Though I cannot afford to build or run an actual dark ride, nor even set up a Halloween yard (my wife and I live in an apartment), I have wanted to create a dark ride inspired by Disney’s Haunted Mansion since I was about eight years old. My kid sister and I used to create “rides” in our backyard — complete with fully operational animatronic figures, powered by record players, audio on cassettes, and black light effects — which we pushed neighborhood kids through in a wheel barrow at 25 cents a head.
I finally determined a way, however, to bring my own dark ride ideas to life…
I am currently creating a haunted house theme in miniature, via CGI and models, which I am filming to demonstrate how the actual attraction might play out. I have created several fully operational miniature scenes from a concept/script that I came up with, and filmed them with a full soundtrack. Check it out…
So cool!!!
This is so awesome.
This is the coolest, and makes me want to go back in time and step up my little kid games with my brother. I can’t believe you were making your own dark rides since childhood!
Many thanks to those of you who approve of my project…just so you know, each of the scenes/effects depicted in the video can be created ‘full scale’ in real life for next to NOTHING…if you see a sequence you like which you would be interested in creating for real, say for a Halloween display…just post about it here, or drop me a line ([email protected]) and I would be more than happy to get you the details on how to make it happen…;)
By the way, here is a short cut link to the POV ‘ride’ video so far (I still have two scenes left to build and film for the project to be finished…)
It looks great and I’m definitely going to go read about what you plan for the last scenes. Would have terrified me as a child and still rather creeps me out. I hope at some point in time you can build this on a full scale!
This is mega impressive and creative. Disney should give you a job. I LOVE when people get really into their “thing” and seeing what can be dreamt up and done! Good for you!
For those of you who might be interested, the Official Daark Valley Orphanage website contains much more information, Behind the Scenes shots of the miniature sets and FX, Making of Videos and Faux Marketing items (based on Disney’s Haunted Mansion)…let me know what you think if you stop on by…;)
http://kkarstens.wix.com/daarkvalleyorphanage