Media “Boo Camp” at Universal Studios – Learning to be a Scare Actor

October 8, 2009 Denise

Hi everyone!

Jim Hill was looking for someone to send to "Media Boo Camp" at Universal's Halloween Horror Nights, and it turns out that I was available (apprehensive, but available!) Jeff Lange was going to do the photos/video, and I was to be made up as a Scare-Actor.

The sign below points towards the Blue Man Group building, where we met for the Boo Camp. There were probably 25 or so media there, though only half or so were actually getting made up (the rest were shooting photos and video). You can find video of my experience as well!

Michael Roddy, Creative Director for the Halloween Horror Nights spoke to us. He explained about the 2009 Halloween Horror Nights that "we wanted to bring the backlot of Universal Studios to life in ways we've never done before, and that was with film properties". Universal went to Lion's Gate for the property of "Saw", to their own Universal for "Wolfman", and the list goes on. One upcoming film, "Cirque du Freak" is part of the Horror Nights Experience. Roddy also pumped us up for our Boo Camp by saying that it wasn't to be a passive experience, and that the fun of scaring someone as a kid – a grandparent or otherwise, that the feeling (of scaring someone) "doesn't change".

After having dinner (sandwiches) and getting an idea of what our night would be like, we went in groups of 4 or 5 to the makeup chairs. I was still a little nervous, but we only were to spend an hour total in the Scare Zone, in half hour increments with a 15 minute break.

Everyone in our group was going into a Scare Zone area called Containment, where we were to be flesh-eating zombies. We all had the same type of makeup on, I found it very minimal and it only took maybe 10 – 15 minutes to be put on. The makeup artists who worked on me had done previous Horror Nights, one of them does work for many other companies as well.