A Halloween Retrospective

Unfortunately, my camera decided to break and the battery on the camcorder became inoperable so there's no real photos or video of the haunt. The one to the right was a little dark so I tried adjusting the photo settings and got something more along the lines of the ones below, even darker and more washed out. Then the camera chose to die.

Here's the only bit of video I was able to get before the battery went kablooey.

As can be seen (or not), the yard display was very dark so next year I'll need to get more flood lights to set an eerie tone for the yard and then highlight individual props, tombstones, etc. with the LED spots I made. Viewing the yard from the sidewalk directly in front of the house it looked okay, but it became apparent as soon as you walked up the path that it was very dark. Time to go read Skull & Bone again.

In all Halloween was better than it's been in past years. First, I didn't run out of candy this time (a first!) and we had more trick-or-treaters than in any year before. In prior years we've had anywhere from 10-20 kids, but this year we almost hit 30. We actually would have had more, but I enforced a strict "no costume, no candy, no exceptions" rule this year and actually turned a few older teens away who thought they could get away with getting candy while walking home from wherever they were coming from. I didn't include them in the totals.

By 8:30 p.m. though all of the ToTs that were going to come had come, no doubt because it was a school night. So I was able to run and return a Redbox movie, but upon my return found two adults strolling through the front yard with their dog admiring the display. One of them said they had come by last year with his granddaughter who ended up being too afraid to approach the house and would only look at the display this year.

There were a lot of compliments this year, and it was nice to hear as one group of kids left and were heading to my neighbors (undecorated) house, someone shout, "You've got the best house in town!" That was gratifying.

There were a number of new props I displayed this year, including my ScareFX-style Rockin' Granny. It did generate a bunch of scares as I had set it up to go off with a motion sensor so that was fun, and I enjoyed my Flying Crank Ghost. I thought it looked nice moving on the front porch. However, what seemed to creep out most people was my "wall crawler" Monster Mud prop, which actually became a roof crawler.

I had him situated at the end of the eave, looking over the roofline and illuminated him with a flashlight on Halloween night. However he was up there the entire month. As two brothers walked by during the afternoon, one stopped and said, "You've got a lot of really great things out here, but the one that really creeped me out the most was that one," and he pointed to the roof. "The first time I walked by I felt that something was watching me and when I looked I saw it sitting up there and it scared the hell out of me."

A lot of the kids were actually scared to come up the walkway because of it sitting up there, and my wife wants a bunch of similar props to display up there next year as if they're climbing up onto the roof. 

The graveyard is really just the scene setter and doesn't seem to carry much weight, at least not as much as the other props. I guess it provides the ambience for the other props to give their chills. But next year I need height. Almost all of my tombstones were of a similar (low) height, so I plan on introducing some obelisks and maybe a sarcophagus similar to the one the Davis Graveyard displayed. That would look splendid in the yard.

Other than the wind that ended up whipping up late in the morning, there wasn't much to complain about. The breeze really didn't threaten the props, as I heard a number of haunters say happened at their homes, but it made it impossible to use the fogger I had at the ready. I had been hopeful because the day dawned bright, clear, and still but by 11:00 a.m. a steady breeze was blowing making it impractical to use. That's two years in a row now with no fog.

The only prop I wasn't happy with was my reindeer/cat/rabid dog prop. The movement was much to subtle to bring any notice to it and I was unable to synch my iPod with it to have it snarl and growl. Because I had hooked up the player to the motion sensor as well, the "Play" button needed to be hit each time it was activated. I tried taping a nut to the play button but that didn't work either so I'll need a better option next year.

In all, I was happy with my display. The props, the look of the yard, and the increased number of ToTs that came by all made the work I did all year long satisfying. I think some better lighting options next year, a few more props (still want to make my gravedigger), and perhaps introducing ambient sound will make it even better. This was a learning year for me -- such as learning to make sure my camera works before Halloween -- and I'm looking forward to an even better effort next year.

Summer Winds

I guess we should be thankful for this "Indian summer" we've been granted. It certainly makes it more enjoyable to set out props in the yard, though when your thoughts are turning to jumping in the pool it hardly makes it seem like Halloween is less than three weeks away.

The yard is coming together. The tombstones in the graveyard are up (a few more are waiting to be finished), the flying crank ghost is up and running (more on that in a minute), and granny is rocking away in her chair. I put the finishing touches on the LED spotlights I made this year and began running the wiring to them. So why is it all coming apart at the seams?

