Our family's Halloween page. All about our props, costumes, special effects, and the lights and music which go into our haunted house display. Pics and explanations and short video clips showing the actions.
Still limping along with the boot of shame, so nothing new to report on outdoor prep. Been planning to do a test with the fog machines to see how much coverage we get, how dense it is, and so forth. Went out tonight to turn off the LED tea lights and votives, and saw that Nature had jumped the gun with a fog display of her own:
Looking out the front door. Cool moonlight on the graveyard.
View from the street.
The "girls" are lurking in the mist.
The house as seen from across the street.
The fog is much thicker than it appears through the lens- visibility is about 50 feet, with details washing out around 20 feet or so. Looking out the front door, there's a heavy mist along the walkway which bounces the light from the floods around and scatters it, creating some eerie shadow effects as you walk.
Despite the broken leg, I got up on the ladder and hung the background lights up- I think that gives enough ambient lighting for the porch, and the amber color complements the glow from the LEDs.
Some pics with the camera, a bit less blurry now that the shutter doesn't have to stay open so long:
The view looking up from the street. The blue spot hits the tombstones, the front walk, and the Weeping Angels by the garage, casting deep shadows.
I think the blue is an improvement on the red light from last year- the shadows are cooler, giving it more of a moon-glow feeling.
Closeup of the tombstone area. This is always a hit with the families- they have their kids pose in the graveyard and take photos. Very satisfying to see how much they enjoy the atmosphere.
The Weeping Angels- not as good as the BBC version, but they still look creepy at night. They need a better home- we'll work on that next Halloween.
The front porch. It's not really this bright, but the exposure makes it look that way. There's enough light to safely get up and down if you're wearing a costume, but not much more. The LEDs work well with the candles, blending in with the yellows and oranges.
The skull table. Not much to say here- it's a good way to display the candles since we don't have any more fixtures to place them on.
You can sort of see the detail of the "wax" dripping down the sides- hot glue makes a suitable substitute. The paint was antique white, which gave a nice ivory color to the PVC and glue.
The left side of the porch, showing the wrought iron stands and the table. It also shows off the Scene Setter background SpiderWitch found- very nice!
Right side of the porch, candelabra and taper candles with C7 flicker bulbs. Next year we're going to make all the candelabras and candles hardwired to a plug- running up and downstairs to turn everything on/off is tedious. Painful with a broken ankle.
I thought I had sprained it- ran for the bus and landed wrong on my right foot- and it was just taking a long time to heal, but I finally went to the doc and they showed it broken in two places. So now I'm wearing the "boot of shame" for the next three weeks.
Meanwhile, no climbing on ladders and no prolonged standing- so no work on projects. Good news is we're mostly done. I should be able to fix the rest of it up this coming week.
After a four-day marathon of activity, 3 hours after work Thursday and Friday and 9 hours Saturday and Sunday, we're "done"...
The to-do list consists of building the fog chillers, wiring the Angels to their final resting places, and taping the last scene setter to the garage door(s). I've got one more project which SpiderWitch added today (!!), but that won't take more than an hour. So for all intents and purposes, we're finished with our build.
Here's the front entrance:
At 6:30 pm you can barely make out the lights
At 7:15, it's fully lit. Much dimmer than it appears here, though
SpiderWitch wanted to do a "New Orleans" style cemetery, with the burial urns and lots of candles:
Cauldron Mk 2, now water resistant!
Grave flowers? Check. Lots of candles? Check.
Someone got up too early. Or is it late?
The twinkle lights and flicker candles look great!
And some random pics around the haunt:
View from the street.
Not a great shot, but this is the "test" ghost. It looks blue, but that's actually from the blacklight. I think it'll look better away from the blue floodlight.
Don't Blink!
Everyone who walked by asked where the Angels were. So I gave in to the crowd and added one. It looked REALLY creepy with the blue light throwing the deep shadow on the garage, and if I didn't know better, I'd SWEAR it moved...
The skull surrounded by candles- classic horror!
And finally, some videos. Picture doesn't show the color, but you can see the flicker effects.
