Thread: What do YOU do for lighting?

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For my yard haunt I have always put flood lights in the ground and aimed them up towards whatever I am trying to light up and whatever effect I'm trying to create. I just came across a website where this person had some blue lights up in a tree shining down in to his cemetary and it looked awesome! (Although I would have tried to hide them somehow to make them not so obvious). I was just wondering if anybody else has tried this technique of putting some floods in trees shining down? I would also still use the floods on the ground but I think for an overall effect, the overhead lights might help! What do you think or what experience do you guys/gals have?

Heres the website with the picture. Its the first one.

http://www.unpleasantstreet.com/index.php?y=gallery

That is pretty cool looking. Last year I put up some orange icicle lights on the porch and had the thunder and lighning machine going. Years past I have put flood lights on the plastic stake things in the yard but was never really happy with them.

Q- What do you do for lighting?
A- In my case, a pretty piss-poor effort.

Last Halloween was the first time I took lighting seriously, and the results were pathetic. Good lighting takes a lot of trial and error, and, I would think, a pretty hefty fiscal investment. But it's worth it. And, what a challenge!

Originally Posted by Wolfman

Q- What do you do for lighting?
A- In my case, a pretty piss-poor effort.

Last Halloween was the first time I took lighting seriously, and the results were pathetic. Good lighting takes a lot of trial and error, and, I would think, a pretty hefty fiscal investment. But it's worth it. And, what a challenge!

LOL yeah it definitely takes some time and experimenting to get some good lighting. And it is a pretty big investment. I think I have about 15 Flood Lights going on in my yard haunt. I would LOVE to trade them all out for LED lights for the less electricity, and heat. ie: no more fire hazard but they are EXPENSIVE!

Over the years I've adopted a "less is better" mind set, with regards to lighting. I used to illuminate our small yard with 6-7 flood lights, and while wel lit, it looked more like Christmas. I've since scaled back to 2 or 3 blue floods and an orange one. I plan to cut back a bit this year as well and go with a couple well placed led spots. In trying to go for a creepy cemetery look, I've eliminated the "washed with light" effect and the dim lighting lends itself to better atmosphere. By not having every single prop lit up, it makes people look longer to see what you've got going on. The darker setting also makes it spookier, IMO

Have to throw this in: http://www.skullandbone.com/tutorial_01.htm
GREAT lighting tutorial


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I have an orange streetlight at the end of my drive. I work with that light - and it actually is a nice effect that doesn't hurt my graveyard as I also have a densely leafed tree that shades the rest of the yard in darkness.

I have two spotlights on the eaves of my garage that are switched out to green and bathe the path up the drive and the porch walk and we have red and blue in the yard itself in ground spots aimed at a few of the gravestones. The green sweeps out a bit over the back corner of my graveyard and highlight a coffin up near the house's walk.


Green spots on the eaves. You can see a glow from the blacklight in the mausoleum to the right.


Red spot in the front aimed upwards. It isn't quite dark in this shot but it's easy to see all of the color. The porch light by the front door is actually a 25 watt purple bulb and is not anywhere nearly as bright as it appears in the pic.

The FCG has a blacklight but it doesn't give out much ambient light at all.

It looks really colorful, especially for a display as small as mine, but I really love the colors!

I had planned last year to hide a couple of blue spots up in the tree to aim downwards to simulate moonlight and reduce the amount of color all together, but my hubby and I got the flu and that meant the setup last year was throw together without following the plans. The pics are from 2008 - I completely forgot to take night shots last year...

So it's two green spots up at roof level, orange streetlight, red spot ground level front and blue spot extreme right front corner.

Now, ya see, that post above me? THAT's the look I want. But it don't come easy, it don't come cheap and it don't come overnight. I'm setting aside a week this year to get the lighting spot on.

Torches.


Lots and lots of torches.




(though that might be changing somewhat this year...)

i've never really played with lighting, but i do a cemetary. after viewing the cemetary thread and seeing lighting [like frankies girl and unorthodox's] i am going to work on that this year. you can see how enhancing lighting is. after Christmas last year i hit the lighting sales pretty hard. i think lights pointed down from a tree would be very nice.

I use a combination of flood lights, battery operated lanterns, lightening strobes and Tiki torches in my haunt....I think it looks pretty cool at night: