2013- Day 185- "Master...The Plaaaaaaans"

Here it is Ghouls! This year's layout. The theme as mentioned is the Haunted Hotel. Traffic flow is from the right entrance indicated by the arrows. Guests go through a back alley. Lots of thunder and lightning effects. Now this year we have something special planned. Stairs! Just a few, but in order to pull off the illusion of entering through a back storm door and also to effectively merge with a video projection onto the door, we had to put in about 3 steps. This creates some interesting scare options. Now the video projection is extremely effective and will consist of a ghost figure walking down the back stairs of the "hotel" to greet the guests! This is indicated by the yellow lines. the guests go up the steps and open the door. As soon as they get to the door, the ghost disappears, they open the door and enter a space where the flooring is slightly elevated due to the steps (indicated by the hatched area) This isn't too big a space, but will have to be engineered obviously for stability! While in that space there will be ghouls grabbing at their feet, an appearance by a bloodied peppers ghost and perhaps a cameo appearance by our friend from last year, the corpse! After that they enter the main event! A hotel lobby will be really detailed with down lighting, a front desk and a zombie bell hop to greet them and guide them into the "tower of terror" elevator. We basically will move the elevator from last year to occupy the space which was used by the crypt. Several upgrades to the elevator will be made and guests will be in there a little longer. Notice since this is a "service elevator" they will enter and exit through opposite doors. They exit into a "dot maze" which will be completely disorienting and include walls ceiling and floor! Probably 2 actors will be in there with dot suits. We will also re-employ the highly successful drop-panel as shown. Finally when they find the way out, they enter the vortex of course! So that's it! Other details of note are the expanded work space in the center for actors and other ghouls, the control room which is in the same spot as last year and the peppers ghost which is just 180 degrees oriented from last year, but because of the elevated space, we may decide to use a portion of our mud room as a back drop to also include the popular corpse chandelier!!
Stay tuned and thanks for reading!

2013-Day 364- An amazing show!

Welcome back Ghouls the day after! I can't even begin to describe the spooktacularness of the haunt this year! I'm just going to present the movie and you be the judge. We had many actors and helpers who did a tremendous job. Special thanks to Dave and John in the Mansion hallway who did a phenomenal acting job. John was the first ghoul you see popping out of the drop panel.  Dave was 'The Count' who gathered the guests and led them into the elevator, unsuspectingly. Steve was the ghoul who was in the elevator already as the guests entered. Dave H was our videographer and 'crypt keeper'. Maddie was our ghost who you get a brief glimpse of exiting the elevator. About an hour before the show I was testing the elevator pulley and it broke, so we had to have 2 guys raise and lower it manually (Thanks Max and Mike) My son Ben and I were 'behind the curtain' as it were. Ben was the crush wall operator. Everyone helped to make this a spectacular show. Thank you all! I will post more images etc over the next few days. And then.....we plan for the Halls of Doom 2013...I mean what else Ghouls!

This is the plan of the haunt. Guests enter the mansion hallway, enter the elevator, go down to  the crypt level, exit the elevator and see the ghost apparition, then enter the crypt and exit out through the end hallway where we had prop heads hanging and actors jumping out. Finally the vortex! Use this map as a reference for the video!

2012- Day 3- The Show Will Go On!

I think it looks OK for us. The brunt of the storm is looking like it will hit fairly well south. Basically just rain forecast for Wednesday. I had a couple of the actors over last night to review their scripts. One is stationed behind the drop panel, one is the 'Count' who will greet the guests in front of the elevator and will manage the sliding wall in front of the crypt door, and the third is the video operator who will work the snake projection image. Today I am having the elevator operator over. He has one of the more difficult jobs, namely pulling the elevator panel up and holding it there for several seconds until the guests leave the elevator. I did have to hire someone to do that! Once your haunt reaches the level where you need to start paying people to do jobs, maybe it's time to scale back? A bunch of weatherproofing steps also need to be taken today for the vortex ahead of whatever we get from the storm. Lots of testing over the next couple of days. I hope to have a bunch of pics and maybe some video.

2012 Day 69- Elevator light and X10 revisited

The sequence for the haunted elevator goes like this:
1) Elevator door ghoul (actor) waves his hand toward the doors to open them. I can see this gesture from the control room monitor and at that moment I can open the doors using the pulley bar. Of course there is a sound bite!
2) As the guests enter the elevator, the overhead light turns on. This is a red LED which I can operate using an X10 remote (see video)
3) Once the guests are inside, the 'door ghoul' does have to manually close them. The overhead light turns off so it is pitch dark, a weight drops onto the elevator making a loud clunk with enough force to shake the elevator a bit, and then there is a sound bite scream.
4) Right after the scream, the back panel light turns on showing the moving panel only and along with the light there is a creepy laugh as the panel moves simulating the elevator going down to the crypt level.
5) Once the crypt level is reached, the overhead light turns back on and the doors reopen!

