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Terrormaster Regular user New England 139 Posts |
Ok, I've finally started trying to put the pieces for this year's Halloween show together which is tentative dubbed "Faegoria: An Evening in Carcosa". As I've mentioned in another thread my Halloween show is a private affair held for friends and family. I've been trying to add a sense of continuity between the theme of my display and the bizarre performance for the evening. Originally I started with effects from Baba's Vodu Ma Gick. But the planning for the display has grown more into a sort of King in Yellow. The artistic elements borrow heavily from Joshua Walsh (the artist behind Carcosa in True Detective) and a movie called Mr.Jones (a majority of the scarecrows were designed and built Halloween haunter extraordinaire Pumpkinrot who's work I've followed since 2008). So yeah, a lot of stick effigies and such.
The underlying story of the display is an old abandoned house that used to be home to an obscure cult that worshiped he who is not to be named. The cult leader, a yet to be named middle aged woman known only as Mamma Bones, and her followers died together in a suicide pact on October 31st 1956 shortly before law enforcement raided the house. Mamma Bones earned her name because of the sacrifices she made were sculpted into twisted works of art mixed with branches and sticks forming bizarre, twisted, sick totem-like effigies. At the time of the raid it was thought that the cult were members of either Voodoo, Obeah, or Palo Mayambe followings. But in reality it was something far older and more ancient than anything that could have came out of the Congo diaspora. While the human and animal remains had long since been removed. All efforts to have the house demolished would mysteriously disappear beneath bureaucratic red tape. Over time a small neighborhood has since grown up around the property. Every Halloween after that tragic 1956 incident, a series of mysterious bone and stick like effigies, totems, and scarecrows would appears overnight. Pumpkins would line the overgrown walkway leading to the porch. No one knows how the twisted decor appears but it is gone completely by November 1st. There are local legends surrounding the house and rumors circulate every year of a strange little old homeless lady having been spotted lurking about the property. It's unknown if any kids have dared venture down that macabre gauntlet leading to the front door hoping for a holiday treat. But if any one has, they never returned to tell the tale. Ok, so now I'm trying to build a one hour-ish show around that. I've read quite a few bizarre books. But most all seem to focus on effects and specific routines and not really on how to tie all these pieces together in a cohesive show. I do realize that those sorts of specifics are material for The Crypt. But I'm not quite anywhere near the required posts to get in. And I doubt I will be in a reasonable amount of time to prepare a 2015 Halloween show (I try to make most of my posts have some sort of substance). I'm thinking that the experience should be a decent into mental madness so I'm leaning more towards dressing up some mentalism for the occasion. Then wrapping up with some sort of Carcosa inspired seance or finale. I'm looking for suggestions for effects and the seance and ways to tie them into the narrative above. Thanks, -TM |
Brynmore14 Inner circle The Séance Chamber 1815 Posts |
The Okito doll / haunted doll seems a must.
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Intrepid Inner circle Silver Spring, MD 1178 Posts |
Ah, Pumpkinrot. Good choice. Certainly a topic that is worthy of 32 posts to describe. ;-)
But I also think a general discussion on tying an act together could be had here without disclosing any secrets. Something I'd enjoy hearing as well.
Bob
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bartleby Veteran user 361 Posts |
I am still new in my journey but I have cobbled together some advice from the experts here and I am working on something very similar, namely, a small Halloween show with invitation-only sitters.
Below is the approach I have taken. There are plenty of ways to handle this and many successful people here who do not follow the below at all. All I can say is this is what I have learned from others here and what I am doing... 1) Think of a full story - beginning to end - make that the focus of your evening. Not just a small background but an actual story. 2) Breakdown how the story will unfold over the evening. Will you tell it all in the beginning and then refer to parts over the hour? Or will you take the hour to tell the story? Block it out. 3) Although I may know some effects I want to use - build the night as if you will not have any effects or gaffes. Build it as if you have to entertain people, without any cheating, for an hour. That will make sure you know you have a good story, you have paced it out, and whatever rituals or experiments you do during the hour will be suitably enthralling. 4) When #1 to #3 is done you can consider where you might want to add an effect. Too little should be better than too much. Ensure you do not need the effect for a successful night. If it works, great, if not you don't want people to really know. 5) For me, the point of the show is to make them think something might have happened, and to do that I am taking the focus off me and onto the experiments - which they are helping me conduct. Some will have no gaffe or effect whatsoever, we will see what happens. In others I may have my "finger on the scale". This whole approach is more about a freaky experience than a spookshow. If you decide you want more of Disney's Haunted Castle (which is also very cool) then you should do the exact opposite of what I have recommended above. |
Terrormaster Regular user New England 139 Posts |
Thanks for the tips all. More story details are definitely a must and that's what I'm working on. This is definitely being set up as a freaky experience - I tend to avoid the campy Disney style stuff (see my Halloween display from prior years at Faegoria.com for an idea of what I do on the outside). But its going to be done as theatrical experiments that may or may not be tapping into historical events and possibly even real supernatural experience.
The other thing I forgot to mention is that the theme and story arc is designed for three Halloween seasons at which point we'll explore a new story/theme. So 2015/2016/2017 for Carcosa House story. Since essentially the same audience will attend each year I want to give them a new show each time but is tied all together. Here's what I'm thinking: 2015: Act 1 - Our investigation starts with a police file on the incident and story. The evening performance will center on the information gleaned from the file. 2016: Act 2 - In the interim between 2015-2016 I've tracked down the house and recovered a mysterious artifact from it. The evening will center around the artifact and the discoveries associated with it. 2017: Act 3 - This is the finale and I'm still working on ideas for this. Yes people will forget details between events but I'm thinking I can use that to my advantage. I might be breaking new ground here as I don't think anyone has designed their shows as a separate yet interconnected trilogy of shows. Heck, I might be setting my sights too high. But if I learned anything from my many years of Halloween haunting its that you plan at least two scenarios - worst case and best case. Your audience doesn't know what you have planned so if you do something different, drop something, or add something they will be oblivious because they only know what they have seen in the end. |
The Magic Cafe Forum Index » » The spooky, the mysterious...the bizarre! » » An Evening in Carcosa (help puttiEveryng together) (6 Likes) |
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