I've been testing the FCG and letting it run for hours at a time to make sure that on Halloween all is okay. And it has been, until yesterday afternoon when one of the lines for the arm decides it wants to get entangled in the motor screw. What the heck makes it suddenly do that?!

That would've been okay, but I went to make sure that I had properly set up the wiring for the LED spots and went to connect it to the computer power supply powering the FCG when I noticed I didn't have a proper connector. I checked the (five!) other computer supplies I have figuring I'd harvest a connector from one of them, but none of them had one either. So off I went to Radio Shack to get one.

I once read a parody of the Shack's business on The Onion, which ran an imaginative interview with the company's CEO Julian Day.

"There must be some sort of business model that enables this company to make money, but I'll be damned if I know what it is. You wouldn't think that people still buy enough strobe lights and extension cords to support an entire nationwide chain, but I guess they must, or I wouldn't have this desk to sit behind all day."

Parody, yes, but it hits pretty close to home. But thank goodness they do sell all sorts of doodads. I was able to find my connector but upon getting home I realized I needed a female connector, not a male, so back to The Shack (good thing it's just minutes from the house). I got the female connector came, back home and went to install it, when I realized I actually did need the male connector!

Now before you think I'm a complete idiot, let me just say that I was always under the impression that a male connector slid into a female receptacle, and that's why they were named as such. Not so with these Radio Shack parts. It's the opposite. When I showed the two parts to the employee helping me, he was baffled too (for your own edification, the picture above right is supposedly the male connector, while the one to the left is the female, even though the one on the left slides into the one above. I'm guessing it has to do with the prongs inside the connector).

So back home for a third time at which time I realized my computer power supply's (female) connector didn't fit The Shack's (male) connector. The latter had a slightly different shape and no amount of "helping" would make it go. So, it was back to Radio Shack again where I just cancelled the entire transaction. I'm just going to wire it directly to the PC battery, but by that point yesterday I was too friggin' agitated to do more.

Between the FCG and the stalking I was doing at Radio Shack, I was pretty well aggravated by this point. Which brings me to my ScareFX-style rockin' granny. Maybe it was the unseasonable weather, but granny seemed like she wanted to stand up and walk right out of her chair she was rocking so violently. I don't remember her having done so previously when I tested it out.

My good fried Noah Fentz, who runs the Katzper's Haunt (an award-winning basement walk-though haunt), had opted not to have his granny move using the ScareFX mechanism because he thought it looked too unnatural. While I believe in certain circumstances the "crazy lady in the chair" movement can be effective, I see his point after watching mine rock violently. But I set it up with one of the motion sensors I made and it should really scare the bejesus out of people. I know it did my wife. She didn't realize I had powered it up and when she walked onto the porch she jumped as it started moving. So I'll have to find a way to keep her legs attached (yeah, that was one of the pitfalls of this wild rocking, she kicked her legs off).

In reality, the yard display is coming together and the "setbacks" yesterday are really just tweaks. But when they come as they did in threes -- the FCG, the LEDs, and the rocker, as well as three trips to Radio Shack -- I had had enough and went inside and had a few cold beers. I would've anyway, but it was a good excuse to calm down from my frustration. And I'll be back at it today!

A Light in the Darkness

Cribbing from an idea found on the HalloweenForum discussion boards, I picked up five clip-on LED spotlights, the kind the would be appropriate for book reading. They're bullet-shaped and made of plastic, so they don't look like they could light up very much. What a surprise then when I found that they helped reveal a lot of the props (including the zombies) that were previously hidden in deep shadows because of the brightness of the large spotlights I have illuminating the haunt.

From the sidewalk, the graveyard is bathed in a ghostly blue light while from the porch it looks like the yard has sprouted fairy lights. Even better, though, is that they have helped make my animatronic mummy actually work.

One of the problems I've had in the past is that during the evening hours there wasn't enough ambient light to activate the motion sensor located on the mummy's belly. I took one of the mini-spots that was getting dim (they're battery-operated) and placed it on the porch aimed at the mummy. If it was a new spot the porch would be too bright, but because it's getting dim it doesn't change the spooky look of the porch but is bright enough to allow the mummy to activate when someone walks in front of it.

I got my other lights working too. They kept tripping the GFCI outlet and after trial and error, I figured out it was that one of the fixtures had accumulated some water and that's what was causing the short. Swapping out the fixture for a new one and the problem was cured. Now my neighbors can come by and appreciate the yard without knocking on my door at 10:00!

Rich