| Halloween 2005 |
| 2005 Halloween plans: (mid-September update) With a month to go before setting up I'm in full swing getting my projects put together. That doesn't mean I'm not still adding things though! Tonight I realized I needed to put my fog chiller in the front yard or the cemetary wouldn't get enough fog. How do you hide a 2' long, 17" tall cooler with a 1' fog machine attached to the end? How about building a coffin! My cemetary is too small this year for a coffin, so I'm going to put the coffin outside of it with a skeleton holding a shovel acting as a gravedigger. If I have time, I'll build a set of kicking legs so another skeleton can "run over" someone with the lawn mower. Inside the garage will be the FCG (flying crank ghost) and my other fog machine. Black plastic sheeting will separate the rest of the garage from the TOTs. I need to take some pictures of what I've been working on. Check back later when I have some time to work on this page (I'm too busy building thing to do this page justice) |
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| 10/18/05: Things are coming along nicely. The lights are synchronized to music using 32 channels of Light-o-Rama. The music I've selected for this year is "Tales from the Crypt", "Ghostbusters", "Nightmare on Elm Street Theme", and "Disney's Thunder, Lightning, and Rain". The Cemetary Fence is finished, it's an 8'x8' square made from 1/2" PVC and 1x2 lumber. In front of it is a line of lighted mini-pumpkins. There is also a sweeping arc of lighted skulls stretching across the yard. These are all individually controlled using Light-o-Rama. Inside the cemetary is a large tombstone that hides one of the Light-o-Rama controllers. There is also a skeleton head and hands coming out of the ground. A tombstone with lights flashing the word "VACANCY" advertises for the skelton grave-digger next to the cemetary. Between the cemetary fence and the front door is a 6-7 foot coffin that hides a fog machine, fog chiller, and the other Light-o-Rama controller. The large tree in the front yard has been decked out with 4,400 mini lights. It is lighted with orange most of the time, but it also turns green, red, blue, or white depending on the music being played. I'm hoping to take some video of it over Halloween weekend. Inside the garage is my "Flying Crank Ghost". Modeled after Doug Ferguson's design, this ghost (yet unnamed) is sure to be a hit Halloween night. In the bushes below the front window are several pairs of beady red "Rat Eyes" staring back at you as you approach the front door. They appear to "blink" in a random pattern as the LEDs are connected to a decade counter. The counter isn't random, but by placing the eyes out of sequence, it's hard to tell there is a pattern unless you watch closely. I'm still working on a couple of things, I hope they'll be ready for Halloween: Giant Spider. A friend of mine makes pinatas, so I hired her to make a spider for the side of the house. It's modeled after a brown recluse since black widows are far too common as scary Halloween props. The spider has a 5 foot leg-span! Kicking Legs. Someone got run over by a lawn mower, all you can see are the legs kicking out from underneath. Head turner. Using an oscillating fan as a base with a latex mask over the motor housing, an otherwise static dummy will turn his head from side to side watching TOT'ers approach the house. |
