We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jaimy Johnson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Jaimy, thanks for joining us today. Let’s jump to the end – what do you want to be remembered for?
I hope my legacy will be that of a quintessential artist that displayed a unique artform who not only was able to express his art freely but also someone that was entertaining and brought people together.
Jaimy, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
Well, I got into my industry first by spending many years studying many different artforms beginning with drawing. I spent a lot of time drawing from comic book characters to life drawing. From there I began to try out different mediums (painting with acrylics, oils, charcoal, sculpting with clay as well as creating my own form I created with melted crayon drops). I was always interested in Halloween because I saw a great opportunity to create or transform not only people (by making costumes) but our family garage (transforming it into a haunted house). I had the great fortune to work for the film and television industry with a behind the scenes job working on crews. Though my career working in the film and television industry did not have a lot to do directly with art but it did put me in an artistic environment. Each year for Halloween I would decorate my work area at my job and my decorations began to get more elaborate as time went on. My neighborhood garage haunted houses began to get more elaborate as well. Then one day through my main job with the studios, I had the pleasure of working on a film titled “The Time Machine”. Stan Winston and his team worked on this film. Stan was the biggest special effects artist in the film and television industry. I not only met him and his team I was invited to check out his school. This drastically changed how I designed haunted houses it brought the characters I would build to life. This is where I began building animatronic characters as well as designing sets and lighting. I began designing a few celebrity homes for Halloween. This led to me designing Halloween parties for Paramount Pictures (I currently work for Paramount Pictures managing feature film asset warehouses). After that I began to do haunted houses for the City of Inglewood. I’d say that the thing I’m most proud of is becoming the first person to get a contract to build haunted houses for the City of Inglewood as well as bringing so many under privileged children something that they wouldn’t be exposed to. For Halloween 2024 I decided to create my interpretation of Disneyland (with all animatronic characters) to allow the children of Inglewood to see my version of it. It included two of my favorite attractions at Disneyland which are, The Pirates of the Caribbean and The Haunted Mansion. My attraction includes a train ride that travels through each scene that is activated by motion sensors that bring the animated characters to life when the train breaks the invisible InfraRed beam. I build all the sets as well, from the Pirates Jolly Roger tunnel to the Dog with keys each room includes characters that seem to come to life (singing etc…) just like the attraction at Disneyland. It has become one of the city’s largest events. For 2025 I am building the sets as well as bringing to life, classic Universal Studios horror movie Monsters (the 1931 Frankenstein monster – staring Boris Karloff, the 1932 Mummy – staring Boris Karloff, 1931 Dracula – staring Bela Lugosi and the 1941 Wolf Man – staring Lon Chaney Jr) to name a few. This attraction will be a train ride that travels through each set to activate each animatronic iconic character in these iconic rolls.
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
Other than a pertinacious effort, I believe the biggest thing that has helped me build my reputation was the quality of work that I put out. From the quality of the materials of the costumes of the characters to the sets and lighting I build with the highest detail and quality. I don’t skimp. I like to not only visually stimulate attendees but by also giving them an enhanced tonality experience. I also got a lot of help advertising from the City’s Parks and Recreations Department (Teresa Estrada) and Stevie Wonder’s radio station KJLH 102.3 (Adai Lamar) who’s consistent belief in my skills, abilities and presentations has been an enormous voice to my targeted market.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
In 2020 the Covid virus pretty much shut everything down and my Halloween meetings with the City of Inglewood began with them informing me that we had to come up with a way to do our Halloween event that would allow the then mandatory social distancing with the public yet provide the same entertainment and involvement I had provided in the previous years. It was also brought to my attention that we probably wouldn’t be able to do any kind of event for 2020 or a couple years, due to the restrictions that were in place. With my determination and a city just as determined not to disappoint the community, the city and I came up with the idea of a drive-through Halloween event that would allow people to stay in their cars and drive through displays. I would place along a designated area, animatronic characters and sets that people could see from their cars. With a gameplan in place, we moved forward to execute it and it was very successful. Although it was my biggest, most taxing challenge I was able to pull it off.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.jaimyshalloweenexperience.com/
- Instagram: jaimyjay1962
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@jaimyjay
Image Credits
From working on projects in my workshop to attending events that involve my projects. I’ve always been told that if you do what you love, it will never seem like work. I love what I do.