The following video demonstrates operation of the X10 remote to turn on and off the elevator light. For a detailed explanation of X10 and how it works, you can see this post

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.

Day 10- The Final Countdown~!

The fast and furious pace continues as we race toward the finish! Today we installed the elevator weight drop. The idea is once everything is completely dark in the elevator for a second or 2 we drop this 20 pound weight onto the elevator ceiling and the whole thing shakes suddenly before the wall panel is moved! I found this old bird house in the garage that just needed a little modification to contain a dumb-bell standing upright which could be pulled upward using a pulley about maybe 5-6 inches before being stopped by a 2x2 bar inside the box. Then when you let that drop it causes a thud with a shake. The pulley is routed over the elevator to the back 'service area' where the elevator 'operators' will be stationed. The birdhouse is screwed onto a dense plywood board spanning the 2x2's as shown. If you look closely in the video at the moment of impact you can see the elevator shake a little!

Day 11- Live Foyer

We installed 'Cam 1' in the foyer with a good vantage point for guests entering and leaving the elevator and entering the map room

Day 12- Elevator lights

These are the moments all haunters wait for! After literally months of sweat and blood we finally get to see a finished product, or close to it. The elevator foyer lighting features an eerie amber down light and a small interior spot to show the doors. We also have an indirect black light which will enhance the actor standing in the corner. Unfortunately it's difficult to reproduce exactly what you are seeing for real but at least you get some idea of the scene we are creating. This is what the visitors will see as they wait for the doors to open! I think this could be our greatest creation in the short haunting career of  'xtremegaragehaunting' thus far! What do you think?

Day 13- Elevator details and peppers ghost frame

We finished the elevator interior paint and detailing. The frame for the peppers ghost cart was also completed. It's much darker in there now so imaging is more difficult. Currently we are working on lighting for the elevator facade and front hall. In the images shown here the elevator view is through the open doors to the back where the window is positioned. I placed a chain around the interior of the elevator instead of the usual side rails. Now the ghost frame has a small side pocket to allow the fake wall to slide into it. Our ghost actor will have to slide the wall out (as shown) to create the crypt level scenery when people exit the elevator, then once they enter the crypt the wall is retracted back into the frame on the left for the next group to enter the main hall. Hopefully that's not too confusing.

Day 19- Elevator facade gets some brains!

I think it was last year that some good friends of ours got me this halloween gift for my birthday. It was a prop human brain packaged similar to hamburger meat you buy in the grocery store! At that time I really had no use for it in the haunt since it was a totally different deal than this year. Way too dark to see any props of any kind. Well this year I found a place for it! I removed it from the packaging and as you can see here, bolted it to the elevator facade top where it has found a home as the 'pointer' for the individual floors: 'F' for foyer, 'M' for morgue and of course, the crypt (alias map room). Now there is some kind of gooey red stuff they put on the prop to make it more realistic I suppose. What happened was that in the process of placing a bolt through the brain center, I squeezed out some of the red liquid which then dripped onto the skull elevator door knobs creating a serendipitous bloody skull! Amazing! You just never know what can happen during the haunting process!

Meanwhile I did manage to get all the vortex hoops assembled and ready to go just in time before the next low pressure system moved in with rain. We plan to connect the motor and set up the bridge on the weekend. So it took probably about 8 hours in 2 days to assemble and connect the hoops and put up the canopy. Not too bad!

Day 22- Elevator facade

Things are moving along. We installed light and sound for the map room as well as the 2-way mirror. We'll have pics of that at some point but I wanted to post these elevator facade pics which are really great I think. We painted the front black for the doors and added some foam brick again on either side with a few skull props as well. The center prop was sawed in half and placed on each door as knobs! We are also going to put foam at the top of the elevator face with some uplighting. It's very hard to demonstrate the full effect with the actual light that will be seen but will try. Tomorrow is vortex day Ghouls, so stay tuned! We plan to get the canopy and hoops up and running. If we have time for the bridge we will do that to.

