JustJimAZ

I present you with some excerpts from Austin Kleon's new book, ""How to Steal Like an Artist". Don't we all "steal" ideas, inspiration, techniques wherever we can find them?

Whether you think of yourself as an artist or not, it's hard for me to see haunters as anything else. The designing and construction of props seems as artistic a pursuit as sculpting. Even those who don't build anything design their show as carefully as any producer. Scare acting ...

There's a lot going on in the world.

So many places and cultures that explore themes similar to what we as haunters explore with our own little subculture. La Isla De las Munecas is a fine example.


It began as a haunt in the first sense of ...

This is a little video made by some people attending a private dinner with Ray Bradbury at Disneyland on Halloween 2007. How amazing would it have been to get invited to THAT party?
Bradbury talks a bit about his extraordinary life, and of course about the Halloween Tree. Disneyland now has a real oak tree that is the official Halloween Tree with a dedication plaque and appropriate decorations.

I hope you enjoy this. I know I did.
http://youtu.be/L6ndeK9saNs
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I admit I never heard of this until ShellHawk mentioned it on HauntCast.
It does not appear to be available on DVD at any price, but it is available on YouTube. My kids loved it, and I did too. It is a classic story explaining some of the meaning of our beloved holiday as it tells the story of some children fighting and sacrificing to save their friend.



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The last time I wrote of the use of light and shadow, it was specifically about Carl Dreyer's "Vampyr". In that film, shadows act of their own accord - sometime independently of the objects casting them, and sometimes with no original objects at all! It just seemed like such a great idea to me...
Anyway, I got to thinking about the other ways old B&W directors had to use light and shadow to create effects. They had no computers, of course, but they also could not simply ...