Thread: Lighting Advice Needed

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First want to say hi. This is my first post and have to say I love this site. Some really cool ideas on improving your haunt. As for my question. I am changing my graveyard this year...making it run around my house. It is shallow area around 6' deep, running 30 feet long. Was wondering what kinda lighting you all recommend and where to get it? I was thinking small, low intesity lights..but would love some input.

To give some back ground. I have 2-3' home made crosses and tombstones. The fence is about 1.5' high and have 5' masoleum, and a few 3' coffins.

thanks
dc

CpZ - welcome to the forum! Glad you found us, and I think you'll end up with so many good ideas you're going to want to double your haunt...each year...

Something I've worked with for the last few years have been LED mini-spots that I wire together myself, and run off of a regular Malibu style lighting system.
I tend to purchase my LED's off eBay, and a number of the distributors will include "free" resistors with the LED order, and you can choose which voltage you'd like the resistors to function with (so, as an example, I just purchased 100 ultra-bright green LED's with resistors for 12 volts for $4.99 total off of eBay - that included shipping. Took about 2 weeks to get here, but was worth the wait - these things are BRIGHT!!)

So, you could run the power line for the yard lighting, and make a spot (or two) for each tombstone and coffin. In fact, if you have enough line, you can run it around the mausoleum and light that from a few angles, to really highlight it.

One thing that is nice about the LED mini-spots - since I'm only using a few LED's in each one, the light from them doesn't bleed all over the yard, discoloring other props and sets. So, I can highlight my witch with green, and then the skeleton standing next to her in yellow or red.

Have you checked out Monster Page of Halloween Project Links yet? I cant find the exact link, but there is a site there that has all kinds of info about lighting foregrounds and backgrounds and tricks for shodows and reflections as well. I'm kicking myself for not bookmarking it.

I like the individual spotlight idea. I've used lanterns before, at least one for each stone, but they can have issues with not being as bright as needed.

When I did my thing outside I used one really bright spotlight even though it was the big green bulb. It was bright, but eerie. Menards used to sell them for cheaper prices before. I would think they still do. They had blue, green, and red at least if you go down that route.

I have a question I hope someone can ask instead of making a new topic. It's about lights (bulbs actually). Do you know where you can find spare orange small light bulbs (like Christmas lights, but they are Halloween) that are 2.5 volts? Walmart used to have them, but I don't think they have them anymore.

Here's the link walkingcorpse was talking about,
-Skull And Bone-
It's definitely worth checking out.

Go with Leds for sure. The blue looks very good on tombstones. Welcome!!!