Halloween 7/24/365

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

2012 Day 92- Control room chaos!

Time now to make order out of chaos! I walked into the control room and confronted a literal bird's nest of cables, cords and switches. What! Where does all this stuff go and what does it control!!? The switches are nothing high tech. The extension cords plug into the switches which then plug into the strip. I do have an X10 remote which is used to turn on the crypt crush wall sound and light effects and I believe the elevator light and exit sound . First thing to do was turn on everything and make sure it all still works. And yes, so far so good! I tested all 3 cameras and no problem there. At least 4 sound boards are still functioning fine. Lighting for the foyer and crypt were also checked. A dvd sound system is set up for the crypt and this just replays 2 sound bytes over and over. We also have 4 pulley bars and 2 additional pulley ropes to reposition the  crush wall after it is deployed! Two that are shown here open and close the crypt door, one operates the crush wall and one not shown opens the elevator doors. Got all that Ghouls! Now I need to make a map of everything especially the switches etc to remember what operates what!
The basic control room breakdown. This is where all the action is!
DVD player sites on top of the monitor for Camera 3 - the Crypt. You can see the front of the crush wall recorded live!

Camera 2 monitors the inside of the elevator. You can see the X10 remote (small white box) sitting in front of the monitor.

This is the Foyer and also entrance into the Crypt as shown by Camera 2

Sunday, July 29, 2012

2012 Day 94- Corpse chandelier

Our 'big' prop project this year will be the corpse chandelier. I have a chandelier prop that we have used in the past which does have a shake motor built into it, but it hasn't gotten a lot of attention. You can see that prop here in the top image. It's kind of cool, but I thought we needed something with a little more creep to it. I found the solution a couple of years ago searching through the 'Monster page of Halloween project links'. Those of you who are not familiar with this resource really need to investigate it! Don't feel you have to come up with everything on your own and reinvent the wheel!  Here at the 'Halls of Doom' most of the sets, props and effects are tweeks of  previously developed projects, many of which are found on the Monster page. One of these, the corpse chandelier, is perfect for the upgrade of the Mansion hallway we are looking for! I probably will not build the candles from scratch though.

Saturday, July 28, 2012

2012 Day 95- Haunted Doors 2.0

Welcome back Ghouls! Last year we introduced the rolling door concept courtesy of my friend James Beach (Garage of Terror). This was a definite breakthrough as in the past we had major issues with doors derailing from floor-based tracks. Very bad! The suspended rolling door eliminates all of this hassle. I presented a way to open and close the doors last year remotely using a pulley mechanism. See this post to review the concept. Now James has a haunt that attracts mostly young visitors from what I understand. The guests for our haunt are much older, high school to adult. I had to make these doors a little more robust. Each door weighs about 25 pounds or so. The cost is around $15-20 per door: a couple dollars each for 2 caster wheels, a 2x2 for framing, 2x4 I beam. 4 brackets each about 99c and hardboard piece about 10 bucks. I present here details on the crypt exit door. This door will be controlled by an operator using a 2x2 handle. He or she can see through the one way window and will know when to open it!

Video demonstration of crypt exit door from outside and then inside the crypt! Notice how the mechanism is quite smooth. I put a 2x2 cube on either end of the track to act as stops. (see image below)

Components of a suspended sliding door 

You can add weight to the bottom if necessary as sometimes the doors will sway if not weighted down. The plastic on the right is there to prevent light leaks from inside the crypt
2x2 handle for opening and closing

Door is unmounted here showing the caster wheels bolted to 2 brackets which sit on either side of the 2x4 I beam (when mounted of course). You might have to drill an extra hole in the bracket on the bottom to secure the bottom portion. These brackets are very thin and easy to drill through

This is the inside of the same door as seen from within the crypt. I used a vacuform panel surrounded by pieces of foam from an old hot tub cover which when painted black look like old stone slabs!



Monday, July 9, 2012

2012- Day 114

The following is a brief tour of the Halls of Doom, again largely left intact due to last year's freak storm. This was unexpectedly creepy going in there to see what we left behind as we begin the journey to Halloween 2012. I may not need any fake spider webs at all! It was very dark in there as you can see.