It was the time of the year–spooky season! As a tradition, the student council hosted our annual haunted house, where students literally…paid to get scared..? Jokes aside, although the StuCo secretary, I am one of the creators when it comes to artistically engaged activities. With that said, one of my major CAS experience was setting up the haunted house along with our Head of Design Sandy! This would be seen as a spontaneous act of CAS since I did not necessarily follow all the CAS steps. In other words, I did not start my experience with researching and planning. Instead, the experience mostly involved taking action.
After our head of design sketched out the haunted house, we started creating the props. One of my proudest creations would be the three doors we created. Although it looks like three simple doors, the progress involved much more. First off, we needed to cut out the cardboard and cut out the shape of the door from it. Next, we folded the doors in order to make it openable
like an actual door. Reinforcement was especially crucial since we cardboard is pretty fragile and could be broken easily. After cutting, we simply painted the doors with acrylic paint with the base color of white and a small pinch of gray. Then with hands, we wrote the words “not scary at all,” “scary,” and “very scary” on the doors. Finally, I created the doorknobs by stacking and gluing several layers of cardboards together and by painting them brown with a touch of gold to create the texture of wood. To add some final touches, I decided to add on the shades of rectangles on to the doors in order to make them more realistic and delicate.
Aside from the doors, several other props, including creepy dolls, were all handcrafted by us StuCo members. On the actual day of the haunted house, make-up was definitely the hero of the day. I never considered myself a makeup artist; however, I decided to be a risktaker and tried my best to do a Pennywise makeup on one of the scarers! Although the process was not long, I did do some research and preparation
for this part of my experience as I needed to know what does Pennywise looks like and how to capture its expression in a realistic way. Before actually doing the makeup, I “prepared” by observing how other members did it for the first shift of scarers and tried my best to grasp the impression of Pennywise: evil, mysterious, with a pinch of disturbance. The makeup process was quite anxious for me since I am the type of person who worries too much about the fine details. However, I eventually found my courage to draw the stroke down Jonathan’s (the scarer’s) face. I found my determination and finished the makeup, though I must admit I would not have been able to do it if it weren’t because of time pressure.
The haunted house itself is a creation of art, I would shamelessly say. It made me realized how sometimes creativity and practicality cannot co-exist easily. For instance, when making the doors, I realized how the doors, due to the fragility of cardboard, could not really be used in the haunted house well. This allowed me to realize how it is crucial to think on the spot and solve the problems at hand. In the end, it is essential to find a balance between practicality and creativity. And I can proudly say that StuCo did it this time!