Day 29- Elevator door pulleys and peppers ghost glass

Elevator pulleys for door opening were installed as seen in the video. If you look carefully you can see the rope to the right and left of the respective doors. The pulleys are placed at the ends of the door suspension beam, then the rope is routed to 2 sets of pulleys in the ceiling frame and down to a single 2x2 bar where the ends of the 2 ropes are tied. The doors are able to open simultaneously by pulling down on the bar. I just have to practice applying the proper tension to each end so they open at the same rate! Now the actor who lets the guests into the elevator will have to close it. No easy way to do that one remotely!

And now for all you peppers ghost junkies! We're back and better than ever as you can see with the installation of a full length glass window as seen from the elevator. When the guests come out of the elevator onto the crypt level, they will be greeted by the moving peppers ghost. I have a panel directly behind the glass consisting of yet another vacuform segment and some foam below which will be painted black. The ghost actor will be in an enclosed hall to the right of the glass. This glass window I was able to obtain from "freecycle'. Glass is expensive and this size is definitely not in the budget. Freecycle is a local Yahoo group where items of all kinds are offered for free by people looking to get rid of stuff they can't use. Check for the one in your area next time you need materials for your haunt!

Day 45- Elevator back wall

Two images of the completed back wall of the elevator. One is taken through the partially open doors of the elevator and the other is the view from the map room, which will not be possible to take a week from now as everything will be fully enclosed (we hope!) The elevator walls will be part hardboard and part foam. We're using a lot of this foam this year as it is light weight and easy to cut but durable. I also didn't want to add a lot of extra weight to the platform but placed the hardboard on the bottom in case anyone decides to test the walls with their feet! All of the inside elevator walls will be painted black except for the brick wall seen through the window obviously.

Day 47- Elevator doors installed

This is just a 2x2 frame with rolling hardboard doors as shown. The challenge here is positioning the beam for the doors in such a way so the doors do not bind up against the actual elevator frame. The elevator frame is attached to the elevator floor which has movement because of the springs under the floor! In other words, the doors roll on a 2x2 beam that does not connect at all to the actual elevator. I built rectangular box frames which the doors roll into on  either side, much like a real elevator! If this whole thing seems more like an engineering project than a haunt, be patient Ghouls! Things are moving fast and furious over the next 47 days!

Day 56- Elevator doors taking shape

The weekend wrapped up with the completion of one elevator door. I suppose you never get done what you expect to, but we did accomplish several things: the crypt (map room) is mostly done except for the exit door and adjacent wall. The ceiling was a big job and took awhile (see last post). The back wall of the elevator was framed and we completed the design and framing of the elevator door side. You can see once again the rolling door mechanism which is our recurring construction theme. The elevator doors are also hardboard, but smaller and therefore we're suspending them on a 2x2 beam instead of a 2x4. We will use pulleys to open the doors simultaneously but will have someone close them manually. If you look carefully at the image in the background you can see the framed out window at the back of the elevator through which the outer 'brick wall' appears. We also tested some lighting in the map room and realized we don't quite have what we need for that. In the next week or 2 we will need to start on the peppers ghost set up. Then of course there is the entrance hall, light sound, vortex etc. ...in only 56 days!

Day 65- Elevator panel complete!

Is this haunted elevator actually moving? Or is it your imagination? Hmmmmm.
As you can see we finished the foam portion of the panel complete with the brick and cracked rock. It's actually a simple technique. I took a sheet of foam board and mounted it onto the panel frame with screws and glue. Foam board insulation sheets you can get from home depot or building supply. You take a small dremel tool drill bit and load it onto your drill and then cut out the grout lines. I then sprayed with a grey flat paint. Now I understand the grout lines are not straight! Don't kill me for that Ghouls.I think it does actually look a bit ghoulish myself! I added some additional cracks to enhance the effect. It is very creepy with appropriate lighting! For this application I think it is fine because remember this panel will be moving the split second after the light shines on it. No one will have enough time to tell. They will be overwhelmed by the motion effect!  The floors will appear to the guests as top floor brick, then rock, then crypt at the bottom! I agree that if you are going to have a full set on display for a long period of time with this fake foam board brick, you need to make your lines straighter.

Day 66- Relativity and the Haunted Elevator demystified

Hopefully these 2 videos will clarify some of the questions I'm getting about what we're trying to do. In the first one I am explaining the set-up.
Bottom line is, the back panel, which will be visible through a window at the back of the elevator, is moving up which will give you the sensation of moving down!

Day 72- Elevator panel tower installed!

