Day 64- Gate and Control Room

Just over 2 months to go! We decided to put a gate between zone 4, pepper ghost room, and 5, prison room. Once the actor comes out of the pepper's ghost fx box area in zone 4 (see post from July 31) to scare the guests, they will be trapped behind the gate for a second or 2 until the haunt master sitting in the control room opens the gate into the prison room. There will be a mat sensor just in front of the gate which will trigger the gate opening sound (my que!) We also set up the control room which has 2 monitors and will also have pulleys to operate the prop drops in zone 1 and 2. The gate is easily constructed out of 2x2's hinged to the central wood frame. The 'latch' is made out of 3/8 inch drill rod ($4) press fit into a 2x2 handle (after drilling a hole slightly under 3/8 then tapping the rod into it). The rod passes through short 2x2 segments to keep it aligned and into an eye bolt which serves as the latch. If you look at the 3rd image down from the top, on the left you can see the drill rod passing through the eye bolt which is bolted onto the central frame. There is a stop screwed into the central frame as well to keep the rod from spearing someone in zone 1! After opening the gate, the hauntmaster then closes the gate when the guests have passed into zone 6. Notice the coffin silhouette design on the gate. I thought that was an interesting touch! The gate construction is illustrated in the images. The short video demonstrates the gate in action (taken with a sound bite from the 'Nightmare Revisited' CD)