On the morning of August 22, I attended an audition for Disney character performer for the 3rd time. As shown in the picture, these are the people who dress into stuffed puppet suits, dance in the parades, sign autographs, and pose for photos with little children. For some reason, I just love Chip 'n Dale and would honorably dress up as them, even if it's just part-time. So that was my reason for being so persistent with the auditions.
This time around, I had no problems with the 100 jumping jacks and dancing routine as I avoided looking at the casting director, Russ. During the 3rd part of the audition, we had to do a mime routine. They gave us a sample story to perform without words. I remembered the advice from the online forums that in order to succeed, you need to do super exaggerated moves. I did that, and the next day, I got a call from Disney, not regarding character performer, but for Halloween Performer. I took the 2-month temporary job anyways, since I was really excited to work at Disney.
Even though I worked at Disneyland for just a little more than 6 days, I had a lot of happy memories there. It was very different from my previous employers as the environment was very relaxed and friendly. Sometimes, it didn't even feel like work at all. Sometimes, it felt like I was on vacation to Tokyo or something. Best of all, I was paid to explore Disneyland. No more $350 per visit. From that perspective, I may have saved $2100 and instead made $2640 more.
The first 2 days consisted of studying at the Disney University. All 130 of us Halloween Performers had to learn about Disney traditions, history, and how to dress up according to Disney Look attire. We often got split up into different teams every couple of hours. So to adapt well, it was essential to talk well with strangers unless you came along with a group of 11 friends.
We started rehearsing on Day 3 and that was when we were introduced to our 5 supervisors: CK, Jacky, Rene, Angie, and Irene. Rene is actually a guy who's the stage manager for our Haunted Hotel. The Haunted Hotel is 1 of the 4 designated Halloween places at Hong Kong Disneyland. As Rene was talking about the Haunted Hotel, a latecomer entered the room. She wore an orange t-shirt and her hairstyle was shaped like a ball. Her name was Miracle and she was beautiful.
The following days consisted of regular rehearsals, memorizing lines for 3 different roles in the Haunted Hotel, learning how to use the lockers, getting sized for costumes, and practicing with halloween makeup. All the while, I had friendly conversations with a lot of people, went to work together with Ellis, who lived nearby my place, back from work with someone called Eric, and talked a bit with this Miracle girl. She's a Year 1 hotel management university dropout and she really really likes to talk a lot. Basically, a near opposite of me. I still have the Chip 'n Dale card that she gave me.
Even though these 6 days were short, they were indeed sweet. And this is a good transition for me to go back into my real job and to have more meaningful communication with people in general. I will always remember these 6 days, especially with the addition of Miracle.
