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Oregon School for the Deaf hosts inaugural "haunting" convention in Salem | statesmanjournal.com | Statesman Journal
Damien Brooksbank of Portland applied deft strokes of paint and layers of latex to the face of Dino Deaelfweald, slowly transforming the costumed belly dancer into a grimacing, half-skeletal ghoul.
“She’s a ghostal belly dancer, a banshee,” Brooksbank said.
Brooksbank and Deaelfweald are known as “haunters,” enthusiasts and professionals enthralled with the behind-the-scenes production of haunted houses.
The two were taking part of the inaugural West Coast Haunters Convention today in Salem.
The three-day event, which ends today, was held at the Oregon School Deaf and orchestrated by Ed Roberts, a dormitory counselor for the Oregon School for the Deaf. At least 200 people attended the convention.
Roberts also is the mastermind behind the school’s “Nightmare Factory,” an annual fall production that draws about 8,000 people a year and is the school’s biggest fundraiser.
Roberts has produced the show for 23 years, picking up expertise on the “haunting” industry and trade along the way.
“What you see up front is important, but it’s the technical stuff behind the show that supports it,” he said. “Without it in place, you wouldn’t have a really good show.”
Roberts has traveled to other haunting industry shows and has brought OSD students with him in the past. But due to tight travel budgets, Roberts said they had to forgo industry shows this year. So Roberts thought: why not bring the convention to the students?
One of the booth exhibitors was Dark Soldier Design, a makeup and theatrical design company run out of the home of Brooksbank and Claire Craig-Sheets, which specializes in all things grisly, grotesque and ghastly.
Brooksbank was glad to take part in a haunting convention in Oregon, especially since most of the industry shows are held on the East Coast, and occasionally, Las Vegas.
“There’s nothing on the West Coast,” he said.
Tennessee resident John Barrowman co-owns EFX-TEK, which specializes in animatronics, or the lifelike movement of robots and puppets for theme parks and movie productions.
Barrowman does many projects for Disney, and recently, Miley Cyrus’ birthday cake (described by Barrowman as an eight-foot diameter spectacle covered in strobe lights).
Barrowman said besides his work with the entertainment industry, he also wanted to bring cheaper electronics to anybody interested in Halloween effects.
“We also cater to the home haunters who want to Chevy Chase their home,” he said.
Roberts chuckled when he thought back to the very first show produced at the Oregon School for the Deaf.
It was about a five-minute tour that viewed an electric chair, a spider room, strobe lights, door with a keyhole where one would peep at an eyeball, a dining scene with people eating body parts, a camping room, a graveyard, kitchen scene and closet with moving clothing parts.
“It sounds really cheesy compared to what we do now,” he said.
Last fall’s “Nightmare Factory” took up almost 12,000 square feet of the space, which is below the boys’ dormitory. It had 40 rooms and took about half an hour to go through.
Robets said he’s always telling his students to be continual learners — after 23 years of haunting, there’s always more to discover.
“We’re a deaf school,” he said. ‘it doesn’t mean we’re different than anyone else.”
Now, Roberts is designing a model to teach other deaf schools.
At the convention, Eugene resident Paul L’Amoureaux, 27, took compliments on his garb: L’Amoureaux wore blood-stained, tattered clothes and donned a plastic mask with a long-nailed, gory finger jabbing him in one eye.
He was in the character of Jason Vorhees from “Friday the 13th.”
L’Amoureaux, a hobbyist haunter and full-time martial arts instructor, said he was interested in starting up his own haunted house and was thrilled to hear of the convention coming to Oregon.
“It’s nice to share to ideas,” he said.
His fiance, Kaitlin Olfson, carried L’Amoureaux’s machete for him.
Clad in convention street clothes, Olfson said she was willing to tag along with L’Amoureaux as long as she could teach him how to scuba.
Olfson said was pleased that everyone in the haunting industry were nice and hospitable, despite their scary appearances. But she gestured toward a booth filled with horror movie memorabilia and plastic heads frozen in gruesome faces.
