I have seen lots of great lighting pics here, and was wondering if any of you minded letting me (and everyone else) know just what kind/type of outdoor lighting you use. Lighting our haunt is one area in which we are...lacking, so any thing would help. This year, I again realize that most of my outdoor props can't be seen (one guy, who has been to the party several times actually said "When did you build those gates and columns??" I have had them for 3 years now, LOL). Thanks in advance!!
Skull & Bones' tutorial on lighting is perfect is you follow it almost **exactly**. Seriously, they did a great job explaining theatrical-style lighting for outdoor use. I use only 3 spots in my cemetary, but fuss for hours, moving headstones & skellies to get everything lit just right. One white/red spot is on my cemetary gate, but is dimmed down via weeds and is "blinkered" so the light is shielded from spilling out to the sides by metal flashing I have painted black and stuck at the sides of the light. For this gate spot effect, I spray painted just the edges of a white spot with red paint so the center of the light is white (allowing the true weathered color of my gate & fence to come through).
I then stick a blue spot in the front, far right corner (as you look from the street) of the cemetary, pointing towards the back of the cemetary, flooding most of the stones, and I also hide a red spot on the far left behind a ghost. The red spot on the left points to the right, flooding the rest of the area as fill light. Because this red spot sits right behind my ghost-made-out-of-a-wig-head-on-a-pike-and-a-sheet, it illuminates the ghost while hiding the spot from your eye. I do still have some shadows, which I like for ambience. I just make sure to move or angle the side red spot so you can read all the stones. Some stones get a votive/memorial candle in front of them to help you see the stone or the mummy/skelly in front of it. Most peeps use too much light, or too many colors of light together. Your eye needs to "rest": too many colors or too much going on and you won't "see" everything there is to see.
The Monster House/porch is all in green lights. I tape green lightsticks under each step so kids don't fall, as it's pretty dim. I use old desk lamps that I put blinkers (spray painted metal flashing) around to keep the light in, and clip on lights from the hardware store, with all green party bulbs. Most of the desk lamps are pointed right up onto the columns or shoot straight across the railings to highlight the moss, vines & skellies on the house, and therefore keep you from blinding yourself looking right into the light as you come up the porch. When I need to spotlight something on the porch (i.e. the severed head in a basket near the front door or the Mummy Deer-est next to the railing) I use very bright but very small battery powered LED lights from Walmart. They are 3 lights in one unit that you clip to the brim of your baseball hat. $2.00 and they run for 10,000 hours or so. I use them when setting up (I usually have to set up all my stuff at night, after my kids are in bed, so it's dark) and clip a set to my hat. Later, I just duct tape them to where I need them (to the railing, etc). I love them because they are bright, and give a bluish (rather than a warm) light, but the light doesn't spill out to the sides, and they don't die out quickly like small flashlights do.
The easist way I found to make lighting "work" is to imagine in your head what you want your scene to look like, then get the supplies you need to to make it happen. While I wouldn't suggest spray painting a flood light red and then scraping off the paint from the center of the light, I found that was the only way to get the white light/red-on-the-edges look I wanted with the limited power supply I had. I didn't like the all red & all blue lights we had last year, so this year I tried green just on the porch, and it worked. I can't afford gels and special stuff online. It is SO satisfying to figure it out how to get the right "look" on your own rather than throw money at the problem and buy stuff.
Best of luck. Go see Skull & Bone!!
d5
How come 100+ people have looked at this,and I am the only one who has posted?? That's odd.
d5
I don't know debbie, but thanks for replying
I have checked out the tutorial, and plan on incorporating a lot of the ideas into my yard next year. Thanks again for sharing.
Ghostess I will use yours as I only have one light for this year so far
Hope those sites helped illithid!
I just bought the very same lights Ghostess has in her tutorial and am looking forward to using them. This will be my first year using exterior illumination on my haunt, but I know it will really add to the look and feel of the graveyard!
