On TV last October,Redo at Thrillvania

[Dan Faupel]

Thanks Larry...much appreciated! I'll be at TW...wouldn't miss it...will be my 15th consecutive TW show.

I know what you mean..."best" is in the eye of the beholder. We did several things that had never been done in a 3D haunt, including 3D video and some other innovative practical effects that turned out sweet in the 3D. I also came up with a new audio concept for them that has never been done in ANY haunt. I applied some of these things to two other 3D attractions I worked on last year also. Another thing I did that I really think a lot of people miss out on with 3D shows, was to design it for scares first, 3D gimmicks second. So many 3D haunts I see are not that scary, but Cassandra's is over the top.

I'll look for Darkness tour info on the TW site to see how much it is...I would love to go, but don't know if I'll be able to afford it or not yet on top of the big expense of the show. I would really like to see what you have done with the Lemp also...as you know, back in the day, the original Haunted Caverns of the Lemp Brewery was one of the haunts that I grew up in. Hopefully you are doing it justice!

[Greg Chrise]

3D Music, with polarized Ear muffs? Or old school where one ear muff is red and the other ear muff is blue?

[drfrightner]

Dan,

As for Lemp... well I would say its better than the original in terms of props and stuff but its NOT great ... YET! As you know the atmophere in there is really second to NO HAUNT probably in the country.

You coudln't buy that atmosphere if you wanted to its just so awesome!

I take NO credit for the location ... LOL!

Lemp is a haunt we plan on doing a lot with before Halloween 2011 just NOT before this year show because we just put way too much effort into Darkness AGAIN!

I can only say this The Darkness and Terror VIsions are two of the best in the field you couldn't find but a handful of haunts that could match either for what they are especially in terms of theming and effects.

We have poured and I think I got this right... about ONE MILLION dollars into the attractions over the last three TW shows... that figure doesn't even include building the new building which was another $700,000.00.

So if you haven't seen it over the past three years you haven't seen anything... its like Disney World in here now.

This show and the pressure of this show is good and bad... good because it pushes you to push the envolope to show exactly what you can do, what other could do and really help this industry to see there is endless possibilites.

Bad because its been a money pit, it takes advantage of my worst foe...spending money on doing stuff I don't need. I can't help myself, I just keep thinking of another thing we can do! Its also bad because its very very very stressful knowing everyone in the industry is going to knit pick the place to death and you just don't want anything going wrong.

So you should come without a doubt!

Lastly as for 3D Haunts... I think our haunt is built for scares it has plenty plus the theme alone is scary. People hate clowns. Additionally we have all sorts of audio effects in the attractions which include triggered audio for actors to make the actors look like they are saying things like a clown. We have done all sorts of video effects in our haunts before anyone has ever done so... we did all that CGI stuff with Spiderman and got hooked on video effects, now it seems like some people have made whole business out of selling video effects.

We have about 50 video illusions CGI effects in our collection probably about 200,000 worth ... we use it here in there in our haunts but we started doing that back in or around 2000. We use a lot of that stuff for our attractions we build but inside The Darkness we are using I think... 10 or so maybe. Not sure. We talked about having Kip make us one for Terror Visions with something squirting water on you...maybe later.

I don't know what you did but I'm sure it was cool.

When I get a chance I will watch your video.

Again hope you come out to see the event. Terror Visions visually is overwhelming!!!! There is NOT an inch that isn't themed and what we've done this year with the art is crazy. Come on out!

Larry