Thread: Our decorations are perfect, but no one can SEE them! Please help a newbie :)

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Our 14' x 6' balcony looks great during the day, but can barely be seen at night.
How can we light the entire area in a spooky (yet, ulliminating) glow?

Did I mention "cheaply" ?

blue spotlights from home depot $7 bulb $4 yard stake get like 2

I second that. the blue bulbs at home depot have a touch of green in them. the perfect "creepy" color. Phillips brand 100watt spotlights.

hang a black light and use tulle around the perimeter of the balcony to create an etheral glow

We have some black lighting (two 75w spot lights and a strand of (25) C9 bulbs) but there is no effect at all. At night, our balcony looks like a black box trimmed in cheapo purple Halloween lights. Everything inside the box is too dark to see (except for a green party lightbulb that very slightly glows on one of our props).
Any thoughts on strobe lighting? I'm thinking that may work better than a soft glow. lol

Originally Posted by funhousejoe

blue spotlights from home depot $7 bulb $4 yard stake get like 2

They also make the fixtures with a flat base that has holes in it you can run a screw through. If your working on a porch or deck you can also take a large brick and put them on the base to keep it in a fixed location. I found the blue doesn't put out enough light to suit me at a distance. They look great close up but out a little ways the blue light disappears. I use the orange or red. To give you an idea of what they look like here is a green one on a witch



its located at the base of her feet on the ground and just a couple feet in front of her.

Here is an orange one(on the ground) and red one(in the coffin) in the foreground and then a green one at the base of the flying ghoul, and in the background you can see the witch again




Some people think you should match the color to the type of character you have on display but honestly you just have to play with it a little. as you can see the light output of the orange is alot more than the green or red.

But this is about as cheap as you can get for a lighting set up. Like funhousejoe said its about 6-7 dollars for the spotlight itself and about that or a little less for the fixture. You can use a standard outdoor extension cord if you need one. YOu can buy them at any big box hardware store. I've seen lights in Yellow, orange, blue, green and red at most.

Here is the fixture itself that is inside my coffin.



my display is only veiwed at distance as I don't have ToTs so I use alot more light than I would if people were actaully walking up to the house.

Thank you for posting the pictures. Your house is creepy! lol Good job.
I love the green light on the witch. One of these may give me just the look I need.

Tammy77541, do you have a balcony above you or some roof eaves? If you do see if you can aim some colored spot lights straight upward to reflect off of that surface. Sort of like how a ceiling captures the light from the opening in a lamp shade and helps illuminate the room. Remember that light needs something to bounce off of to be visible to the eye.

Also ultraviolet sounds like its too low in the spectrum to do much of anything to lightup stuff on your balcony. I'd say try blue and/or green lighting and add some yellow spots if need be. Otherwise maybe blue and red with maybe yellow if needed.

Might find Skull and Bones' tutorial helpful (by Robert D. Brown). The videos have been taken down unfortunately, but if you go through a few pages you'll come to the diagram section with some photos. http://www.robertdbrown.com/haunt/. I'm sure someone else can point you to some good lighting tutorials.

I like to use different color lights in different areas. Where they lap I get a nice blending effect of the 2 colors that appears as yet another color i.e. blue/red=purple, red/green=kind of a creepy brown.

It's worth it to pick up flood lights in all available colors, and try out each one. It's helpful to try each color on each area - you never know when a color you weren't planning to use turns out to be the perfect one for a scene!