How's this setup

kevin · Post by **kevin** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 2:50 am

So last year and the year before I really got into this "scaring the kids" thing. I put a black robe on me with hood, spray painted my hair black, and painted my face white with some black makeup around the mouth and eyes to look like death (or a white version of Darth Maul, you pick). Played some random scary music and sounds, had cobweb stuff up around our pathway, and as kids would walk near by, I'd peek out through the cob web, many times stopping them. Often, I'd stand motionless and kids would come up, teenagers as well, and touch me and talk if I was real or not. Sometimes I'd jump out at them there, other times I'd let them walk by me for the door way, then stand behind them so when they turned around, I'd scare them. While it's fun to make kids scared, I made several younger ones cry and not come up, but hey, it was halloween!

Still, this year my neighbor and I usually add something. He's done the black thread hangin from above on the pathway to the doors, wets them.. so as people walk by they get touched by these on their faces.. tickles them. Great fun. He did the fog machine manually so he would zap it when they were at the door. This year I have spent way more than I should to add some things. After reading this forum and a few others, I've started assembling my list. I bought a cheap fog machine last year, and another 1200watt one this year. The cheap one I figured I'd put at the feet out of sight, and use a manual button to push it when kids come up to the door. The bigger one I used the gotfog.com site to build a 50qt fog chiller, and going to fill with dry ice to hopefully get a good low lying fog. It spits out a ton of fog, so I am hoping to cover our grass and path way. We live on a corner house so we have a long narrow strip that then turns into a bigger rounded section near the corner.

I bought a sound controller (Chauvet 751) and two cheap strobe lights, not realizing I couldn't use the controller to control the cheap lights. So I am buying a $50 200watt controllable strobe to set up a lightning/thunder setup. Sadly, lightning occurs first, but the controller needs sound to trigger the lights, so I am going to create an audio track that makes a couple of quick clap sounds, to trigger the lights, then get some rolling thunder off in the distance, and set the sensitivity on the mic high so only the near by cd player will be heard by the mic. Not sure yet how I'll sync up the thunder sounds... but my initial thought is put my laptop near by and run two speakers.. one near the controller (inside) to trigger the lightning, the other to my receiver to trigger the 12" sub and center speaker to play the thunder, and I'll create a MIDI track to trigger them both.

If I can find a witch, I'll put it up in the corner above the door way and put one of the cheap strobers there, or maybe use the thunder/lightning strobe, not sure yet.

Going to borrow the idea of filling a pair of pants with cardboard, put it upside down out of the ground. Also I like the idea of buying cheap styrofoam, spray painting it with black/gray/green and using some acrylic paint to put words on it. Have to use some sticks or something out of the bottom to stick them into the ground and hold them in place.

The usual cobweb setup, with some spiders, a hanging bat, and so forth.

I have a projector as well, so if time allows I'll see if I can find some gray thin fabric to put over our window upstairs and project something onto it, just not sure what yet.

Throw a few hands and bones and such near the graveyard scene, and we have this big forrest like cover to go over our garage and I'll play some scary sounds, screaming, etc with my speakers in there. Also, a cheap great idea.. buy some chalk and yellow tape, outline a body or two, and either use catchup, or buy some of that fake blood and put it out. One other idea, cheap jello molds for brains and such... we're doing this for our kids party in the daytime.. may make one to lay out on the ground with the outline of a severed head.

I really want to get into some DMX gear, so I can add control over the lights, strobes, fog machines, etc. But I think I am out of time and money for this year. It would allow for a more realistic thunder/lightning setup, and better light controls around the yard/house.

Oh, if anyone gets a good fog machine and does the chiller like I did, another cool effect I read online, especially if you can do a DMX setup, but works with timer controller.. put a pair of 75+watt strobes near the top of the roof. Put the fog machine with fog chiller right on the back side of the rood. Get a good powerful one to put out lots of fog. Blast away and watch the fog roll over the house top and down onto the ground. I will probably try this next year if I can afford a more powerful DMX controlled fog machine. Looks like a cool effect. Can even color the strobe lenses to give an erie effect.

So what do ya'll think? Any other ideas that aren't too expensive that I might be able to add?

thislazylife · Post by **thislazylife** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 5:16 am

Sounds awesome Kevin, and if you scare a few kids, worth the time and money. It's all about the memories, man. Yours AND theirs.

"Also I like the idea of buying cheap styrofoam, spray painting it with black/gray/green and using some acrylic paint to put words on it."

