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

Day 360- Postmortem, holiday sign-off

Still can't believe it happened. Yesterday we took down the vortex and canopy. No damage from the storm.That's great of course, but I think all of us here have been kind of walking around in a sort of empty fog. I can't think of any other way to describe it. I keep thinking it's a nightmare I haven't woken up from and when I do it will still be October. Apparently the town did reschedule trick or treating to this Sunday! Well first of all we will be away this weekend. Secondly I think the only chance you have is October 31. That's it. Halloween is that day and not a day after. Now everyone is preparing for the holiday season. So that's it Ghouls. I will call it 'The Curse of Xmasland' which led to the cancellation of the haunt for the first time in the history of the world!
Let's put it to rest and forget about it and look forward to next year. That will be the best haunt ever since this one would have been. As we were saying it will be the same exact build. I will investigate the possibility of using a motor to drive the elevator panel next time. We had planned to have someone do it manually with the pulley but it will make it a lot easier to do it right if we use power. Also we will spend more time on the front hall, add more dimension to it and a couple of additional scares if possible. Overall I think it was an ambitious plan that we did a nice job on. Both the crypt and elevator turned out better than expected. The moving ghost will have much more time to be tested, and if I come across a bigger piece of glass we will definitely use that. Obviously we can't wait to get started again!
Thanks all for reading, have a great holiday season and stay tuned for the next installment of 'Xtreme Garage Haunting' 2012 next Summer!

Day 364- Nightmare before Xmas

Happy belated Halloween everyone! Hope all you goblins and ghoulies had a great show! As far as our haunt went.....it didn't!! The Halloween Snow Storm which was a freaking disaster, came into New England on Saturday night and killed a thousand hours of building, planning and anticipation for what was going to be our greatest haunt ever! The forecast was for around 4" or so...add about a foot to that and that's what we got. Trees down everywhere, power out for days and I was out there every couple of hours getting snow off the canopy covering the vortex! We also had a pine tree go down about a foot away from the canopy! I was a complete wreck over the disaster unfolding,  but perhaps there is a good side to all this. While we did get everything done barely in time, we really weren't ready. Lot's of things had to be fine tuned we didn't get a chance to do. Now that this happened, we are simply going to do the exact same build for next year! That should give us plenty of time to get it right and take some of those last minute throw down areas to the next level! We can certainly make a few improvements to the design, and we know with certainty that the vortex can be quickly reassembled. This will definitely free up some budgeting for next year. And thankfully no precious assets were destroyed by the storm. If any of you decide to use a canopy, make sure to duct tape all the connections!. This is what saved us from the snow loads collapsing everything. We might have an additional post or 2 before the holiday sign-off and there might be a how-to page on the elevator. Haven't decided whether to do it this year or not. One really good thing also is that a lot of stuff I can save intact so both the take down and set-up will be way easier and less stressful. This October was probably the most stressed out I have been during a build. The level of detail and complexity was intense as you could probably tell. So not all bad that we have another year to perfect it!

So what did we do with no power and no haunted house on Halloween night! We played 'Nightmare before Xmas Monopoly'

Day 2- Air cannon installed!

Lot's of freshly brewed frogsbreath on hand as we finish up the last parts of the haunt and work well into the early hours with all the goblins and ghoulies from halloweens past! Yes, the cannon looks like a go after all!. I've never done anything with pneumatics in the past and decided to try this out. The misconception on these cannons on my part was that it isn't the rush of air that scares people, it's the loud noise (see video)! It sounds like an air gun that carpenters use for nails etc only louder. This one was easy to set up and does work very well. Actually 'DC props' who make these are very nice folks who respond quickly to emails and provide great customer service. They told me exactly everything I needed to get this to work safely and properly. More of a hassle is the air compressor which you have to buy separately (I didn't know that at first. Many vendors who sell these do not give even a hint that anything additional is required). The compressors use a lot of juice and I tripped several garage outlet fuses before realizing I had to use an outlet from inside the house! Keep that in mind. However, once the compressor is full it does not make noise at all until it has to refill. I had it unplugged and fired off many shots before it needed more air.

Finally we got the end hall framed out. Can't believe I am still building with 2 days to go, but it went up quickly and now the haunt structure is done! The end hall is also simple and will have some hanging props, strobe light, fogger, actors entering the hall to scare people from the left side. And then on to the vortex....let's hope it survives the snow!

Day 3- Winter storm approaching

Unbelievable! Last year we got hit with a rain noreaster but now it's 6-12 inches of freaking snow! I give up. The canopy is definitely NOT rated for any significant snow loads! So I suppose I will have to be out there every hour getting snow off of the roof. This will be interesting to say the least. Monday on the other hand is supposed to be fine weather wise so perhaps I should be thankful that we will have 2 days for snow removal!
Today we will see if in fact the cannon can be used this year. The end hall framing and sheeting will be finished off. This is going to be very quick and simple with a straight hall leading into the vortex, strobe light and hanging props. From the sides there will be a couple actors entering for scares. I hope I will have time for some video before the show begins!
We discovered yesterday after some testing in the front hall that you can't attach anything to the drop panel. I destroyed unintentionally 2 of my 'gortraits' trying to secure them to the panel. Unfortunately there is too much impact force for anything to last, so for now we will leave it as a blank black panel almost as though a picture has been removed, and the ghoul actor will pop his head out from behind the panel when it drops.

Day 4- Mansion entrance hallway

This image shows the completed hallway entrance. In the 'walkthrough' parts of the the haunt which this is, we often use these small openings in the wall I call 'hand ports' which can be used by people behind the wall to stick their hands through effecting a simple scare. We also have in the front hall as we showed previously, the drop panel, now complete with overlying picture on the right. When guests enter, a mat switch triggers a sound card which plays a segment from the Disney Haunted Mansion. The sound is directed toward one of those simulated lightning boxes which causes the downlights on the portraits to flicker. All these portrait props are seen everywhere, perhaps overused, but basically to set the scene for the main events later. I would love to build all the sets from scratch but there is no way I can start this thing any earlier than I do!
What is left over the next 4 days is the end hall, the entrance door which can only be completed when the garage is open, a few details in the crypt room, vortex lights and lightproofing, hopefully the cannon (I did get the clamps I needed) and lots of testing. We have Sat and Sun actors and helpers coming for walkthroughs.