Beyond the Infinite

This is our finished vortex tunnel complete with sound. Unfortunately the broad daylight video does not come close to the full night time effect. The sound track is from 2001: A Space Odyssey
Enjoy!

Day 1- That means Halloween is tomorrow!

Hard to believe. 4 months have basically vanished. So now it's the last minute preparations. Basically all that is left is the entrance/exit sheeting. All of the halls are done. The cave eyes were finally installed after I shorted out the light board trying to set up a triggering relay. I had to have Cowlacious overnight another one! I am just going to leave it on all the time during the haunt. The cave room is very small and by the time the eyes turn on and off when guests enter and leave, the effect does not have a chance to get started so leaving it on continuously should be fine.I think it's a pretty cool effect. I put 20 pairs of 'eyes' randomly positioned in the back of the cave. My son Max will have a black mask on with one pair of eyes secured to the top of his head somewhere and will walk forward a couple of steps coming out of the darkness.
I spent about 4 hours last night fussing with the vortex. OK, so we're in New England here where the weather is crap much of the time. We set up the canopy and structure maybe 3 weeks ago and we had in that time span a Noreaster, a bunch of rain and earlier this week a low pressure system with super high humidity and more rain. Last night was the 3 hour vortex test and I swear it took about an hour and a half before the thing would turn on its own! Finally it worked fine, but attention all ghouls who want to build this and live in places with significant weather! It definitely can work, but it does require a fair amount of attention. I was afraid the hoops warped or something despite the fact that the structure is enclosed and the wood is treated. The more you run it, the better it works.
At any rate I finished the sheeting for the back of the vortex and the entry way. Having a completely black exit from the tunnel makes a HUGE difference.
Tomorrow we will set up the sound for the vortex and I need to start practicing my hauntmaster tasks from the control room. We will power everything up and test it!

Day4- Weather update

The ghouls are apparently watching over us as it finally looks like cool and dry for Halloween! We're expecting a front to pass through today with rain and wind but things should be drying out over the next couple of days. Once I screwed the canopy feet down to 2x4 blocks the tent stability problem was basically cured! It can handle up to about 15-20mph wind with no major problems. I haven't had to put any legs back in place or reattach components in the last couple of weeks. The vortex apparatus is definitely affected by humidity and weather. Last night during the test it was very sluggish. We are having unusually warm weather and high humidity. I had to keep cranking the hoops around for about 20 minutes before it would run on its own. That would be a drag if we needed yet another person to assist tunnel rotation but I am certain once things dry out we'll be good.

Vortex update

Well we did successfully run the completed vortex with 2 black lights and the effect was very intense! My son Ben and I added many random fluorescent dots, plus it is important to place black wall covering at the exit of the tunnel to eliminate any stationary reference points. We had plenty of extra fabric. I added a long 2x4 on both sides of the bridge below the railing to mount the lights. These were placed exactly 4 fingerbreadths below the rail. This seems to be a good location. The light and extension cords can be secured to the rail structure with duct tape. We have 1 power strip on both sides and extension cords which run to the vortex entrance and down to the ground alongside the 'doorway' to the tunnel.

Day 4- The Cave

I'm off work today to finish the last parts of the garage. The Cave room is the last area to complete.
The concept is fairly simple. I'm sure many of you have seen a 'dot room' or 2 if you frequent halloween haunts. That's where you have an actor dressed in black and wearing glo-in-the dark dots to blend in with the surrounding dots on the walls. Then the actor moves toward the guests and appears to literally come out of the walls. It's a cool effect. We did one a couple of years back and it worked well. This idea is simply a high tech version of the dots. You have a bunch of pairs of blinking red eyes in the dark blinking randomly and an actor 'wears' one pair. We'll probably just stick them on his head or something. Then he approaches the guests and the effect should hopefully be even more intense than the dots. Since it will probably be virtually impossible to video the cave eyes in action, here is a link to a demonstration. When you go to this page, just click on the 'video' tab.

Day 8- Random finishing details

Welcome back Ghouls! Only barely over a week to go. I think we're good. Today we finished off the prison room including all the sound and light effects. I will try to demonstrate the sequence of events tomorrow. The corpse effect in Zone 6 actually turned out a lot better than expected. I was happy that for once we got something to work great at the end. Usually we're so rushed to throw things together that the end of the haunt is kind of a dud. The video here shows the basic set-up in natural light which doesn't do it justice at all but you get the idea. Several years ago I prepared a skeleton to look like a corpse. If you google 'corpsing a Bucky' you will see the process. Anyhow, the corpse sits in the nearer of 2 trash cans. I secured 2 strobe lights to the bottom of each can so you get uplighting of the corpse. A rope is secured to the skeleton and runs through a pulley above, then across the ceiling to a second pulley which drops down to a handle in the prison. One of the prisoners will be in direct line of sight as the guests walk past the trash can and he will raise the corpse upward sharply. It's very startling as I also have the cans enclosed in a separate corridor with it's own fog machine!
Finally the vortex is coming along. Almost half of the fabric was painted today with the fluorescent dots. We tested it out and I believe it will work fine. One thing is we have to eliminate all outside references meaning the white canopy. We're going to try lines as well. Many have said that enhances the effect. So basically what's left are finishing the corpse room and vortex entry area which is basically sheeting there. And finally the cave room which should take all of about one day. Finishing touches and walk through the last few days.
Pictures shown today from the bottom up are:
1) Prison room showing a prop inside the prison which is actually just a diversion since there will be actors in there as well! I also have a head prop hanging in the main room you can see to the right. Again, it's so dark this year that I am having trouble showing this stuff. The images usually have to be overstretched
2) Looking back into the hall of the green mile room, Zone 5, through the gate.
3) Painting the vortex walls. We used fluorescent paint and cut-out round holes in paper to use as stencils so the paint would not run. One coat appears to be satisfactory.

Day 14- survived the Noreaster

Well yes we did survive that....barely. The vortex hoops remained totally dry, but unfortunately with the wind, the canopy does keep shifting and some of the segments have to be repositioned periodically. I tried duct taping to see if that helps. If I had to do it again I would go with the 12 x 20 so as not to have to use any extension pieces. Only need another 2 weeks though. We continue to press on getting things done. The vortex bridge is nearly complete and zone 4 was finished today. The video is sort of a walk through of zone 4 without the simulated electrocution with the ghost actor so all you hear is the lightning storm. With so little time left I am not having the time to demonstrate some of the details such as how to create lightning effect, etc. I will do this after perhaps on a separate page.