“I don’t like that Chucky doll at all,” she said. “It scares the gravy out of me.”
Damien Brooksbank of Portland applied deft strokes of paint and layers of latex to the face of Dino Deaelfweald, slowly transforming the costumed belly dancer into a grimacing, half-skeletal ghoul.
“She’s a ghostal belly dancer, a banshee,” Brooksbank said.
Brooksbank and Deaelfweald are known as “haunters,” enthusiasts and professionals enthralled with the behind-the-scenes production of haunted houses.
The two were taking part of the inaugural West Coast Haunters Convention today in Salem.
The three-day event, which ends today, was held at the Oregon School Deaf and orchestrated by Ed Roberts, a dormitory counselor for the Oregon School for the Deaf. At least 200 people attended the convention.
Roberts also is the mastermind behind the school’s “Nightmare Factory,” an annual fall production that draws about 8,000 people a year and is the school’s biggest fundraiser.
Roberts has produced the show for 23 years, picking up expertise on the “haunting” industry and trade along the way.
“What you see up front is important, but it’s the technical stuff behind the show that supports it,” he said. “Without it in place, you wouldn’t have a really good show.”
Roberts has traveled to other haunting industry shows and has brought OSD students with him in the past. But due to tight travel budgets, Roberts said they had to forgo industry shows this year. So Roberts thought: why not bring the convention to the students?
One of the booth exhibitors was Dark Soldier Design, a makeup and theatrical design company run out of the home of Brooksbank and Claire Craig-Sheets, which specializes in all things grisly, grotesque and ghastly.
Brooksbank was glad to take part in a haunting convention in Oregon, especially since most of the industry shows are held on the East Coast, and occasionally, Las Vegas.
“There’s nothing on the West Coast,” he said.
Tennessee resident John Barrowman co-owns EFX-TEK, which specializes in animatronics, or the lifelike movement of robots and puppets for theme parks and movie productions.
Barrowman does many projects for Disney, and recently, Miley Cyrus’ birthday cake (described by Barrowman as an eight-foot diameter spectacle covered in strobe lights).
Barrowman said besides his work with the entertainment industry, he also wanted to bring cheaper electronics to anybody interested in Halloween effects.
“We also cater to the home haunters who want to Chevy Chase their home,” he said.
Roberts chuckled when he thought back to the very first show produced at the Oregon School for the Deaf.
It was about a five-minute tour that viewed an electric chair, a spider room, strobe lights, door with a keyhole where one would peep at an eyeball, a dining scene with people eating body parts, a camping room, a graveyard, kitchen scene and closet with moving clothing parts.
“It sounds really cheesy compared to what we do now,” he said.
Last fall’s “Nightmare Factory” took up almost 12,000 square feet of the space, which is below the boys’ dormitory. It had 40 rooms and took about half an hour to go through.
Robets said he’s always telling his students to be continual learners — after 23 years of haunting, there’s always more to discover.
“We’re a deaf school,” he said. ‘it doesn’t mean we’re different than anyone else.”
Now, Roberts is designing a model to teach other deaf schools.
At the convention, Eugene resident Paul L’Amoureaux, 27, took compliments on his garb: L’Amoureaux wore blood-stained, tattered clothes and donned a plastic mask with a long-nailed, gory finger jabbing him in one eye.
He was in the character of Jason Vorhees from “Friday the 13th.”
L’Amoureaux, a hobbyist haunter and full-time martial arts instructor, said he was interested in starting up his own haunted house and was thrilled to hear of the convention coming to Oregon.
“It’s nice to share to ideas,” he said.
His fiance, Kaitlin Olfson, carried L’Amoureaux’s machete for him.
Clad in convention street clothes, Olfson said she was willing to tag along with L’Amoureaux as long as she could teach him how to scuba.
Olfson said was pleased that everyone in the haunting industry were nice and hospitable, despite their scary appearances. But she gestured toward a booth filled with horror movie memorabilia and plastic heads frozen in gruesome faces.
“I don’t like that Chucky doll at all,” she said. “It scares the gravy out of me.”