If you’ve been following the blog, you would know that we have been looking at projection haunting a lot lately.  First I spoke with Hallowindow’s Mark Gervais, where he hinted at a release date for Hallowindow IV.  Then I spoke with Dave Bates of the Bates Haunt, one of the founding father’s if you will, of projection haunting.  He discussed his Haunted Mansion-esque style.  You can read both interviews here:

Part One – Hallowindow
Part Two – Bates Haunt

In the third and last installment of this series, I spoke with Andrew Grant, creator of Scaremation, an up and coming window animation maker, who has a very different approach to his work.  Check out this video of his animations, from his very own yard haunt:

Grant is yet another Canadian and a member of the Ontario Haunter’s Club, along with yours truly.  Read my interview with him:

Haunt on the Hill: With other people out there selling window projection DVD’s for Halloween, you’re the newbie.  Why did you want to get into this?

Scaremation: Being obsessed with Halloween, I was trying to think of a way to get more deeply involved in the business side of it.  I was gathering information about different aspects of the industry when someone said the obvious to me,  “Why don’t you just do what you already do for a living?”, which is animation.

Because I animate all day every day, I admittedly didn’t like to think about it in the little spare time I had. That’s one of the reasons I love building Halloween props as it is visceral and I get to use power tools.

HotH: What makes yours different?

Scare: Many folks have emailed me asking why I would bother when they can just buy Hallo-window products. I LOVE Mark’s stuff as he has a cool style and really nice animation timing, but I wanted something that looked a bit different.  

We are offering up interior environments which are kinda cool, judging from the reaction of kids last year. Kids kept asking if they could come inside to “see the room with the funny people in it”.   (I hope they meant the projected room and not our real kitchen with our friends in it. LOL).  Within the environment we have the freedom to go to black now and again to show other animation to give it variety. 

We also questioned how intense the animation would be as we like the whimsical aspect of Victorian “Haunted Mansion” style , but also some nasty and bloody work. Trying to find that balance to keep it sinister. 

HotH: Are your DVD’s up for sale yet and if so where can we get them?

Scare: Not as of yet which is also frustrating for us. Being artistically picky (and having crazy production day jobs and family raising) we are creating, refining, sometimes wholly rejecting different techniques. These all of course take time to R&D. We know we are getting real tight for deadlines this year but having donwloadable content will help folks get it in their hands immediately. A physical DVD will most likely still be an option for those that want it.  

HotH: Would you ever do custom DVD’s if people had something specific that they wanted?

Scare: We are developing some techniques right now that could give haunters the ability  to customize our animation themselves to suit their individual haunts , or at the very least allow folks to work with us in an affordable way to make something custom.  I know that sounds “mysterious” but it could be something very cool.  Will keep that info up to date on the blog. That might not be in a saleable form this year but I suspect we will be testing it for my own front lawn to work out the kinks and see reactions.  

If folks had something crazy in mind we are open to all suggestions.  Ideas and budgets are usually all over the map but don’t be afraid to ask.  Even if a pro-haunt needed something big I have a network of local former co-workers and we all have feature film VFX experience. 

 HotH: Anything else we should know about your projections?

Scare: We hope that once we get them out there folks just enjoy them!  Its great to have variety to choose from , depending on the style of the haunt.  

Once again, big thanks to Mark Gervais, Dave Bates, and Andrew Grant!  Check back on Monday for another exciting update about props I have been working on and general haunt news!  And a reminder that if you have a site, product, business, etc… that you want me to feature, feel free to contact me via the “contact” page on this site.

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