2013- Day 360- More from the "Halls" 2012

Entry door details

Daytime view of the newly created haunt entry door

One of the great things we came up with this year was an actual entry door to the haunt. Rather than just a barrier of cut up black sheeting, we built a foam door with 2x2 back frame that could be hinged on one of those garden archway structures. We've had that sitting in the yard forever and have used it for the entrance but never actually put a door in it. Adding a colorful animated prop on the front with some spooky mood lighting and a motion activated sound device really gave this a superb professional quality to it. The younger kids had something to look at while waiting in line. It was really like waiting for a Disney ride! This is definitely our permanent door as I do not think we can improve on it. We added a ghoulish looking hand prop as the door handle and would ask which guest was brave enough to open the door!

The "Halls of Doom" are officially open!

Putting it all together!

The aftermath: checking for any failures and damage after the show

Behind the scenes: the control room hours before the Halls open!

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 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!

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 7- One week left!

Well it's been pretty crazy this time around and I can't believe how fast this came! While it's going down to the wire it looks like we will barely make it. The elevator platform was completed at the end of July and just yesterday I finished the ceiling, sound and light! We spent many hours on the detailing for the elevator and map room as expected, but I think it was well worth it. The vortex interestingly this year was almost like an afterthought in terms of the build. It went up easily without any glitches. Actually it's totally done now except for the lights and some lightproofing we want to improve on this year at the end of the tunnel. Really the only thing left is the front and back hall which will be a quick frame and sheet, a couple of lights for the ghost hall with some sheeting there and a little finish stuff in the crypt. Unfortunately we might have to defer the air cannon to next year. I was going to set it up yesterday only to find out I didn't have the clamps I needed to secure it. We'll see if they can get it here by week's end and if I have enough time to deal with it. Over the next several days I will try to post as many images as possible, not necessarily in any order.

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 42- Crypt (map room) exit door

The last of the large rolling doors is finally complete. This is the exit door from the map room. There will be someone behind the wall to the left who can operate the door with a simple 2x2 wooden handle attached to the back of it. Notice the 'stonework' on the door which was the last bit of hot tub cover that was used on the walls before. Now some ghouls ask me "Doc, why do you keep calling this thing 'map room'? Looks like a crypt to me" That's because the plans for this room were inspired by the map room scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark. I wanted to do Egyptian theme panels but they were too expensive. At any rate we are using sound from that actual movie scene and of course there is the projected snake on the ground as well as the moving wall.

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 80- Map room entry door

Finally the first door is hung- literally! As I mentioned in a previous post, the door mechanics in previous haunts was floor based, basically a sliding mechanism with wheels in a track. This was cumbersome and frequently the doors would derail. It was difficult to balance properly. Door failure is possibly the worst problem because traffic flow is completely disrupted and people aren't forced to stop and experience timed effects that you spend a lot of time developing. I believe this year, having the doors suspended on 2x4 I beams will be the solution and I don't think we will have a failure again! The map room (crypt) entry door is shown suspended using the same brackets and caster wheels we used for the crush wall (see July 6 post- day 117) except obviously the doors are traveling parallel to the I beams as opposed to perpendicular. This makes it much easier to build although you have to first build a frame for the I beam track and it's a lot more construction than a simple wheel based sliding door but I believe this is the way to go if you want doors in your haunt! Now there is some sway at the bottom as the door is a couple inches off the floor, but we added a 2x4 at the bottom and a 2x2 at the top to flatten the hardboard door material (you can get 4' x 8' hardboard for around $7). This greatly minimizes the swaying at the bottom.The tricky thing here was placing the I beam track between the door frame and the crush wall so the wall could slide past the door easily. Looks like both the door and the crush wall will be fine with no impingement either way so far.