Day 37- Live map room!

At last some signs of functionality! We installed camera 3 in the map room and tested it out. Works great! Now Ghouls, for those of you interested in night vision cameras these are fantastic. This is a Bullet infrared water resistant CCD sold by a company that used to be called PalmVid and now Bigsecurity.com. Camera + cables, adaptors and 5 year warranty for $90. Image quality is excellent. The video in this post does not do it justice as I was shooting the TV monitor with my iphone! One day I will have a real video camera but every cent is going into the haunt right now. But you get the idea. These cameras just plug into the yellow port on your TV and away you go! The images in this post show the camera mounted in the near corner of the map room which was really the only place we could put it. You can also see the 3 monitors in the control room. The one on the far left is the map room monitor.

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 58- Map room ceiling

Yikes! September already! We've fallen behind some , so I am hoping that with the holiday weekend I can 'bring it' and get back on track. This is a start right here with the map room ceiling done. This took a bit of engineering to pull off as there weren't many options to place the ceiling in a way that wouldn't interfere with the crush wall! I used a 2x2 frame with foam board screwed into it. I had to add an additional 2x2 to the crush wall frame so the ceiling struts could be placed just above the top of the crush wall. The second image is the view from above the room ceiling. I think you can see what I mean! I added some strips of sheeting to hide the pulleys and rope. On one end they attach directly to the crush wall and the other end to the opposite wall so that when the wall moves the sheet compresses like an accordion. No one can see the pulley mechanism behind that! You can see the slot in the ceiling where the corpse will move with the wall. The total distance of wall movement is about 3 -4 feet.

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.