|
*Click on pictures to enlarge and see more detail!** |
|
 |
|
SATURDAY
9/17/05: This is a shot of
the arena before we start putting up walls ..... it was just drug and
leveled out. These stalls usually aren't used during the
year, so they are getting gutted and prepped for decoration. The
first stall on the left will be the SWAMP ROOM. From there you
will go into the DOT ROOM (2nd stall), and then travel into the
OVERHEAD REACHER ROOM. The boards are taken out of
that 3rd stall so people will need to duck to get out of this room.
Then they will travel by the LIVE DRAGONS (Rusty and Fluffy --- they
kinda look like dragons at night :o) |
|
|
|
 |
|
SUNDAY 9/18/05:
Here we go! Main braces are attached to the beams in the rafters.
From these beams we will attach other 2x4's to make the 13 rooms and dark
hallways. You can see in these pics that we've already put
the carpeting down in the BLOODY BRIDE room and the EVIL CLOWN
room. We've also set up the bunk beds in the EVIL CLOWN
room (is the clown on the top bunk
... or the bottom .... or is he across the room ..... OR are there two of
them?!?! ) Click on the
pics and they'll enlarge so you can see more detail. |
|
|
|
 |
|
TUESDAY 9/20/05:
Grandma and I worked on getting
black sheeting hung around the perimeter of the arena to start to block out
light. Got the east wall finished today plus I had time to
paint a big sign to go out by the road. We already have
lookie - lous driving by watching our progress .... might as well tell them
when we're open!! |
|
|
| |
| |
| |
|
*********************************************************** |
| FRIDAY 9/23/05:
Well
folks, nothing got done today on the haunt. I cleaned the
house (which had not been done in a while!! :o) I mowed the yard
and cleaned the barn to get ready for our massive building party tomorrow.
We also took some time off and took a road trip down to
FRIGHTMARE FOREST in Cedar
Rapids. It was SO SCARY!!! We went
with Abbie and Sam and had a GREAT time. We all
HIGHLY RECOMMEND everyone in the area visit Ian and the great group of
people in southern Iowa that have worked so hard to put this super scary
haunt together!! Tell 'em -- "The Dragon's Eye sent
ya!
|
|
*********************************************************** |
|
SATURDAY
9/24/05: This
is the big day!! Our first official "Building Party"!!
We can't thank everybody enough for coming over and taking time out
of their busy schedules to help us out.
THANK YOU TO: Erik, Katy, Austin,
Vanessa, Isaac, Dan, Erin, Kim, John, Brandon, Mike, Barb, Colton,
Sean, and Levi. Krystle, Russ and I are forever
in your debt --- this is a HUGE job and you all made it so much
easier!! See our progress
below --
|
 |
| Vanessa, Krystle, and Katy work on
sheeting the stalls in the main barn. One stall will house the
CRANK GHOST and the cubby hole between stalls will be where
LOTHAR the two headed dragon sits. |
  |
| Katy and Austin work on burying the
mattress in the SWAMP ROOM. They did such a good
job! Everytime we walked in there we heard -- "Oh Sh*t!"
because people kept forgetting it was in there!!
It really does feel like you're walking in a swamp! |
 
   |
| The walls are slowly going up
....each 2x4 ties to an overhead beam in the rafters and from there
the sub walls are built ... it's hard to remember where everything
is supposed to be. There was more than one time
that we accidentally boarded up a doorway! |
 |
| Dan and Erin work on the first dark
hallway .... this could be a scary area (we call it a 'pressure
point') where people may hit the walls pretty hard because they're
so scared. We reinforce these 'pressure points'
with extra cardboard and sometimes plywood to keep our visitors from
breaking through the sheeting. |
  
 |
| John and Russ continue to work on
walls .... |
 |
| Erik takes a break from building
walls to go work on our electrical animatronics.
He gets the crank ghost set up and working and starts working on the
lightning and thunder. |
 |
| The Jacobs family lends a hand
putting walls together. Oops -- looks like Mike is a
little upset at Sean! |
 |
| Barb, Kim, Vanessa, Brandon, and
Krystle try to keep up with the wall builders by stapling up
sheeting along the dark passages. |
 |
| Issac poses in front of the first
dark hallway after it's completed...ooooooo- it looks dark in
there!!! |
 
