October brings Halloween time, that very festive time of year that brings out the ghouls and goblins, even if they are made with gelatin, prosthetics, sugar, paint and maybe even a little bit of make-up.

Okay, a lot of make-up.

The Cerritos College beginning stage make-up class, led by Susan Wantanabe, headed over to Buena Park last week to America’s first theme park, Knott’s Berry Farm.

It transforms into a scary gut-wrenching theme park in the evening called Knott’s Scary Farm.

The longest-running Halloween scare spectacular and this year marks its 37th year.

The students in Wantanabe’s class have a great opportunity with this special event.

They went backstage where the scares are born.

Cerritos College, at one time, was the only school that was given this special privilege of going backstage to shadow the artists and their victims, get some hands on experience in the professional realm and definitely ask questions.

Stephanie Trigg, cosmetology major, who wants to focus on make-up only said, “I want to do any and every kind of make-up style there is.”

Since she loves Halloween time and monsters, this was a great experience for her.

“You get to make them into something different,” she said.

Valerie Rosales, cosmetology major, says, “I’ve been looking forward to this day. I’m so excited.”

Knott’s Scary Farm is family reunion time for most of the monsters who return every year along with the permanent crew members from Knott’s Berry Farm.

They’re all so enthusiastic about it. The month of October is a favored time for make-up artist as well.

With more than 200 monsters in the park at one time, more than 1000 in total, the make-up artists have their hands full.

The students being there really aided in the time factor of getting those monsters out there.

Billie Escalente, a full-time student, cosmetology major, was the first student to apply base coat to the face of a female monster.

Escalente said, “It was so cool. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do. I felt like what i did counted. It mattered.”

Veronica Khuu then stepped in and applied the white airbrush face paint to make the white base coat flawless.

She says, “It felt really good. This is definitely what I should be doing.”

The next step was to apply the shadowing, it’s done with black airbrush face paint and that was enthusiastically done by Carina Hernandez.

She said, “I was a little scared at first, when I had to use the the spray gun, but I told myself that I can do this.”

Hernandez has been doing make-up for awhile now and this made it all the more better.

The students were really involved with the atmosphere.

There were two rooms full of artists and the students were able to maneuver back and forth absorbing the ambiance and then choosing a station to shadow.

Each monster took anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour. There are so many details that are crucial to the monsters face completion.

Jerry Paxton, make-up artist for Knott’s Scary Farm had some of the students create a couple of monsters. With his help they were able to really get involved.

Diana Pacheco was ecstatic about that amazing opportunity. She said, “This was such a neat experience.”

Although Halloween Haunt is only open in October, it leaves to wonder what the Spring semester class would be doing for an amazing make-up field trip.

Susan Wantanabe also arranges for the students to assist in the Renaissance Faire and get some great opportunities there.