Around this time each year, as the sun begins to creep below the horizon, dozens of regular people take form into evil ringmasters and unearthed zombies — all with the help of a little makeup magic.
From now through Nov. 2, three days a week, over 200 scare actors take to Fright Fest at Vallejo’s Six Flags Discovery Kingdom to transform into their nightmarish looks. At the forefront of this year’s fest is lead makeup artist Sophia Giordanelli-Jones and her team of 11.
From ghastly looks of the grunge-style vampires wandering through the park’s “Lost Souls” maze to the colorful hues of orange and red dripping off the faces of the undead clowns at “CarnEvil: Ringmaster’s Revenge,” Giordanelli-Jones and her team are behind it all.
Surprisingly, each night of the event, the process for the whole scream-seeking production takes about three hours from start to finish. But first, it’s with costumes that the scare actors start to take shape into their terrifying characters.
Beginning in their street clothes, the actors funnel into the park just a few hours before sundown, when all the spookiness takes place. A total of three “costume-ers” help the actors into their elaborate wardrobes of tattered punk-rock clothes for ”Club Fear” or tarnished neck ruffles and oversized clown shoes for “CarnEvil.”
This is also where they receive their props, further escalating their role with chainsaws, vampire teeth, and outlandish wigs. Finally, it’s on to hair and makeup.
Beforehand, as the lead makeup artist, Giordanelli-Jones creates face charts for each of the zones and houses. In zones like “CornStalkers,” the looks follow a general farm-like theme with details of haunted scarecrows and a dash of southern charm. For zones like “Dead Water Hallow” and “Last Stop,” it’s all about implementing looks of the undead, using ghoulish tones of gray and white for a pale-skin look and heavy contour for the illusion of hollowed cheekbones.
“Each makeup and costume is unique and individualized to each scare actor, as consistency is key, especially for the newer scare actors to settle in and find their characters,” said the park’s Regional Public Relations Manager, Marc Merino.
And while Giordanelli-Jones ultimately sets the tone with the creation of face charts, “it’s more of a general inspiration, so there’s still a lot of room to play around and make it your own,” she explained, which is arguably her favorite part of the role — the independence.
In addition to the team of 11 dedicated makeup artists, “I love the creative freedom that we get doing everyone’s makeup,” she said.
One of the more notable looks this year appears in the new scare zone, Pier of Fear. The look, one of Merino’s favorites, is based on a pirate captain. Though it “reads as clearly being dead or a ghost,” he said, the bright orange starfish stuck to the character’s face “fits the story of the area being told, and is something so unique to his character that our guests will remember.”
As for the process itself, the makeup consists heavily of using an airbrush technique and the occasion prosthetic. Using airbrush makeup, explained Giordanelli-Jones, allows for a quicker, more pigmented look, knocking down the makeup time to just seven minutes per look.
“We’re doing so many people in a limited amount of time, and it’s just the quickest and you’re able to get good detail with it,” said the Giordanelli-Jones. Her favorite looks, however, have got to be those for the Dead Water Hollow zone and the clown looks.
“The (clowns) are very fun, colorful, and we have lots of creative freedom there,” she said, “and it’s fun to do the realistic cuts, too.” Once the actors leave the makeup chair, it’s onto the park grounds, where they’ll wander through zones, frightening along the way, with their newfound sense of confidence.
That part of the transformation, said Regional Public Relations Manager of the park Marc Merino, is the most interesting to witness.
“It isn’t just on the surface,” he said. “You get to talk to some scare actors prior to getting into makeup and costume, and they are sometimes soft spoken, even shy to an extent.”
But as soon as the makeup and costumes are on says Merino, “they truly become a different person.”
When the actors finally tap into that inner voice, “to be the powerful and the intimidating character they often need to be … speaks to how important the makeup and costumes are not just for our guests to experience but for our scare actors to get into character themselves,” said Merino.
To experience the last few weeks of this year’s Fright Fest and all its makeup magic, tickets are available from now through Nov. 2.