 |
| Dan and Erin did a great job
building the OVERHEAD REACHER platform!
Vanessa has already got 'dibs' on being that monster at the haunted
barn. Here she is up on her evil perch.
She'll have an airzooka up there and some bloody arms and legs that
she'll lower down on unsuspecting victims below!! There
are some other shots she took from the rafters looking down on the
dark mazes. |
 |
| ...and still more walls to put up
... are we done yet?! |
 |
| Come on, Colton --- you can't be
afraid of the little dog, Buddy -- Are you?! |
 |
| Boy, it looks like a Halloween
tornado went through the barn today!! |
 |
| The owner of Castle Reynstone sits
and surveys our progress for the day. Time to stop
working and go get ready for the Frightmares Costume Party tonight
in Waterloo!! |
|
|
|
*********************************************************** |
|
Saturday night, after a
long day of building, we all dressed up and went over to Waterloo to
FRIGHTMARES COSTUME PARTY at the Cattle Congress Fairgrounds.
(I forgot my digital camera so
I bought one of those cheapy disposable ones and most of the pictures
didn't come out because it was so dark)
Kim and John were dressed as
a sexy witch and Elvis; Barb was a red devil, Mike
was a horned demon, Colton was Jason, Sean
was Dr. Death, and Levi was a skeleton; Russ
was an evil clown, Krystle was a sexy black cat, and
Kelly (me) was a vampire lady; Erik was a
living skeleton, Katy was the KISS demon, Vanessa
was a sexy witch with feathers, Austin was a black demon,
and Isaac was the green monster. (sorry guys -- I
wish more pics would have come out!! Everybody looked really
neat!!)
Click on any picture
below to enlarge! |
|
 |
|
*********************************************************** |
|
| TUESDAY
9/27/05: Lots
more decorating is getting done inside now that all the walls are
up.
|
|
 |
|
The past three days we've been working on the
EVIL CLOWN ROOM ...
can you find six
dogs in the last picture? |
|
 |
|
We worked some more
on the BLOODY BRIDE room....(This
is what you'll see after exiting that room ...aren't they FREAKY!?) |
|
 |
|
The BUTCHER ROOM
is starting to come together.... |
|
 |
|
We decorated the
window of the WOOD CELLAR store located in Downtown Hampton.
They are one of our biggest supporters. Thanks so
much for letting us use your window again this Halloween Season!!
The Wizard, some bloody arms and legs, a burning cauldron, a witch,
a big hairy spider, some tombstones and a bunch of skulls beckon
people to come to THE DRAGON'S EYE HAUNTED BARN.
|
|
|
|
SATURDAY 10/7/05:
Lots more activity today. Erik brought a van-full of helpers
to put the finishing touches on the interior of the haunt.
We had Erik, Vanessa, Austin, Caitlyn, Alexis, Bobbie, Bryce, and Tyke
inside working on walls, decorations, cleaning, etc.
The place looks AMAZING!! I can't take anymore pics inside
cuz it's way too dark in there now, but trust me ---- the girls and guys
did a super job making it even MORE scary than it was before!! (When
you go in, see if you can find the writing --- "Here's Johnny!" or "Call
1-515-666-DEAD" -- Those girls are a little twisted -- IT'S GREAT!!) |
|
 |
|
(Pictured above from right - Alexis, Bobbie, Tyke, Austin, Bryce,
Caitlyn, and Vanessa -- All from Jewell, Iowa) |
 |
| The guys
(Russ and Erik) worked on setting up the front castle facade. -- No more
KnR Arabians! Walla ..... now it's Castle Reynstone!! |
 |
| Tyke and
Erik fix the red demon to the roof so he can overlook all the visitors
coming in. |
|
After
this weekend, we assessed the entire haunt and made a list of everything that
wasn't just right ..... Lighting (does a
green light or a red light look better?? Every room has different lighting to
enhance that particular scene. Too much light or the wrong light can
ruin a set.), Scenes (is
this really scary?? or do we need something more? Each room is a different
set and is unique. We want everyone to be scared a little
differently in every room they go through),
secret passageways (will
our monsters be able to freely pass through the arena without problems? We
need to maximize our 'scares' so we want to be able to utilize our actors as
much as posible allowing them to scare in more than one location),
places that were too dark or not dark enough
(again, lighting is everything ... too dark and
you won't be able to see the set and decorations ... too light and it isn't
scary anymore. This is probably the trickiest part of setting this whole
thing up).... it seems like we're
almost finished but there's always room for improvements!
Boy,
this is sure a lot of work when you sit down and actually look back at what
we've all put together in the last month. That's one of the reasons
I wanted to put this 'building diary' together. We want
everyone to remember -- we're doing all of this for the people in North Central
Iowa to enjoy. We all love Halloween and want to share our
scares with you. It looks like we're barely going to break
even again this year with all of the money we all have invested in this.
We were hoping that this year we might make a profit so we could donate it to a
few local charities. We still have our fingers crossed -- if the
word gets out, maybe it'll happen this year! I have to thank all of
our great sponsors and volunteers who help us put this together (click
here to see more about our sponsors). Without you guys,
this wouldn't be possible. It costs an awful lot of money to build these props
and optical illusions. Plus it takes an inordinate
amount of time to build this monstrosity and form this event for only seven days
of fun. Lots of people ask us why we go to this much work and
spend all this money each year ..... BECAUSE WE LOVE HALLOWEEN and WE LOVE
HEARING PEOPLE SCREAM and SEEING PEOPLE CRY (all in fun, of course!!) When
you travel through the barn this year, keep in mind all of the work these people
have done to bring this show to you. Give them a hug or shake their hand
and thank them. Monsters need love and appreciation, too!
Maybe if we all show them how much we appreciate them, they'll all come back and
scare us next year!! :o)
