Lada Denise Davis is another former student of Susan Watanabe. She is a costume designer at Knott’s who went professional in 2000. She credits Watanabe with much of her knowledge and experience.

Originally her major was Physical Therapy and like many students seeking to find their way, she changed it mid semester.

“I love theater! That’s one of the really big things. You got to love theater to get in and basically start swinging. Being able to take all the classes.

Not just costuming but [also] lighting, to being able to dress a set, to being able to do make-up, it makes you invaluable to your team.

So knowing a little about everything, you are a team player, you’re able to get your hands on everything. Susan helps you to know that.

You could be taking a wardrobe class and she’d stop and tell you a part you didn’t know about like: “This would look good on this type of stage.”

She’d also encourage you to take other courses that would help you do your job better.

I like the theater program so much that I actually come back to do favors.

There are a lot of good people on that staff and you make friends and you want to do them favors.

They want to do you favors as well so it all works out in the end. I wasn’t always a theater major.

I actually took a course in theater because I was getting burned out on my major, which was [originally] Physical Therapy, so I decided to take a theater class.

I took one class and half way through it I decided to change my major. I decided that liked it so much, let’s go ahead and touch every base, you know, let’s go ahead and change and do something I like rather than something I don’t like,” Davis said.

Judy Lopez has worked at Knott’s on and off for the past five years. She is a former Falcon who is a supervisor for the crew that designs the lighting and the design of the park.

Cerritos has helped many students develop under the tutelage of Susan Watanabe. She has been invaluable for them. They credit her for their success.

Robert Perez is one of Watanabe’s current students who took part in this unique learning experience. He along with his classmates got an opportunity to apply make up under the guidance of professional designers.

He had taken Watanabe’s course as a hobby last semester and he decided to take it a second time more seriously this semester.

“I think its great! It’s fun to see how they paint faces and transform them into monsters, like in a matter of minutes. I’ve been here before. Not here in the back [behind the scenes], but in the park. [I’ve been scared by the monsters before]I would see the monsters and I would wonder how they did that.

Now that I get to see it, its like yeah now I understand how it’s done. Sometimes it looks better when they’re in the dark.

I just picked up this class as a hobby so I’ve taken it twice already. I took it last year and now I’ve decided to take it again and finish it so I can learn the whole course.

Here I found out that if you learn how to use the airbrush you could put more detail into your work. It’s easier to do the lines and textures on people’s faces with the airbrush,” Perez said.

Monica Caldera is another one of Watanabe’s current students. She helped artists apply make-up to the gruesome “Freddy Krueger” mask. All day she watched different artist at work and she did not hesitate to join right in with them.

“I like [horror make-up]. I am thinking of looking into some schools for it. I asked around and this girl went to M.U.D. I had never heard of it so I’m going to look it up on the Internet. So I can [possibly] take more classes. I want to help! I like the airbrush. It looks easier than applying the make-up itself. I wish I could learn the airbrush techniques. It takes a lot longer to apply the make-up that it does to use the airbrush. I have been to Knott’s Scary Farm but not back here. Some of the monsters have scared me. The werewolf. That’s why we were asking if it’s still around,” Caldera said.

Elizabeth Ballesteros is a first year student in Watanabe’s class. She and Caldera were together applying make up on “Freddy Krueger.”

” This is something I would like to look into. It’s interesting! [I am particularly interested in] the airbrush and how they make the latex masks. This is my first class with make-up and stuff like that. The first time I came here I learned my lesson about screaming and yelling. Running and screaming makes them case you more,” says Ballesteros as she begins to giggle.

According to her student Watanabe is one of the best make-up artists who ever worked from Knott’s. Neither her former students nor her current students who visited Knott’s this Halloween would dispute her reputation. According to them she has earned it.

“This experience has shown me that I would rather go into this field. I am more interested in the horror character field than the beauty make-up field. This field is more fun and more creative,” says Ballesteros as she recovers from her giggles.

Over all there was much learning to be done at Knott’s. There was a lot of fun and a whole lot of experience, not to mention, a whole lot of Falcons at this year’s Haunt!