12-23-06
MAN that was fun. As I'd written elsewhere, I'd had options to do bigger, higher budget things, but as many of you know, I:
A. Have a big thing for the Old West
B. Have a big thing for Old West Horror
But mostly, because Rawhide had recently pulled up stake and moved from Scottsdale to Chandler, there was chaos, not much budget, nothing created yet for the haunt, etc. Perfect conditions for me to work in, hehe.
The scares were pretty hit-or-miss, as most of the people I directed were temps, and most of them didn't speak any English. Which is fine, as I speak passable Spanish, BUT, the cultural difference was the issue--Mexicans don't celebrate Halloween in a way that Americans do. How do you say "Stay in character...and you need to be creepy, but then lose your mind at the last second when you're in the customer's face? And NO TOUCHING!" in Spanish? When they don't really do the "horror" part of Halloween?
But after at least one Braveheart speech in Spanish (Yes, this happened, and it was something I both take pride in and also laugh about already), I got them all in the spirit of things, ahem.
I want to thank the friends of mine, old and new, who came out and saw this year's episode of "nico's well-meaning insanity." Also I wish to thank Jon Mincks, Rob Jensen, Bryce Wilson, Josh Smith, Kara Kay, Ray, Earl, and all the others I worked with on this beast, making it an experience I'll always have.
