Thread: When actors fail?

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For those of you who hire or get volunteer actors for your haunts, how do you make sure you get GOOD actors? do you interview them yourselves or do they go to some kind of "ghoul school" to learn how to be scary? Because in my humble opinion, a haunt with actors can't just be a bunch of kids running around screaming, like in this video here>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvAQ4...eature=related To me, that was a perfect example of a haunt that has soooo much potential if they would get better actors. SO yeah, original question stands, how do you find actors that are decent when it comes to the art of scaring?

For a home haunt, you pretty much have to take what you get in terms of talent, and be grateful for it. I agree that you don't want a bunch of kids running around screaming and yelling boo, but you can't have too high of expectations when it comes to talent. We have always used teenagers, friends of our kids, who absolutley love to help out, and they do a pretty decent job. We make sure everyone knows their place and what kind of scare they're delivering. We go over basic rules and try to put everyone where they "fit" the best. No one has any acting/scaring lessons but instead we let them come up with their own style. We do a pre-haunt party on Halloween and go over everything for the helpers, and to date this has worked wel. My advice is to avoid using young kids if you can. They lack the self control and maturity to do a good job and also to handle potential problems. Older teens and young adults are great, IMO if you know any that like to do that sort of thing.

That's easy...you just have to break them out of the local insane asylum

I have a litmus test for actors... If they can scare the hell out of me in a place I'm familiar with they are a good actor and deserve to be in the Haunt... Needless to say. I'm the only actor in my Haunt. LOL

One of the biggest haunt where I live, I won't say the name (cough S.....f....) it's very expensive and have the worst actors posible. Teens simply screaming randomly, no makeup, no fake blood or costumes, just regular teenagers looking walking around(they are suppose to be zombies), we couln't tell who was a "actor" and a client. Been there many times in my life, always getting more and more expensive, and crappier. The only fun thing there is the tractor ride, but at 30$ a head, forget it!

Train them. thats the best way to make them better, tell them what you want them to do or be like and then allow them to go for that goal. I sell actor training DVD's on my website, but just those are not enough. Know your actors names- that seems common knowledge but so many owners dont even know the names of who works for them, in you wont invest in them well enough to learn their name then what are they going to be willing to invest in you?
www.stiltbeaststudios.com is my site.

Originally Posted by Allen H

Train them. thats the best way to make them better, tell them what you want them to do or be like and then allow them to go for that goal. I sell actor training DVD's on my website, but just those are not enough. Know your actors names- that seems common knowledge but so many owners dont even know the names of who works for them, in you wont invest in them well enough to learn their name then what are they going to be willing to invest in you?
www.stiltbeaststudios.com is my site.

I agree with Allen......I saw a LOT of potential talent in the video!

I couldn't sit through the entire thing, but, yeah... Had potential

Wow, that is local to me, and yeah, they really stink. I'm glad I never went to Field of Screams haunt. I only made it through less than three minutes, but yes, those "actors" stink on ice. And what is up with the dirty undies? Eww.

Lots of toilet humor, lots of screaming in the face and poor timing- and unrealistic expectations from the actors- almost all of that can be fixed with training. Lackluster and young yes, but they could improve. It disturbs me that the oldest one there appears to be 15. You should mix the ages up a bit more.