Okay, this'll probably be my last post for HHN unless something crazy happens. :P
Last night was our preview (practice) night to scare the Universal employees and their one guest that they were allowed to bring in.
I will admit that I was alittle skeptical of our scarezone until I finally got to see what it was like with people walking through it. It was AMAZING! We only had about 70% of our effects working the entire night and it was still pretty f'in awesome.
As soon as our coordinator opened the door and we ran out I was in character right away, which is what I was most worried about during rehearsals, is how quickly I could grasp with the whole thing with guests around us, especially since our street is narrow.
About midway through my first set, a special effects guy came out and set up a CO2 Machine Gun near my side of the area that I work, beside a giant Artillery Cannon. So, my luck struck again and I was the one getting to fire this baby, and it was actually pretty loud. This just tossed me more into character as I could now hide behind the sandbags surrounding the artillery, hunker down, and pop out to fire on the guests that enter the street. Sounds so wrong, but feels so right!
With all the sounds, music, explosions, screaming, etc.. this all wraps it all up for an awesome experience. Kinda makes you feel like you are in a small little war scene from Private Ryan.. except instead of mostly enemy surrounding you.. it's civilians. :P
As for reactions.. they were great. When I knew a crowd of folks saw where I was already, but never saw the gun go off, I'd just sit there and kinda scan with my gun, like I'm scanning out in the distance for enemy, paying the people no mind as they start to walk by me. And then as they get close, I'd snap-turn at them and **bapbapbapbap!**. They usually freak out, "OMG!! That thing is real!!" haha.. or I'd hide down behind the sandbags and then just pop up to shoot.
I had a couple times where people took a crapload of pictures of me.. I gotta admit, seeing an undead zombie soldier firing a gun beside a cannon, behind a bunch of sandbags and surrounded by ammo boxes makes a GREAT picture.. but the unfortunate thing is.. people aren't spose to stand around doing that because it distracts us, and takes away from the scares. I posed in character with my gun aimed at one person's camera, and then EVERYONE tried to start a line to take pictures with me.. I was like, "OH hell no" and then laid back down behind my sandbags. They got all pissed and then eventually went away.
There's so many methods to scare there, I love it.. I don't even have to hold the gun the whole time either which is great if I just wannah go out and kinda run around my little zone I'm limited to on that end of the street.
But the gun in general is a great thing to have at the front of the street as it attracts people into the street.
I have no problem with them keeping it there for the duration of the entire event. ;)
But things change and they could take it away if something stupid happens, or they decide to change something or another for whatever reason.
But overall, this is gonna be a fun Horror Nights for my first one.