2012- Day 71- More crypt work and video projection test

We tested the crush wall. No problems there. The rolling mechanism is actually smoother now that it has aged a year! The snake video projection was also turned on and that works fine as well. The concept behind video projection can be reviewed in this post from last year.
We will have things set up so that when the crypt door opens, the snake video will be on and as soon as the guests enter the crypt it will get shut off. An important point on these projectors is you can't stop or even pause them without having those annoying display signs appear in the projection e.g "pause", "stop" etc. thus killing the effect! I had to rig a shutter device which is shown in the second video. This can be operated manually by the "videographer". It will take some practice to get the flow down. First the shutter is deployed, then the video is paused until the next group is about to enter. Then before the crypt door opens, the video is unpaused and the shutter opens. Next the crypt door opens. I think I am going to have to write this one up for whoever is doing it! We'll call it the 'home haunting playbook'!
The following are a couple of videos illustrating the live effect:

This shows the crush wall basically fully deployed to a position about  half -way to the exit door from the  back of the room. More than enough to scare even the bravest of souls! Remember the corpse prop will have live night crawlers on it! 

Day 64- Map room comes alive with video projection!

That's correct. Video projection adds a whole new dimension to the haunt! Infinite possibilities exist. I did mention we were going to try this out this year and see how it works. What you will need is a projector obviously and in this case I obtained a ready made 'snakes and spiders' dvd. If you are new to this like I am, I strongly recommend that you google 'Jon Hyers' or go to his website outrageous-media.com. The set-up is shown here. I have a dvd player connected to the projector. The projection is a 'live' moving snake on the floor of the crypt which will be visible as soon as the door opens. Now as soon as the guests enter the room, the projection has to be shut off and the room light and other effects will begin. For those interested in trying this, you can angle the projector any direction. I have constructed a 'cage' which will hold the projector at the desired angle.Be careful as these projectors appear to get pretty hot! I plan to line the cage with foil and I will need to test this further and make sure no problems arise after 2-3 hours. I will need an operator to manage the dvd player. The problem comes up here regarding shutting the projection off at the appropriate time. When people start entering the map room they will quickly break into the light cone from the projector and ruin the effect obviously. I have found out that projectors cannot fade out and in without shutting the whole thing off.  There are fairly elaborate electronic mixing boards out there but I don't believe I can budget for that right now so my plan is to build a simple wooden shutter which can be controlled by the operator.