Vitamin Pictures executive producer Larissa Berringer says she’s worked on a lot of films sets, “but I was never as scared as I was on the shoot we did for Knott’s Scary Farm.
“We shot in a spooky abandoned warehouse in Austin and the actor playing the scary clown in one of the spots didn’t break character. You could hear his evil laugh throughout the warehouse.”
The gritty, high tension series, created by Cramer-Krasselt, is populated by sinister clowns, macabre dentists and ravenous zombies.
A multitude of actors all frighteningly made-up by the geniuses at Cirque FX prosthetic makeupm appear in four 15-second TV spots and seven 7-second instagram vignettes playing on Knott’s Scary Farm website.
The spots have been airing on West Coast television as Knott’s is an LA amusement park.
Over three days, Vitamin creative director Danny DelPurgatorio directed in the Austin warehouse that was eerily production designed David “Big” Krause; Chris Vinopal was the DP.
In the “Clown” spot, a young woman walks through a bleak warehouse scattered with children’s toys. Turning a corner, she’s confronted by a demented clown with a tortured grin. Just as he’s about to pounce, the scene cuts to a title: “Whatever you’re imagining, it’s here.”
“Tooth Fairy” reveals an even grimmer encounter between a man and a dentist who’s performing oral surgery without the benefit of anesthesia.
All the spots are structured to end a split second before something nasty happens. “We’re playing on the fears viewers bring to the spots themselves,” DelPurgatorio says.
Vitamin knows something about scary pictures. It produced the short horror film “Other,” winner of numerous awards including Best Short at “Elvira’s Horror Hunt.”
“It was great to be hired to make these little horror films for Knott’s,” DelPurgatorio says. There were severed heads, body parts, blood and gooey stuff all over the place.” He adds, with a Halloween-appropriate chuckle, “It was a dream come true.”
Cramer-Krasselt credits: Will Meyers, producer; Pat Hanna, creative director; David Vaca, art director; Tom Katers, writer.
Vitamin credits: Melody Hinkley, line producer; Cirque FX, prosthetic makeup; Rob Foster, art director; Danny DelPurgatorio, compositor; Michael Siegel, concept artist/3D generalist; Francis Vallejo, storyboard artist; Andrew Maggio, editor; Fred Keller, colorist; Lauryn Grimando, associate producer.