OK Ghouls, we're on to the elevator again finally! To review the concept, let's go back to that particular post. You can find it here. Now I agree, there is a huge amount of infrastructure we're building this year for the haunt in general. I'm getting a little anxious about it with the time factor and all, but I think we'll be OK. This particular design I am very happy with as I simplified it A LOT. If you look at the version I referenced in the earlier post you can see that having individual panels come out of the ground on some sort of rotating spool mechanism was logistically too complex and yet another motor to drive it was not in the budget. The sliding mechanism has to be super smooth and problem free. One day a couple of months back I was thinking about this and wondering what examples I could find of moving panels. It suddenly hit me in the face literally as I was looking right at one...the garage door! At first I was thinking about curving the tracks underneath our current garage door to make additional room but the curved garage door track is way too expensive. The straight track is cheap. The hinges and wheels you can buy in bulk. This was a good compromise. We have unfinished 10 foot ceilings in the garage so I was able to build a straight tower with 2 8' 2x4's and a pair of 76" tracks. The tower sits just in front of the open garage door so it doesn't affect it. I had to calculate where the wheels had to go on the panel frame so I could get the maximum height of elevation. Now it's true that with a straight panel construct you don't have as many panels as you would if you did have some come up from underneath a floor or something and then curve away, but if we raise the window at the back of the elevator a bit and have the 'elevator operator' raise the panels slowly, you will still get the motion effect I believe. The panel frame is 71" high. I put one crypt panel at the bottom as you can see, since this is the floor that the guests will go down to! I will use foam for the upper floors and carve bricks out! Now in the images you can see the panel is at the back of the elevator and a window will be created ('X' in the image) which will show only a small portion of the top of the panels. We will have someone behind the panels pulling them up which will in turn provide the sensation of a descent! Now this 'panel tower' is wicked smooth with the tracks and 2" wheels. I used some motor grease in there to lube things up. Works like a charm. Should have some video soon! Stay tuned!

Day 97- Completion of elevator platform!

Well we were supposed to have this done by the end of the month and as incredible as it seems we are nearly a week ahead of schedule! We can use all the extra time we can get. As expected we had to adjust the set-up until the flex in the floor felt just about right. For those attempting this at home, you need thicker flooring than you think and fewer springs than you think. Refer to the last post for the floor base. We tried using 2 boards underneath the flooring over the springs as shown in the first image here ( a 2x4 and a 2x6). That was too stiff. We took out the 2x6 and the 3 springs underneath it and moved the 2x4 to the center. (see below)We also tested double thickness hardboard as the flooring. This was way too flimsy. Finally we arrived at our final construct: 9 springs total, 3 on either side and 3 in the center underneath a single 2x4. The floor material is 3/4 inch plywood sheets with a little patchwork in the middle since what we had lying around left a small strip in the center. We also added 2 brackets to attach the floor frame to the central frame in the garage. This added additional stability.

Day 99- "Kindly step all the way in please and make room for everyone. There's no turning back now"

Well Ghouls, I think it's about time we stayed focused and got some things done...like the entire elevator base! Yes, we really put on the ghoul cap today and cranked. Probably the countdown getting below the 3 digit mark was part of it! But seriously, I don't know if any of you have this problem: you get into the garage or wherever your haunt is going to be and it's just so totally overwhelming thinking about all the stuff you need to get done that it basically immobilizes you! You have to have a specific task list going into that day or hour or however much time you are going to spend and don't get yourself sidetracked thinking about other stuff. That's what we were able to do today! So now down to business. The elevator is not a new concept. We are modifying the design for our specific needs. As you can see you start with a support base that has 4 bolts on the corners that will go through the actual floor and will allow the floor to flex maybe a couple millimeters..not that much because you don't want it to feel like a trampoline. We might have to adjust the number of springs and other features to get it to feel just right but here is what I think should work. The first layer contains the countersunk 3/8" by 6" bolts. I used a 1/4" speed bore and went down probably about 1/4 inch, just deep enough to countersink the bolt heads, then I press fit the heads in there. The 4 bolts sit on the 2x4's on both sides of the floor. You can see the bottom 2x4's are broken up into segments. This was just because it was easier to get them to line up with the bolt holes. We then closed the gaps with scrap 2x2's once we had the full length 2x4 on top. The second layer you can see has the full length 2x4's overlying the base and the bolts go through those. The second layer also has the 2x4's running horizontally and braced to the sides. The pictures are more or less self explanatory. Finally I added the valve springs. These are 1 1/4" wide and close to 1.5 inch high. They come in boxes of 12 so I decided to use them all fairly regularly spaced out as you can see. Again using a 1.25 speed bore and drilling down 1/4". They actually sit in there very securely!
The final result is shown and now we are ready to build the floor which will overlay the structure shown here!