| When 1986 rolled around, Troy had
no plans to dress up again. He kept his word and the KISS Impersonators
remained a thing of the past. At this point, his contact with
most of the members of the old group was limited to his occasional
visits to Fremont. In the fall of 1985, Troy had gone back to
college to major in photography. Now in his second semester,
Troy had just learned how to print color photos. In between
class assignments, he was printing some shots from Halloween
1983 when one of his elder classmates started asking him about
the photos. The conversation lead to talk of a photo session
with Troy dressed up as Gene. Seeing the chance to get some
really nice photos, Troy jumped at the chance and plans were
made for a photo shoot in late March. |
| Troy arrived at Solano College
about 8:00 a.m. on the day of the shoot (date unknown) and proceeded
to haul all of his costumes pieces and make-up in to the building
that housed the college's television and film studio. Not long
after his arrival, Troy's classmate, Pat Harper, arrived along
with three of Troy's female friends. The set for the photo shoot
was set up with lighting and a tall stair-ladder that would
be used as the main prop for most of the shoot.
About 10:00 a.m. Troy began his make-up and
in about thirty minutes had completed the process. This was
a record time for applying his make-up and it also happened
to be the best make-up job he had ever done.
Once his make-up was finished, Troy suited
up in his costume and some test Poloroid photos were taken
to get the lighting settings correct. The shoot lasted about
four hours from start to finish. The first half was done in
the television and film studio and then was finished up in
the photography studio across campus. Some great photos came
out of that session (A few years later on September 12, 1990,
Troy met Gene for the first time and showed him a photo from
that session. Gene was even impressed with how good Troy looked).
|
From Troy's photo shoot
March 1986
|
| The photo shoot got Troy thinking
about dressing up again for Halloween. 1986 made ten years since
the groups first appearance so a 10 Year Reunion for the group
was the perfect reason to dress up.
Since 1976 was the first year they dressed
up, Troy had decided that they would go back to KISS' original
member line-up and their Destroyer costumes. Destroyer was
released in 1976 and the group never had the chance to make
quality costumes for that era. With the ground work laid out,
Troy went back to the members from 1980 to see if they would
be interested in doing a 10 Year Reunion. He was able to recruit
the whole group consisting of Bin Avery, Tim Branson, and
Joey Capelli. Within a short time that lineup began to crumble.
Joey had been working and then lost his job. Before long Bin
dropped out and was soon followed by Tim, both due to lack
of funds for costumes. This set Troy back to square one in
putting the group together.
|
Costume pieces that Troy was
working on in preparation for Halloween.
|
Since the 1980 group would
not be reuniting, Troy went looking for past members that
best suited the roles of Paul, Ace, and Peter. Over the next
couple months Troy worked on putting a group together. He
asked Jack Standish about joining as Paul Stanley but Jack
was not interested. Looking for someone to fill the spot of
Ace Frehley, Troy was able to get Mark Branson on board. After
recruiting Mark, things started to fall in to place. Soon
Troy had Charles Duck to fill the spot of Peter Criss. Troy
checked with Mike Feliciano to see if he wanted to step back
in to the role of Paul Stanley, but he was not interested.
It wasn't long though before the group had it's Paul Stanley
in Jimmie Katarzy.
Troy was still living in Vacaville so over the next few months
costumes were put together. Fittings and adjustments were
done on weekends when Troy would make the trip down to Fremont.
The weekend before Halloween, Troy made the trip to Fremont
and the group got together at Charles apartment to finalize
plans and make sure everything was in order for their big
night. Once again the group contacted The Argus, unfortunately
this year they were not interested in covering a story on
the group.
|
| Halloween arrived and all of the
costumes were completed. Troy got over to Charles' house about
11:00 a.m. Shortly after, Mark arrived followed by Jimmie. The
guys got things in order and by about 3:00 p.m. they were getting
their make-up on. Just before 6:00 p.m. they had their make-up
and costumes on. They posed for a few photos in the house before
heading out to a limo that was waiting to take them around Fremont.
They posed for a few photos outside and with
their limo driver before heading out. They stopped by family
and friends houses first before heading to Maloney Elementary,
Olivera Elementary, and their final stop of the night was
Patterson Elementary, the place they made their first appearance
ten years earlier. They did not receive as much attention
as they had in their hey day, but they were well received
at Patterson where they were asked to take pictures with people.
They had rented the limo for two hours and wanted to extend
their time, but the driver had another client lined up right
after the groups time was up, so the group returned to Charles
house and called it a night.
|
This year the members were Troy Correia as
Gene Simmons, Charles Duck as Peter Criss,
Mark Branson as Ace Frehley, and Jimmie Katarzy as Paul Stanley |
| Shortly after Halloween, Troy got
in touch with all the members to see if they would be interested
in dressing up to shoot a music video for a film making class
he was taking. Everyone agreed so Troy got in contact with his
old principal, Mr. Lewis, who helped Troy secure use of the
Patterson Elementary School auditorium to shoot the footage
of the group. Once everything was in place, a date was set for
the afternoon and evening of Wednesday, December 3rd. |
Troy puts the finishing
touches on his hair
|
Over the next few weeks, Troy built
some props that would be used as the stage set for the shoot.
The plan was to shoot scenes of the group acting like they were
playing live. This would be mixed with scenes that went along
with the story line of "Shout It Out Loud" by KISS.
Troy shot all of the secondary footage in Vacaville during the
month of November. On the afternoon of December 3rd, Troy arrived
at Patterson Elementary about 3:00 p.m. Once he had access to
the auditorium, he began loading in all of the costumes, make-up,
and props. Shortly after he arrived the rest of the group arrived
and began helping with setting up the stage. Former member,
Jack Standish came down to help with the set up and filming.
Once the stage was almost complete, Troy worked on getting the
make-up designs drawn on all of the members faces. By about
5:00 p.m., the make-up process had begun and around 7:00 p.m.
the group was ready to start shooting. A few photos were taken
prior to filming. Video footage of the stage set up and some
of the make-up process was shot during the afternoon/evening.
A small amount more was taken just prior to shooting. The shoot
wrapped about 9:30 and then the group struck the set and cleaned
up the auditorium. Around 10:00 p.m. they were ready to head
home. This was the final performance for the KISS Impersonators,
closing the door on a ten year run. |
| Troy had been using a Super 8 movie
camera from his school and there had been problems with the
infinity setting on the focus. In order to get a clear shot
on anything over about eighteen feet away, it had to be backed
out slightly creating what looked like a slightly out of focus
shot, but actually returned a clear shot on the final film.
Jack was going to be running the camera for the shoot. Troy
showed him how to set the focus so it would come out in focus.
When the film was developed, all of the longer shots were completely
out of focus making them unusable for Troy's project. |
The members for the video shoot were Troy Correia as Gene
Simmons, Mark Branson as Ace Frehley,
Jimmie Katarzy as Paul Stanley and Charles Duck as Peter Criss |
Unfortunately the group closed it's history
quietly that December night in the auditorium where they made
their first appearance just over ten years earlier. While the
film may not have been usable, the final chapter of the KISS
Impersonators left them with a few photos, some video footage,
and plenty of great memories.
Who would have ever thought that ten years earlier a group of
kids would have turned something to do on Halloween in to a
little legacy that would result in them becoming local celebrities,
putting on two lip-sync concerts, making a short film, getting
their picture in national magazines, being featured on the front
page of their local newspaper, and dressing up for a total of
nine Halloweens. The KISS Impersonators were and are a very
special group. |
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