I highly recommend using stuff called "Fleck Stone." You should be able to find it at a hardware store with all the other spray paints. It makes whatever you spray it on look like stone. Also, download a free font, (google 'free fonts', there are a ton of free websites), then use the font to create a stencil.

Have fun, dude!

Doc Deth · Post by **Doc Deth** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 8:07 pm

You're my kinda guy Kevin. It's only fun if you scare some kids! I try not to scare the real little ones, but, the older ones love a good scare! I go for only real scary! The kids love it. The adults do too

mandy0221 · Post by **mandy0221** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 8:08 pm

WOW - Can I come to your house for Halloween. I love how you go all out. And that is awesome your neighbor joins in on the fun. Make sure to post pictures when you have finished it all!@

MHooch · Post by **MHooch** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 10:16 pm

Kevin, my man!! What a blast!! We need pics of this fabulous set up. Sounds awesome. I think you have just about got it all covered. I, too, love when I can give a scare for Halloween...it's the gift that keeps on giving!! Have Fun!!!

MichaelMyers · Post by **MichaelMyers** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 10:24 pm

For the thunder/ synchronized music, have you tried the Lighting FX? Its available from Frightcatalog.com. Its an instant haunted house. You plug all the lights you want synchronized to the music into a power strip, plug the black box into the power strip,, set the box by your CD player (it comes with a spooky CD), play the CD, and there you go! When it thunders, the lights flicker with the thunder-when it lightnings, same effect but dimmer....when there is a blood curdling scream...they light up full bright and light the entire house up. The CD of sounds is awesome and the effects go perfectly with the music. Its way better than how I am describing it, but very cool!! Just an idea!

kevin · Post by **kevin** » Wed Oct 25, 2006 2:30 am

Hey all, thanks for the feedback. I plan on taking some video and pictures if at all possible! I definitely want to video/snap some shots of the low lying fog, and if what I am about to tell ya'll next works, I think that might kick butt too.

So, regarding the thunder/lightning, I think I said (cant see what I typed ealier right now), that I bought this Chauvet strobe controller that activates to sound, but bought cheap non-controllable strobe lights. Well, I think I got this all ready to go. I ordered a $50 controllabel 200 watt strobe (Chauvet ST200 or something). We have a two story house, small, but workable for what I hope turns out to be pretty kewl. I bought a cheap $12 small (sadly) like 2 foot witch thingy from Target tonight.

Now, for a bit more about me.. I have been in to computer audio stuff for years, got a midi controller, used to do sampling, and so forth. AS well I am a software engineer by day, and love just about everything about computers.. avid video gamer, write techno music, transfer video form my DV to dvd, ahem..copy dvds.. ahem, build computers from ground up and so forth. Enough of the history lesson.

So I figure.. for thunder/lightning to be real, you need a way for the lightning to flash first, then a slight delay then the thunder. I am going to put this witch up in the corner above our door, and put the strobe right below it. Then, using my MIDI sequencer, I've set up two tracks. One is the thunder that I pan to the left speaker. The other is a few tom tom sample hits that I pan to the right. Since the light controller activates to sound, I'll put the right speaker next to the light controller and keep it inside and the sensitivty high so background noise will hopefully not trigger the strobes. I'll put the left speaker and the 12" sub outside (sub near the door but out of sight, and the left speaker off the side a bit higher than the door. I time the tom tom hits to go off right before the audio of the thunder, so that if it all works right, it should fire the strobe a couple of times, then you'll hear the thunder.

I'll let ya'll know if this works out. This is actually a pretty cheap solution, with the exception of the $50 strobe. The controller was like $23, and if you have a cheap laptop or computer, you can download free midi sequencer software (or for that matter, audio track software) and make this work. I just hope the sound being mono on the left speaker sounds ok... rolling thunder across two speakers would be very kewl. To add to this, next year I'll have a couple more strobes, and I'll record the audio in 5.1 output and use my AC-3 DVD player to play back the audio (my dvd plays dvd-audio) and use the center channel to trigger witht he left/right outside.

Now if I could just get a bit bigger fog machine and set it up to throw the fog over my roof so it comes flowing down.. ooh..that would be kick <deleted>.

Where do we upload photos? In this thread? Or is there a gallery section that we upload to and then paste the links here?

thislazylife · Post by **thislazylife** » Wed Oct 25, 2006 5:31 am

"One one-thousand, two-one thousand, three-one thousand . . ."

kevin · Post by **kevin** » Wed Oct 25, 2006 12:28 pm

Nice!! I should show the poltergeist clip where the boy is counting, then the tree comes through the window!!