Thread: Video!! - Pirates of Hollin Hall 2008

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After many delays, I finally was able to finish and post our video from this year. Better late than never.

Enjoy!

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaE8BnlKno8]YouTube - Pirates of Hollin Hall - Halloween Night 2008[/ame]

And if you missed them, our pics are here.

-DGM

Your props are amazing,I love all the talking skellys.The pop up one made me jump wasn't expecting it.

Dadgonemad, wish you were my neighbor! No one around here does anything near as nice. Great yard. I loved how there was always something going on in the yard to catch your attention. Nice lighting and I enjoyed the pictures (you could see things better) and the video (like-you-were-there experience). Great costumes on the props and the pirate family. Your lass was fetching and your little tykes were so cute and you made a terrific looking pirate. I love when the whole family gets into it.

I saw some props that I recognized and even a few that I also owned. How much was made versus purchased? Looks like you had a nice mix going on. I never was particularly impressed with the skelly hanging in the cage before but loved how you had it illuminated and worked into your setting. Very effective. Really nice job and thanks for sharing it.

Outstanding! Great continuity of theme, the lighting was nigh professional! LikeGoS, I could recognize bought props, but you worked them into the theme very well (Like the skelly bust out of the ground holding the treasure)!
What's your neighbors responses, and do you get many ToTers?
Great pics and video, thanks for posting!

Amazing , i love it , the singing pirates are so cool and the greeting pirate as well , very nice video to watch , your display was totally awsome

What a fun video to watch. I especially like the giant skull on the house. I bet the kids just loved walking through that.

That was just fantastic. Great video capture and editing to get all the elements.

I love the overall show quality and cohesiveness.

My neighbor wants to do a joint pirates theme for next year and my 5 year old wants to be a pirate-princess so I guess I know what my theme will be!

Freshly Doug

Awesome!

Thanks for the kind words!

To answer some questions:

I try to limit the amount of store-bought props to items I know I can incorporate into the theme, or modify to fit. The ground poppers are probably the most obvious, but they're cheap and effective. I try to get as much of that as I can during post-halloween sales for the following season. This year's haul wasn't very good (just a few faux-flame lights from Spirit), as I wasn't particularly impressed with the selections this year. I guess I'm starting to get picky since you can typically make something yourself that's much better.

I like to say that I build most of it myself. All of the animations, most of the static creatures, and tombstones (except one) are of my own creation with assistance from all the great talent here on this forum. It's awesome what you can do with some PVC, pool noodles, bubble wrap, and a costume and mask. I have a total of four buckys and two barts, and I tend to add one or two a year, usually for an animation.

The response from the neighborhood has been fantastic. We closed off the road this year for the first time, and it was a huge success. Our neighborhood association president volunteered to serve up lemonade, and one neighbor grilled 150 hotdogs and handed them out. After eight years of working to build up a reputation, we're becoming a must-see in the 'hood!

We handed out about 250 glow-bracelets to ToTs that made it to the door, and we likely had over 1000 visitors. Some were still showing up after 10:00.

Thanks again for the compliments. I couldn't have done it without you!

-dgm


P.S.: halloween71, the popup skelly was a hoot! I startled more adults with that than ever. It was quite funny to watch.

Beyond Awesome! I wish I had that much talent and knowhow to make talking skeletons!