Aduro - A New Beginning
Day 2
Behind the Scenes for Fright Night

after monitoring the situation (well what can u monitor when u're not out there in the field?) for a while i decided that everything had stabilised after the logistics' treasure hunt had been carried out, and so i headed for Chalet K, location for FN.

i got xinyi and wanchee to help me bring the stuff for FN over. quite a lot of stuff, amounting to about 3 boxes' worth.

firstly we placed black cloth, trashbags, and even a collage made from magazines on the windows to block any light out and to prevent any freshies from staring inside. next we went from station to station and then set up the scene accordingly.

xinyi and wanchee were pros in taking charge of the situation, i could even stand by and not lift a finger. apparently there were people who really read my program proposals. *touched*

some things i wanted to share about fright night: according to my friend, there are 8 classes of FN/trustwalk as observed by professional companies:

1) (freshies) walk around a known area, blindfolded, form a line, put hands on the shoulders of the person in front of you, with people guiding along the way.

2) walk around a known area, blindfolded, form a line, put hands on the shoulders of the person in front of you, first person leads the way.

3) walk around a known area, blindfolded, alone

4) walk around an unknown area, not blindfolded, in a group

5) walk around an unknown area, not blindfolded, individually

6) walk around an unknown area, not blindfolded, with actors scaring them

7) walk around not blindfolded in a cemetary

8) walk around not blindfolded in a cemetary with actors.

well i guess FN falls under category 6.

anyway. we employed two things i call "psychological fear" and "shock tactics". the former was to let you "scare yourself". after all, your imagination can get the better of you when you're in a creepy place and you know that you're gonna be scared shitless. this sets up shock tactics which will scare the person shitless: shock tactics: a sudden, shocking feeling from an actor which will probably rush the adrenaline and BP of the freshie way up high.

the first part of FN was a lonely walk without actors (initally we planned for them to walk to Chalet K without help; in the end we gave them a guide - zhiwei) to the chalet, round the chalet where there were these huge hedges surrounding the chalet and no one knows what lurks within; and then into the house via the back door.

first station: wee ping as the maid. dressed in black and with a frightening white face, she got about 2 or 3 out of 14 groups breaking down here, and they had to be taken off. they were saying that she was so professional, she didn't even flinch when those guys were trying to make fun of her. even when the freshies were asking to leave and stop the game, she used that same "ghostly" tone to talk to them. very good.

second station: the living room. not much scaring from here onwards - we concentrated on "task based" objectives. basically they had to ask the family to dinner and drink some fruitade at the dining table which was spiked with centipedes (shannon's idea). then they went up.

basically, the freshies have to find their way out of the house by collecting their names of the family. gives the "addams family" thing. the first letters of the family will make up the camp name, Aduro.

third station: xinyi and yijiang. they were supposed to find her love letter or something in order to know her name. prob they can't find. so alt plan was to have them bandage yijiang who is lying motionless on the floor. when the poor fella who is bandaging is almost done yj will suddenly scream and scare her shitless. shock tactics. both of them are good, esp yj, i didn't know he can act so well.

here the freshies split up, two of them goes into one room (Group 1), and two the other room (Group 2).

4th station (Group 1): xiuting was there as the Little Girl, bouncing on the bed. she wanted the freshies to play with her and bring her 3 toys. ok.. fine but then when finding one of the toys wanqi will come out from under the cupboard and scare them.

we combined both beds so xiuting could have a double bed to jump around, and we hid wanqi under the dressing table. we put blankets with pillows over the clotheshanger to make them think that someone could be hiding there. i reckoned they will either check under the bed, which is quite hard for the person hiding there to scare them, or the clotheshanger area, since it's so conspicuous.

5th station (Group 2): the other pair of freshies will then move to the area where there is an unwed mother (originally supposed to be xuanwei but i dunno changed to who) asking the freshies to pose with the baby (a doll) , and she takes a picture of them. then while they're at it, agnes will ambush them from behind.
we placed a cupboard suspiciously facing the door to supposedly hide agnes there. there was also a dark corner which was shadowed by the cupboard, enough for a person to hide there.
think some freshies saw agnes coming out from the bed. haha. too bad.

6th station (Group 2): the pair of freshies then proceed to the toilet. there are no actors there. they are supposed to write the chinese word "kill" with lipstick on their cheeks, which was written on lipstick on the toilet sink's mirror. i thought this station is darn creepy since there is no one in this room, the actors also bloodstained the shower area with lipstick-stained tissue and etc. but apparently one freshie said that the station wasn't scary at all! cos there were no hiding places. well.

7th station (both groups): all 4 freshies will proceed to one room where they will have to find the last clue. the two huilings were here (ok, huilin and huiling) and they were creepy. haha. we placed a manikin head (from my sister) with two pillows and covered the whole thing so we made like it was a person sleeping, and xiuting came up with this excellent idea of making a person slumped against a table, with pillows and blankets, and the "head" was a ball of plastic bag.

not much of a finale, but at least it got them out of the chalet.

well. i hoped FN would be great. i think it was. and i pray that all my actors will be safe and sound.

the only complain from xinyi was the pairing up of guys. can't send pairs with two guys, two girls, she said. the two guys will talk crap and make fun of the FN actors. like there was this joker who asked xiuting what her name was (yar they are actually supposed to find out, but they are not supposed to ask), who "denise" (xinyi) was, is she her sister, etc. kills all the fun and the fear factor which was supposed to be instilled in the girls.

teams with 4 gals (at the start) fared better, i mean, they got more scared, some of them were literally scared shitless that they had to be ushered out at the first station.

FN: 9.5/10

after helping with the furnishing of Chalet K.. it was the other hurdle: the Alternate Fright Night (AFN) plans to have a headache with.