Gone Feral In Idaho

Even though I didn't go as far as Kim K and her recent mockery of the "institution" of marriage, some might find that I went a bit Griswald with the light show thing. Ms. K recently claimed that she got caught up in the magic of her wedding, enough so, that she lost sight of what was happening. I sorta did the same thing and realized that I was going for more of an ambient effect with the 2011 haunt, that I never made a good ambient sequence in the first place. We ended up on the big night playing the only 4 song sequences that I did "complete" so it would be more fun for the TOTs. Next year, I don't plan on making many changes with the props, but I do want to flesh out some good ambient spooky "soundtrack" and some effective slowly changing lighting effects to reflect the mood of the soundscape. I'm thinking green for creepy sinister, blues for ghostly sounds, reds for the basso nefarious sounds, etc...  So if you don't find any rock show...

click image enlarge Note: This is not the final set up (hint, hint Rot).  I have a few more lighting effects to set up this coming weekend and the fogger with chiller as well, but today was way more productive than I anticipated.  I'll make a big post of photos with all the effects going by next weekend (I hope).  I plan to make a video out of photos and video clips for my grand finale post of the season.   After Kyle brought home the pumpkin spice creamer (yum) he was ready to help me set up the base for my standing witch.  I have two kneeling on one knee each, but I wanted the third to be leaning over the cauldron casting her spell.  We used one of last year's stands that was used for much heavier monster mud on chicken wire prop that worked really well for my PVC mache witch.   Once I had the third "body" ready all I had to do was dress them.  Let me tell you, I never had that much fun with barbies ever.  I put their plastic table ...

Its tiny, but I thought a lot about detail.  My small graveyard is set up and the first witch has moved into the scene.  I have two more witches and a cauldron that will go up over the next two weeks.   Compared to my first haunt attempt , this is pretty impressive. Here are the pics with the lights on: These are long exposure shots that I really like.  I wish I could make the yard look like this to the naked human eye.  These were all 30 second exposures.  

I've got a Midnight Syndicate CD, the original Halloween, Trick 'r Treat and Session 9 plus these guys I picked up from You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/my_playlists?p=FA74A8FDA3A9F255 I'm not that really into Midnight S.  But I figure most will expect some.  Don't get me wrong, they are really good at what they do. I hope the link works.

I found this list on Amazon for Haunt music.  Very cool starting point.  

My search for the Macbeth witches in MP3 format was very short. http://www.scottbrunell.com/halloween/witches.htm

This is my prototype LED flicker lantern.  I still have a lot to do, but I think I found a cheap and simple circuit that just about anyone could make, trust me, I am no electrician.  Sorry for the poor quality, but I am simply trying to get the atmosphere across.  I blocked out the base of the lantern because it is sitting on the wiring and a ton of light leaks through the bottom until I get everything the way I like it.  Please, give me some feedback.  I plan to have three lanterns, one for each witch in the yard haunt this year.  The base plan is Spooky Blue's   "Spookyfire" LED blob , but with resistors and slave non-blinking ultrabright LED's that blink in a circuit with a cheaper blinking LED after referring to an LED   circuit wizard .  

I have three strikes against me with haunting our yard.  We have a chain link fence.  We live on a well light corner lot.  We live in a little, yellow, vinyl sided house with white trim and a cheesy half round window with bad 80's style brass "stained glass" over the front door.  Don't get me wrong, I like the house and all, It's just not ideal for a yard haunt.  There is no fighting with the street lamp.  I am a "sworn" County Deputy and could never tamper with it.  So I have to look to Skull and Bone  for lighting tips, although I only have a four flood string and a bunch of little LED floods that Pumpkinrot turned me on to.  I am wiring up some LED flicker circuits for three aged lanterns as well.  Anyway, the house is very light and kinda cute and homey looking in a low budget sort of way.  It is in no way a haunted mansion, or old Boise North End sort of place.  Sill, if they could make Mary Brown's trailer look creepy in...

I found a pretty good free resource for Haunt-worthy streaming sounds at Soma FM .  Check out the last channel Doomed.  It is a great ongoing mix of dark ambient, I think it would make great background music for a haunt or Halloween party.  There don't seem to be the silly warbling ghost sounds or bad vampire accents, just dark, dark ambient.  The last song I heard was like walking through a swamp at midnight.  I use Winamp and the 128k link with great results on a crappy old computer.  I am in no way associated with them, but have been enjoying them for a couple of years now, they have several other cool channels including a really good Christmas one even though I typically can't stand X-mas music.