!



To see more of Peter's work and his past Halloween shows, please go to his website:
www.socalhalloween.com

Halloween 2006

I got back pictures from Halloween, 2006. I took them with a film camera using a long exposure and slow shutter speed.







...and here's to my inspiration, Blaine Gibson.



The old man's head I made from aluminum foil and Sculpey. Over time, he fell and cracked, etc. I had to do some last minute touch-up with plaster wrap/bandages and Das Pronto modeling clay. The hair was actually cut from a cat costume.





The gravedigger-same thing as the Old Man with the earphone (but I took better care of it-although the Sculpey is starting to crack.)

This is a mini-graveyard I put together on the patio near the front door. It needs work. One day, I have in mind to make an animated Halloween short film and project it on the wall of my neighbors house (above the fountain). We'll see.





You know, I had this thing stored in my office closet just before putting it out for Halloween and I swear whenever I went to opened the closet door I would see this bride just standing there and it would creep me out, seriously! Go figure. After Halloween, I couldn't stand the thought of this thing still sitting there, so I removed the clothing and kept it in a box. Now it's not sacry anymore. When I was a kid, we would visit my aunt and uncle in El Paso and they had a suit of armor at the top of their stairs. I was so scared of it, I wouldn't go up there! I was always afraid that it would move like the one in the hallway of the Disneyland attraction where they would hire a cast member to dress up in the suit of armor and jump out at you during the ride.



I used to have a jar labeled "Sulfuric Acid" sitting next to the cat-hinting that he replaced the water in the birdbath with the contents and the bird was in mid-shower pose before it discovered that it was too late! Usually I have an atomizer or dry ice in the birdbath to create a boiling/fog effect. But at the time I took this picture, I didn't have anything handy.

Keeping up with the Jones'

Being Halloween and all, I thought it would be cool to post pictures of homes in my neighborhood that got into the spirit of things.









Literally, keeping up with the Jones'-Davy Jones that is!



And here's my house...



I try and add a little bit every year. New adiitions this year:





HAPPY HALLOWEEN everybody!!!!

My Office

When we moved to our new house (and seeing all those HGTV/Extreme Makover:Home Edition shows), I decided that I wanted a Haunted Mansion themed office. So I drew up some concepts of what I wanted it to look like:





I'm not sure how to introduce this so I'll just say it..."Here it is!"







Now...people either say it is the coolest thing they've ever seen or I need professional help.

The green wallpaper with the Lily pattern is actually used in the foyer of the attraction. A company up north in Benicia, CA that makes authentic hand-printed Victorian wallpaper called Bradbury and Bradbury Art Wallpapers (www.bradbury.com) happens to sell it (Dresser Tradition 2-Ashes of Rose Code:LYW Pattern:550 ). The purple/blue wall is a stencil that I made. It is of the wallpaper pattern in the attraction as well. It took a few hours to paint-I still have to paint in all the little pupils in the eyes. The oval mirror is actually a two-way 50/50 mirror. Behind it is a relief sculpture of the Hatchet Goul (to be posted later with an update) that shows through via a light on a timer. The effect is an image that slowly appears and disappears much like the Cheshire Cat in the mirror at the Mad Hatter Shop at Disneyland.

I was looking in a lighting shop in Hollywood (LAMF 660 N. LaBrea Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90036 323-932-6000) for a 5-light wall sconce and but by chance, I happened to find the wall sconce of a Griifin/gargoyle that is the exact same one that is in the attraction that is located by the staring statues, just before you get onto the Doombuggy.

(I'll post more pictures and details later).

The Bat in the Birdcage

"She's only a bird in a gilded cage..."

One of my favorite unused concepts from 'The Haunted Mansion' was this one by the late Legendary Disney animator, Marc Davis...



(I hope one day they might decide to put this in the attraction.)

I was so inspired by this piece that I decided to make it. I sculpted the bat in Sculpey and made a mold and hollow cast of it so I could fit a battery pack connected to two LED lights (for the eyes). I also sculpted the bones. At first, I was going to actually going to construct a cage but I thought to look for one in a pet store that I could use. Originally, I had sculpted the base with the ornate flange holding up the cage but-it fell and broke. Typical. Anyways, this is how it turned out:



One year, we had a huge Halloween party and I invited Alice Davis (Marc Davis' wife) to the party. I was proud to show it to her. She LOVED it! Although...she had one thing to say about it and that was I had forgotten Marc's favorite thing about this concept-and that was the blood in the water trough! Oh, well.

The Coffin

One year, I decided to build the coffin-where the guy is trying to get saying, "lemmeouttahere!".So, I went to Home Depot, bought some MDF particle board, some molding, etc. and built it. It turned out great-but it was heavier than Hell!!!!

Every year it was a big ordeal-I constantly had to get a neighbor or a good friend to help me move it into place.

I sculpted the hands. The lid was made from styrofoam. I built a mechanism inside that would open and close the lid. I put it on a folding card table and put a skirt around it and whah-lah! A coffin.

THE MECHANISM:
The mechanism worked great-for about 10 minutes, then the motor burned out, Not enough torque, I guess. Here's basically how I got it to work:





THE HANDS:
I sculpted the hands by first making a wire frame.



Then I covered it with wire mesh, then foil to create the bulk.





