This is day 41 of our 61-day Hauntathon counting down Halloween. Julia with Gantom Lighting discusses dynamic lighting in your haunt, and how it can effectively elevate your haunt.
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Julia: Hey guys, it’s Julia with Gantom Lighting and Controls, and to celebrate the countdown to Halloween, I’m here to share some dynamic lighting tips and tricks. Whether you’re a seasoned professional or are taking a stab at lighting your own haunt for the first time, these are some great ways to get the most mileage out of your lighting looks. Today’s tip, bright can be just as unsettling as dark, if you do it right.
Sudden Bright Lights Can Elevate the Scare Experience
Julia: It’s pretty common to disorient a guest by shrouding them in darkness, but suddenly transitioning them into very bright spaces after very dark spaces can be just as jarring. Play with dynamic light level changes, especially if you have scenic or makeup artistry you want to show off. You could do this with strobe effects, of course, or a lightning crash, or by using doors and blackout curtains to separate spaces with dramatically different lighting levels. If you’ve slowly dimmed the lights and really gotten your guests used to the low light, sudden bright spaces can be especially powerful and pretty uncomfortable, right before you plunge them back Into Darkness of course.
Example of Bright Light Being Disorienting
Julia: Probably one of my favorite examples of this effect is at Knott’s Scary Farm at Paranormal, Inc. This is the added scene from, I believe 2018, someone will Fact Check me on that. They created a flashback moment toward the end, which was lit like a hospital, so it was very bright. I’ve never been so confused or skeptical of the actors in the room with me. It was so unexpected, and it totally threw me off. While the rewrite ability may be a little lower on a surprise like this, it definitely left a lasting impression on me.
Actor Held Bright Lights Create Spot Distractions
Julia: Giving actors bright lights to fire at will is another great way to use these sudden bright looks in an unexpected way. Whether it’s a headlamp or a wearable face light, you can definitely get the guest’s adrenaline up by making these moments come out of total darkness around them. It is definitely worth trying some of these bright light tricks at your experience, especially if you are refurbishing an older experience and want to add some new components.
Let me know how that goes. Thanks for tuning in and I’ll catch you next time on the Haunted Attractions network.
