A UCF sophomore makes his debut this Sunday as the youngest-ever competitor on Food Network\u2019s hit show \u201cHalloween Wars.\u201d<\/p>\n
The show pits\u00a0six teams of three against each other\u00a0to build spooky creations, with each member of the team contributing expertise in either cake decorating, sugar art or pumpkin carving.<\/p>\n
Jarid Altmark, an advertising and public relations major, has been collecting sponsorships and first place finishes in cake-decorating competitions since he was 14. But nothing prepared him for the pressure of television.<\/p>\n
\u201cGoing into this I had no idea what completing a concept in 45 minutes was like,\u201d says Altmark, who turned 18 just four days prior to arriving in Los Angeles for filming last September. \u201cYou have a general idea of how stressful something like that will be, but being in it is completely different.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boosting his confidence were teammates Rebecca Milican and Mike Brown, the sugar artist and pumpkin carver, respectively. Both are veterans of the show, with Brown\u2019s team winning in 2017.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur team dynamic truly felt the best in the competition, and I think we were all very pleasantly surprised with how well we worked with each other,\u201d says Altmark. \u201cWe had (communicated) a lot before getting to Halloween Wars, so when we got there we had already been in each other\u2019s lives for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n
Altmark can\u2019t reveal how far his team placed before the show\u2019s conclusion, but he walked away with nerves of steel and a fresh perspective on where to take his business, Jarid\u2019s Awesome Cakes. He also built some friendships, including host Jonathan Bennett, who provided comedic relief on set during an incredibly stressful competition.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince this was such a crazy process, it was so nice to have someone around that was so cool, nice, and funny. You need to be laughing when you\u2019re doing something as intense as this,\u201d Altmark says.<\/p>\n
Altmark isn’t the first UCF participant on the show. School of Visual Arts and Design<\/a>\u00a0grad James Hall ’05 ’10MFA<\/strong>\u00a0was on the winning team in 2016 and is competing again this season as part of the Frosted Freakshow team. Hall studied art<\/a> as an undergraduate student and earned a master’s in studio art and the computer<\/a> from the university.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A UCF sophomore makes his debut this Sunday as the youngest-ever competitor on Food Network\u2019s hit show \u201cHalloween Wars.\u201d The show pits\u00a0six teams of three against each other\u00a0to build spooky creations, with each member of the team contributing expertise in either cake decorating, sugar art or pumpkin carving. Jarid Altmark, an advertising and public relations major, has been collecting sponsorships…","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":103155,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"lazy_load_responsive_images_disabled":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[3,27],"tags":[3393,4168],"tu_author":[],"class_list":["post-103151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-student-life","tag-nicholson-school-of-communication-and-media","tag-school-of-visual-arts-and-design"],"yoast_head":"\n