I then covered it with RigidWrap (plastercloth). I then used a product called Das Pronto*(It's an air-hardening modeling clay). The clay graps on to the natural tooth/coarseness of the plastercloth. It has a fast working time. It usually cures within a few minutes but you can keep it pliable by applying a bit of water to it as you work with it (Tip: ofr storage, keep it in a ziploc plastic bag with a few drops of water in it.). It can then be sanded to a smooth finish.
*Das Pronto-the name suggests that it might be a German-Mexican mix. but now, the package just calls it 'DAS'-and it's made in Italy! Go figure...

I drilled a few holes in the styrofoam lid and mounted candlesticks on the top. I left them a bit loose so when the lid rose up and down, the candlsticks would wabble like they were about to fall over. The candlesticks were a wood craft bought froma local craft store (Michael's) and I faux finished it to look like brass, etc. The candles I made by taking plastic pipe and applying hot glue to make it look like the candle was dripping. (But that's for another post.)

So here's the final result:

The Haunted Mine Tunnel

Every year the kids asked if this was a haunted house (that they could go in). Every year I had to say. "Sorry, no". Then I got this idea to make one. We had a narrow strip of yard at the top of the steps that lead to the side of the house where their was a huge covered porch. So, I cam up with this idea of building a tunnel. At the time, I was working on 'Sweating Bullets' (a.k.a. 'Home On The Range') and it inspired me to do a western themed "attraction".





In the hat building, the one off of the 134 freeway) they had these production areas that used to serve as the hub for each show called POD's. At the entrance to these POD's, they would construct these huge monstrousities. It was llike entering a theme park attraction (They don't do any more, of course). Well. I was admiring the technique apllied on one of them and found out that someone form the ARL (Animation Resaerc Library) had made it. I made an appointment to meet with this person to discuss how he fabrictated this, etc. He was a really cool guy and happened to have pictures at his desk (like a brag book that one would have of their children). Anyways, I had told him what I wanted to do and he offered to help me buy creating the frame and doing a rough cut of the styrofoam. Here's what eventually came from that meeting:



Anyways...getting back to the tunnel, after learning how it was done, I made the entrance to the tunnel. The rest I used PVC pipe and plastic sheeting and a good thing, too because every year it rained and everything got wet. One year, I thought it wasn't going to rain and built the tunnel out of paper. I used the the stuff that you put down to protect floors
while doing construction. We crumbled it up then flattened it out again and the texture left from that crumbling looked like boulders-it was great! But alas, it rained just a few days before Halloween and I had to rush to reconstruct the tunnel again.

Before I go on, I got to give credit to my dedicated and true friends that helped every year to construct this thing and help set-up. It usually took a whole day, if not two! Thanks, guys!!!! Also, thanks to my brother in law for helping construct the "full attraction" soundtrack. I used clips from the hammer strikes from "Hi Ho, Hi Ho" (the Seven Dwarf's song) from 'Snow White', wind and crystal chimes from the Matterhorn, and thunder sfx from the Haunted Mansion. I also took area music from Frontierland and layerd thunder sfx over it-it sounded great! I got a lot of compliments on teh sound design. People asked where I got it. They were surprised to hear that it was from (the usually "cheery") Disneyland.

I decide to give it a story. It wasn't just any old rock mine, it was a "rock-candy" mine! At the end, I dresssed up like a prospector (with a big paper mache hat that I had made-I looked like "Yosemite Sam") and built a little mine cart to keep candy in. I also made cardboard standees of barrels of dynamite and a little cardboard detonator that was hooked up to strobe lights and a little thunder sfx box and I would pretend to blow up the mine as the kids left. (I wish I had pictures-I'm sure my friends with digital cameras do. I'll have to bug them about it).





I remember one year, I had so much hooked up and a fuse blew. All the lights went out and everyone cheered-they thought it was part of the show. Meanwhile, I'm running around with a falshlight trying to find the circuit breaker.

Adults would come up and I'd offer them candy. They declined and said that they just came up to see the show (and even applauded one time). One kid actually had the gall to say that they liked it better last year. ("Everyone's a critic.")

Yes, Halloween was great. That was before kids. Now, it's a whole different experience-but just as rewarding if not more so!

I keep thinking that until they turn 13, my kids will think that I'm the coolest dad but after that, I can just hear, "Dad, your not going to put out the Halloween stuff out again this year are you? My friends will see."

Here's a video "Ride-through" of the mine tunnel that I built for 2003:



...and here's the "new and improved" tunnel built the following year (2004):

The Old House

Here are some pictures of the house that we used to live in (I refer to it as "the old house").







You may notice in one of the pictures a Real Estate sign and some characters. That's for another post. The Real Estate sign was a gag that has a funny story to it. But here you can also see some tombstones that I had made with plywood. They were so heavy! And I had to carry them up and down that hill every year. Plus I was nervous about the kids running up and down the steps. I thought they wouldn't actually climb all the way up but they did.The house to stop traffic. There would be a huge pile up of cars for at least a block in each direction. Mini vans full of kids would drive up, the door would open the kids would pile out runn up the stairs, get their candy, run back down and off they would go. Funny, the kids didn't really seem to care about the decorations but the parents would linger,take pictures and ask questions, etc. Halloween was fun (and still is)!