I can't afford the gels either, but I've found that Magic Markers work great! Whether its on the typical 100watt flood or on the low-volt yard lights I just color them heavily with blue or red permanent markers -sometimes both red and blue for a purplish hue.
The low-volt landscape lights are perfect for individual tombstones or small props because they're so subtle. I have to re-mark them with my blue magic markers each year though because it does eventually wear off.
Hello everyone! I've been lurking and finally decided to post. (great site!)
Ditto, have to agree, Skull and Bone has a very good overview on stage lighting. Let's face it, that is basically what we are doing with a yard haunt. I also use the green lawn-stake floods that Ghostess Deanna uses to light my yard haunt/graveyard. Here is a good tip: since they are floodlights, I made a custom dimmer box with just a 4-plex electrical box, power cord, a wall dimmer switch and a GFI outlet. I use it to power all of my floods and just dialing the dimmer down to about half-power makes all the difference! The trick is to conceal the dimmer box and keep it off of the ground (I made a custom "rain hat" for it that looks like a rock). The GFI/ground fault interrupt outlet is like what you would have in your kitchen and is a very good idea.
Madtinkerer:
Could you PLEASE please please please make a dimmer box for me?? I kow it sounds simple, and to you: easy...But Respected Hubby & I are so very electrically NON-gifted..it's sad, really! LOL. I resort to putting freakin' clumps of WEEDS in front of my spots to dim them! (getting down on bended knee)....please?? I will send money!! (wiping pathetic tear from corner of puppy dog eyes...)
d5
debbie5 Wrote:Madtinkerer:
Could you PLEASE please please please make a dimmer box for me?? I kow it sounds simple, and to you: easy...But Respected Hubby & I are so very electrically NON-gifted..it's sad, really! LOL. I resort to putting freakin' clumps of WEEDS in front of my spots to dim them! (getting down on bended knee)....please?? I will send money!! (wiping pathetic tear from corner of puppy dog eyes...)
d5
I suppose I could...
Another solution for lighting your yard haunt would be to use low-voltage landscape floodlights, like the Malibu ones you find at Home Depot. The Malibu kit comes with a low-voltage transformer and can be plugged into a photoelectric timer (think x-mas lights) to kick the floods on when it gets dark. Low-voltage has the advantage of minimal power draw and safe for outdoor use.
The trick is making or buying a colored lens cap to throw a red or green or blue flood from them. One source for color gels I've found is cheaplights dot com.
I've been considering changing over to low-voltage for my yard haunt... just waiting for the sale.
Madtinkerer,
I'm waiting for the sale too!!
I have found an outfit that makes colored LED bulbs for the low voltage landscape lights. They make them in the 4 and 8 watt type, and they come in red, blue, yellow/amber, green, white and UV. I also thought since the low voltage ones run cooler I could probably use some of my transparent modeling paints to create a filter directly on the lens.
Illithid Wrote:Madtinkerer,
I'm waiting for the sale too!!
I have found an outfit that makes colored LED bulbs for the low voltage landscape lights. They make them in the 4 and 8 watt type, and they come in red, blue, yellow/amber, green, white and UV. I also thought since the low voltage ones run cooler I could probably use some of my transparent modeling paints to create a filter directly on the lens.
Brilliant! :twisted: I am liking that idea! After a quickie google search, looks like an outfit like "superbrightleds dot com" can hook us up with some LED upgrades for those basic Malibu landscape spotlights.
Illithid Wrote:Madtinkerer,
I'm waiting for the sale too!!
I have found an outfit that makes colored LED bulbs for the low voltage landscape lights. They make them in the 4 and 8 watt type, and they come in red, blue, yellow/amber, green, white and UV. I also thought since the low voltage ones run cooler I could probably use some of my transparent modeling paints to create a filter directly on the lens.
UPDATE: you know, I've been giving this some thought... the larger spotlights are useful. I did some research and found some LED PAR20 floodlights that will fit into a standard green stake floodlight fixture or a tracklight-type PAR can fixture. The LED PAR 20 bulbs are available in colors: red, green and blue.
I may have to order some and experiment! :twisted: