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 2 -Riding out the storm

We put a bunch of tarps around the vortex canopy. Gusts are pretty high right now but everything remains intact. Just after landfall now and the storm is moving faster than predicted which will be great if we can get through tonight and tomorrow without power loss. That is the key. I had our elevator operator over yesterday and we went through the sequence a couple of times. I swear I will be flipping switches and pulling pulleys like crazy for 2 1/2 hours straight!
One adjustment we will have to make is the peppers ghost effect will not be moving as we had planned. There is no way we can have someone push the cart at the right time, reposition and still allow for the stone panel to move in and out of the same space. Way too much happening. Plus when we tested the effect the light falls away from the ghost as he moves inward. There is not enough space to get the effect to work right. No matter. The static apparition still looks great and there is plenty of room for that.

2012- Day 38- Pepper's ghost test

Moving peppers ghost test showing actor on the cart being pushed from behind

Finally we finished the lighting and lightproofing and did a rudimentary test. I have a diagram of the set-up below. When people come out of the elevator they will see the amber lit vacuform panel backdrop at which point a spooky blue light turns on to reveal the 'ghost'. This actor will stand on a cart that is pushed by someone behind it. This will create the moving ghost effect. I first tested it with a prop fixed to the top of the cart to see if the projection is right.I then tested it with the help of my 2 sons. Unfortunately they are too tall for the job! However I did see enough to determine that the effect does work. The lighting is appropriate and the view from the elevator will be the correct vantage point. There are the other logistical challenges which include the moving panel that goes right into the ghost chamber. This is intended to be used to change the set when people go into and then come out of the elevator. It will take much practice to get it to work smoothly!

Diagram of the peppers ghost moving set-up

Static peppers ghost illusion showing the amber lit vacuform panel and superimposed on that is the image of the ghoul head prop created by the illusion as illustrated above

2012-Day 46

About 6 1/2 weeks to go. Time is flying! But again, thankfully we have most of the build done from last year. Today we worked on lightproofing the pepper's ghost area. Remember to use FLAT black sheeting, not the shiny stuff! As you may recall we are going to attempt a moving pepper's ghost illusion. We have the cart already built. It has about I would say 6 feet of travel. We have a small area behind the cart for someone to push it forward. See this post for a review. I think the most time consuming part of this was building a track for the cart. You can't just have it slide on concrete between 2 barriers. You actually have to build tracks for the wheels. Once we did that it rolled totally smoothly. You can use regular caster wheels that swivel. This is probably better than fixed wheels because they can still work well if the track is slightly misaligned. The next challenge of course is both timing and lighting. We also need to install sound. I hope to have some images next week of the finished product!

2012- Day 60

School's back in session. Halloween decorations are already out. It's beginning to look a lot like our favorite season again Ghouls! Lots to do this month. We will start on the chandelier this weekend. Pepper's ghost effect will be finally tested, sound installed and the front entrance hall will be renovated. Probably we'll get the web gun out, re-install the air cannon and set up the work zone for the ghouls who will be behind the scenes as it were. What I am hoping is by October, the only things left will be the vortex, exit hall and entrance door. This will give us plenty of time for testing which this set really will need. There are just too many things happening to have it run smoothly without many run throughs!

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

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 17- Moving peppers ghost illusion

Well I almost gave up on this but finally got it figured out! The concept is to place an actor on a moving cart and have someone behind the actor push the cart toward the glass which will appear to the viewer getting out of the elevator as a ghostly image approaching. Hopefully that makes sense. To review the peppers ghost effect in general you can read the posts on the right that pertain to it. Anyway I got the cheapest dolly I could find and constructed a lean-to extension as you can see. The problem is the wheels swivel and there is no way to get smooth motion of any kind on concrete, so I had to build wooden tracks that were just wide enough for the wheels to be contained where they would stay in 1 position. I tried various configurations of wood before arriving at the solution that worked. The bottom of each track is an 8' 2x4, sides of the track are 2x2's and the actual track itself is about a 1" x 1/2" which raises the wheels just high enough where the metal housing is not impinging the sides, only the wheels themselves are in the track, as shown. I tested the cart motion with my sons standing on there. They are adult size. The actor I intend to use will be smaller. It works great. So if you intend to do this, you can't just put the dolly on the floor and expect it to work. You must build individual tracks to fit just the wheels. The other key element of this is that you need to line the tracks up with the center of the glass so the projection is accurate. I placed a light on the center of the dolly and checked it from the center of the elevator opening to be certain that the image will be seen from that vantage point. Now going forward we have to build an enclosure around the tracks and cover the inside with black sheets. Basically a lot more to do but this was a big help getting this to work properly!

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 91- Pepper's problems

I guess all the haunt experts had warned me ahead of time, but sometimes you just have to discover this stuff for yourself. Plexiglass just will not cut it. Too much distortion. I tried flattening the backdrop, changing the lighting. Did all that and still no good. I had thought that with focused lighting we could limit the defects. Sometimes things like this happen during the process. You try stuff out and maybe it doesn't go as planned. We do have time to fix this and will get it done. Unfortunately we will have to look for a suitable sheet of plate glass. So let's move on. We are also waterproofing the vortex hoops and finishing framing of the first half of the haunt.

Day 92- Pepper's ghost testing

The Pepper's ghost illusion has been around forever. Here is an excellent description of the effect we are trying to create . Scroll down to the section that reads 'Pepper's ghost made simple'
In our haunt the 'scene' is a black 'electric chair' and the actor will sit in the 'FX' area (see the link above) appearing to be a ghostly victim. Today I experimented with the set after finishing the framing of the FX box and it's definitely not easy to make it work properly. It appears that the sheeting I used for the inside of the FX box is too reflective and shows up in the plexiglass. We will have to add a black cloth sheet over it. The lighting has to be shielded as well. I'm starting to wonder about the plexiglass. I think the only way to make it work will be very tricky lighting adjustments and perfect positioning of the glass. Having to go with plate glass would really be annoying as it is much heavier and will take more time to set up safely.