Thread: How did it go?

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Hi all,

I am posting this in Props primarily because this is the thread I've been in exclusively and I am asking this in regards to not only how your Halloween went with all your setup, but more so how did your props work out? Anything fail, anything learned, ideas for next year to one up yourself?

For me, I ended up doing a lot of last minute stuff. I ended up building a wood frame for my floating head prop. The Plexiglass I bought was $48, and I read on here just yesterday morning about the use of a frame + that window sheet film stuff that costs like $2 for a Pepper Ghost effect.. so thought I'd try it for the floating head. It worked "ok" in that it was the first time I've ever tried to use the material so I used a heat gun when shrinking it to the frame/tape and apparently too close a couple times and put a couple holes along the edges. That wasn't a big deal though since the projected image would be in the center. I still had some wrinkles in it though. I did get a lot of adults talking about the ghost in the window (floating heads video I used) but one thing that wasn't that great is the volume of my TV was too low for those about 30 feet away on the side walk looking in at it. I think while the prop is great, the floating talking heads is much better for an up-close use. The one on youtube of the girl playing the piano and disappearing and such is MUCH better from a distance. Also, the tape started peeling up a bit when I tried to remove the back side. Still for $2 + the wood frame which I had tools/wood for, it beat almost $50 for the plexiglass with which I still would have had to build a frame to keep it from bowing.

The projection in the bed sheet is pretty cool, but next year, if I can pick up two or three projectors, I want to film my own sequence.. my daughters room is to the left (looking at our house) of the loft windows. I would love to film a sequence, then make it black/white like a window shade is drawn and you see the shadows.. and have it where they go between the two sets of windows. It would require two projectors and probably identical DVD players, or two media players, so that the pause between the restarting of the video at the end was in sync.. unless there is a better way to sync up two videos running at the same time.

My lighting was off by a bit.. I had one yellow light behind one tombstone that was just too bright and aimed up wrong or something. I need more lighting and need to learn how to light the props. I bookmarked a thread on here for making those PVC LED lights.. those look really neat to do! I just wonder how effective they are at lighting bigger props.

One thing I can't figure out is the black light stuff. I have two of those cheap black light bulbs from the halloween stores. I have them in PAR cans aimed at the area where the ToTers walk up for candy, and they do nothing! They seem to be of no use. How do I light up my porch area to be all blacklight so any kids wearing white glow, and the cobwebs and such would glow too?

Fog machines were fantastic. I was finishing up my chillers late yesterday, but basically built vortex chillers from igloo 60qt containers. I used 20lbs of ice in each, and it worked initially really well.. later on the fog was starting to lift quickly (used Froggy's ice/low lying juice). I checked the coolers and they both had plenty of ice in them..however they were at that point one large block of ice.. I am thinking somehow within a couple hours the ice formed into one chunk and the fog was no longer passing through it, but around it, thus not chilling as much. Not sure though, why the ice would form into a big chunk of ice like that? I spent so much this year already I didn't want to spend $50 on dry ice too. Dry ice definitely works better/longer and doesn't form into chunks. I suppose I'll need to test that out again and break the chunks down from time to time.

We had probably 200 ToTers last night..maybe a bit less, but it was pretty good. I got lots of pictures taken even though I had crappy lighting, and many people said my house was the best. That is what I want the kids to grow up and remember.. "Remember that one home that every year had projections and lights, and was scary.."

Our display was a madhouse. Went very well. Went through 40+ lbs. of candy! People were back the next day to see it in the daylight but I had most almost all of it down! They had the whole month to see it! Little boy wanted us to put it back up! lol!

I had all of 2 ToTs but I expected that. No one walks down my road because it is dark and has no sidewalk. But people drove by and slowed down, and my neighbors friends came over just to see my display this year. I am having a party at a friend's house on Sat and will transport as much as I can to her yard...so we'll see how that goes.

As for your black light issue...is your porch open on the side? You may be losing the UV that way. I would hang heavy black or silver fabric to close off the area. Sometimes street lights cancel out your lighting. My boyfriend made a black shade out of vinyl and tossed over a string connected to an orange on the other end to pull it up to the light. Also, invest a higher wattage florescent tube than those cheap things from menard's, walmart, target etc. I have 2 that I have used since I was in middle school and I'm 33 years old...so they have lasted about 20 years so far.

Even with your lighting prob's you felt you had, over all sounds like it was a great show. Black lites......florescent is the only true black lite for full effect ( the 4/5 footers ), lite bulbs & floods can work with very close up........but that's it. I use can lites I find from the Salvation army, helps "aim" my lite.They look like mini par cans but only cost me .50 - $1.00e each.

Considering everything that occured beforehand with the weather and no power. Great. My Drinking Pirate gave me trouble setting up but once running she was fine. I had a brain freeze and couldn't hook up my lights right until I saw the directions! My butler stopped due to a link coming undone, took a whole 30 seconds to fix. And that my friends was it.

Well since the haunt I volunteered at was discontinued I was left with a basement full of props and figures that I had absolutely no room to use. Nevertheless, I decided to build more and put together four new animatronics for a sanitarium theme on my front porch. Once I started setting up I realized I'd only have room for three plus some decor. I had two running on wiper motors and one pneumatic running off a Nerve Center. It was really my first actual pneumatic prop.

Well everything worked flawlessly. This was probably my first year where nothing broke or needed tweaked during the run. I really think that having 6+ years of building props helps in doing things right the first time and knowing how to tweak the mechanics before something bad happens.

We only had maybe 120 ToT's come by during the 90 minutes my city designates. The way my block is arranged there is not much incentive to travel our way. I saw a lot of big groups of kids pass close by without heading our way. Disappointing after having a few thousand people see my stuff the past few years.

So, in summary: props run good, turnout so-so.