Day 10: Santa Ana Haunt

Ernie Veloz: Hi, my name is Ernie Veloz, I'm pretty much part of Santa Ana Haunt this year. I've done pretty much a set that's in the front, a graveyard set, and it helped a little bit with everything else a little bit here in there.

Jesus Garcia: Hi, my name is Jesus Garcia, I go by Chewie, I am the founder of Santa Ana, and together we all form Eulogy Collective. I'm the creative director for pretty much everything going on.

Ryan: My name is Ryan “Old Bones”, I have Old Bones Creative under my name.  I'm responsible for the lighting and audio that we got going on in here, interior and exterior. Except for the graveyard, that's still Ernie on the lighting. 

Jesus Garcia: So, we brought back our church facade that people loved so much in our past year. This guy right here to my left created the whole light show that's going on. So, it's all sequence to on some pretty awesome tracks that we were able to license. Along with that, we brought pretty much the same thing inside, but since we're not doing it at a home haunt, there's some twists and turns along with some stuff that he put in there. It's funny because we joked about this, the last two months we've talked to each other probably more than we do to our significant others going through all the details, we're constantly calling each other. But again, we teamed up and brought back on Santa Ana Haunt this year for the season we'll bring it back, and we'll see what next year brings.

Ernie Veloz: Well, the graveyard, my idea was pretty much to have a traditional graveyard, but at the same time sort of show that it's beat up like it's been through hell almost. There's a lot of cracks in it, a lot of dirt, it's very lifted up.

Jesus Garcia: The LED screens.

Ernie Veloz: Yeah, I even added LED screens in it that have spirits that are coming out of the ground. So, it's nice, and then you add in like all the roots, and then you have the news and all that kind of stuff. Once you add it all together, it gives you an idea of what you're going to pretty much go into. Then, once you see the church, it just ties it all in you're like, "yeah, this somewhere I don't want to be."

Jesus Garcia: Once you get past that graveyard, which he was able to bring fabulously over here, we have the church, which everybody thinks it's safety, but it's actually the gateway to hell in our imagination. Once you go in, we got the wake room in there, which again was fantastically lit up by my good friend over here who I've grown to love. So, basically, I'll come up with the sets and then he would just sprinkle his magic dust all over it with the lighting and audio. I come from the lighting and audio background too, so two minds is always better than one. So, he always goes, "I'm going to do this. I'm like, "how about we add this and this?" I think we're on take five and almost every track. We're on take 5 right now on everything that's going on in there.

Jesus Garcia: Then, from there we have an eternal fire hallway, that's when we actually descend into hell. That eternal fire, basically we're trying to tap into people's fears. That fear is for the eternal fire that everybody knows of as hell, that you'll be burned forever. After that we have a torture chamber and that torture chamber's just, again, a hell for someone who is going to get tortured for the rest of their life. After that we have the town room, which I think is very cliche, but again, props to Old Bones, he made it come to life fabulously, like that track in there, the lighting and everything, wouldn't you agree? That just takes it away from just a regular round room.

Ernie Veloz: Every single thing in there is all Ryan, like he synched it. He put in, like completely, hours and hours and hours.

Jesus Garcia: Then we brought back some stuff from last year, which would be like our strobe light hallway, which was done very different this year, our fear of the dark, and then we have a grand finale room that's all white, so it's mimicking a heaven or you being reborn again, but it's glitching so you don't know if we actually left hell, and then we leave you off with your thoughts.

Ryan: My sort of ethos behind lighting is it shouldn't be static, it should be dynamic, it should move and evolve and sync with the music. So, we set out, like talking, I'm like making sure stuff still synced up behind me. I wanted that to sort of play into people's fear and emotion as they're walking through a room. I mean, not that static lighting isn't great, but if it can move and breathe, I think we're connecting with people more in that way. Same thing with the audio, like I licensed professional tracks from like trailer houses likes to use.

Jesus Garcia: He called me the next day and he goes, "hey Jesus, I bought the license." I think that's one thing that, sorry to cut you off, but that's one thing that really, I think, showcases and our haunt, is that none of us get paid to do it. I don't get paid. Obviously, I founded it, but I don't have enough money to pay this guy, he brought...

Ryan: I’m not getting paid?!

Jesus Garcia: No. I invest my own money always scare actors are all volunteers. Ernie's a volunteer. He's a volunteer. I volunteer my money even. So, you can tell the love in it, you know, we're not doing it for money. Of course, one day we want to make money off of it, but for now we're happy with seeing people come out. 

Jesus Garcia: We were trying to go a little bit bigger this year, but we're actually going to take a step back and kind of get our ducks in a row.  We're going to do it again at my dad's house, like we usually do, which is at 2309 W Cubbon in Santa Ana, CA. The dates are tentative but follow us at @SantaAnaHaunt or @EulogyCollective and we'll keep you updated with the dates.