2012- Day 126

We will get started very soon with the haunt restoration as I'm going to call it. Here is a rough breakdown of the schedule:
1) July- system check. We will go through each area and test all the lighting , sound etc, make sure it still works after sitting there for 9 months! We will also start on the corpse chandelier project. This will replace the one that's there now in the entrance hall.
2) August- 3 areas we want to address are the entrance mansion hallway, the crypt and the pepper's ghost area. I have some extra foam and now with the additional time there is no excuse for not making the entrance hallway  REAL! The pepper's ghost was never actually tested so we will need to do that. This will give us time to make any changes. We will need to add some sound effects to that event as well. Finally the crypt had some "holes" in the back wall that were never really patched up.
3) September- time to do work on the exit hallway with possibly a ramp leading up to the vortex, and the workers space as well as setting up and testing the cannon again.
4) October! This will be the time to rebuild our friend the Vortex, and this year I am hoping to really make the access to it seamless and completely enclosed! We are also going to create an appropriately detailed entrance doorway to the haunt.

So that's a rough breakdown of the "plaaaaaaaaaaans!"
Stay tuned

2012-Day 136- We're Baaaaaaack!

Welcome back all you goblins and ghoulies from Halloweens past! We are BACK again for Halloween 2012! Can't believe it! The Nightmare before Christmas 2011 came and went..and we definitely survived. So now a couple of things. You will notice the posts have the year first before the day countdown. I thought this would make more sense since it is the 3rd (or is it 4th?) year of the blog. The next very important thing is to look at the images I have for you today. Anything "spooky" you notice about them? Yes that's correct! We never took down the haunt from last year! WHAT! I made a very strong case to the mayor of Halloween town. (Guess who that might be!) My take on it was this: I went into the haunt after the cancellation from last year's freak snowstorm. I looked at all the magical stuff we put together: The haunted elevator with it's detailing and intricate pulley system, the crypt room with the crush wall and painstaking paneling details, the pepper's ghost mechanics including the track we finally got to work smoothly etc etc. Bottom line was this: there was no way this could be taken down and put up exactly the same way. Does anyone think that Da Vinci could repaint the Mona Lisa EXACTLY as it was..OK a little exaggeration, but you get my point. Since we were going to do the same build anyway, it would have been a disaster to have to take this stuff down. It would never have worked. So my case was considered and the Mayor consented. Thankfully the winter was very mild as we did not have a garage!

Back panel of the elevator to the right

Crush wall. I did take down the exit door from the crush room

Entrance hall

And now it's back to work. Just because there was no take down does not mean we're finished. Noooooooo! It means we need to go one step further.
1) Better video coverage. I do have a new camera so we should have time to do this better
2) Upgraded mansion entrance hall. We have extra foam etc we can use and will replace the chandelier with one 'more appropriate'. Better scares for that section
3) Finish the crush room detailing. The back wall was not really done
4) The one capital expense this year will be a web gun. The store bought webs just don't cut it
5) Added sound for the pepper's ghost
6) A nicely detailed haunt entrance doorway with great fx sound and light
7) PLENTY of time to test and retest the whole set. No excuses this time