As in previous years
(2008,
2009, which see for more background)
I helped out with the local "Haunted Playground" fundraiser in Clarke Park,
mostly providing my
efficient lighting gear and
deploying it appropriately around the main park area. I didn't get too
crazy on taking pictures, but this shows a little more about some of the
backend and behind-the-scenes work that goes into this. Another resident
likely provided
better coverage
of the event itself.
Click any small picture for its larger version. |
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Set-painting day, a couple of weeks prior: with the skits and scenes roughly defined, the groups presenting them could come paint their backdrop flats. |
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Some of our junior volunteers, um, immersing themselves in their work. Hard to say whether the painters or the flats received more paint... |
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As our younger artists finished up and wandered off to play on the nearby mulch pile, other work continued. |
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That's some serious blue! |
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Some panels were plain or abstract, and some received high artistic effort. |
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Pizza lunch for the volunteers.
In the background, two of the neighborhood's most efficient vehicles... |
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Meanwhile, a batch of "goon shirts" for the security staff were having lettering applied. |
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As flats got finished up and mostly dried, they got stacked into the storage trailer, made slightly less scary inside with some lights attached temporarily to the wall. |
I took advantage of the rain holding off over Friday afternoon to lay out some initial cables and get some stuff into the air, but the bulk of work happened Saturday morning as people descended on the park with the usual truckloads of gear. Park & Rec had the party-tents up early in the morning. |
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*More* pizza lunch for the volunteers that were on-site during the day, as usual. |
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The generator in its usual spot, more or less, perched on the highest ground we could find in the very soggy field. |
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Performers arrived and started rehearsing [and last-minute rewriting, no doubt] their skits. |
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A few of our hard-working core staff. It's funnier to snag Janet, err, Helga! when she's *not* trying to pose. The lower-left shot is likely the other side of this scene. And this time we had the venerable Dumbledore as MC, applying his crowd-wrangling wizardry to everything throughout the evening. |
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Finally a couple of shuttles arrived and started bringing in the real
crowds, and things could get going.
[This was obviously taken much later...] |
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The food area and games/treasure-hunt setup got rolling. |
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The dance-school girls and an amusing run of a pop tune appropriately entitled, "Beautiful Monster". |
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An assortment of oddities, including the world's oldest [or was that ugliest? They argued the point all night] baby. |
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And the result of a bizarre bungee-jumping mishap: a hugely stretched neck. |
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Various states of morbidity, preserved under, uh, glass |
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Our good Doctor seems to have found the problem with this poor guy who tried to go swimming in the pond: an alien two-headed snake wormed its way into his innards. Now look at him. |
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Various activities at the games tent. |
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The ring-toss is onto monster hands sticking up out of the sand, and is surprisingly difficult to do without just bouncing it off all those rubber fingers. |
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The wind and chill did keep attendance a little lower regardless, and there was a lot of leftover food. Pulled pork! |
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The kids visiting the playground who had been around the previous night were *still* digging for treasure in the sand -- found some stuff, too. |
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All the tarps and tent-bits got folded up and stashed, nice and dry this time around so they won't get moldy in storage. |