Halloween-L

Just started haunting this year and if interested in my original ideas and a rough conceptual drawing off what I had in mind the original post is here.

http://halloween-l.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?t=2247

Now on to the party and my garage haunt, it was a huge success this past Saturday night, probably 75 people or so went through and though I never thought I would have spent this much time building this in my garage it was fun even though I do have many hours and much more over budget than I ever thought I would but when I had 11 year old boys hugged up together while going through and even screaming at points that it made it all better because after all my original goal was taken as a challenge when my daughter told me that I couldn’t scare all those 6th graders with my cheesy garage haunt and that it would be embarrassing, boy were they wrong. Even the parents of some went through and were impressed. I even had some that got too scared about half way through and one of my actors had to turn the lights on and walk them back out in the opposite direction. I intend on getting some TOTs to go through it on Friday night but have some pretty major repairs to make before then since my black plastic walls and some props took on some damage.
I have learned a lot and will make some changes for next year as well, this one was definitely a learning experience and I hope to build on it for next time, things I will do differently are: More defined exits from room to room, there were a couple places where I had sheets covering the “doors” because I wanted to keep the lights in each room separate and they had a hard time finding them in the dark and with the fog so now I think they should either be opened or marked in a better way. Also make sure that the props on the ground (i.e. body parts, bones and such) are completely out of the pathway of the escaping visitors, they ran over these a few times, also I had various axes and saw set up in my final butcher room scene that could have been fallen over so I removed them after the first pair went through to make sure no one got hurt. Also I will make sure that it is more damage proof and constructed in a way that the errant visitor in low visibility can find their way through without damaging walls, doors or themselves.
Finally I believe that the time I spent for the small effect items were really a waste of my time in my haunt, maybe because of the small size of the hallways or the anticipation of what is around each corner but things like the swinging flickering light which I did get working was probably not even noticed, as well as the fact that the SEMITB was not that big of a scare. It seems that the biggest thing was the actors and their locations, actually the biggest scare was from a last minute impromptu add on that was a friend that wanted to help out, I had myself and 2 other guys already placed so I didn’t have anywhere to put him so I left a buffer zone between the final room which was the butcher chop with Leatherface chasing them out to this zone before the “real” exit, so I put him here and he simply wore a stocking over his face and crouched on the floor behind the door and when they thought they were safe that’s when he “got them” this was good for some great screams. I did also find that my sound didn’t work well with my intent which was that after crawling through the final tunnel they would enter the butcher room which was illuminated with a dim blue light, once they were all up and standing I was going to turn the blue light off and activate the strobe light then start the loud alarm and chainsaw sound with me coming out as Leatherface running them out, the queuing of the lights and sound was problematic and didn’t get timed too well because I couldn’t always tell where they were in the maze.
And of course on my last run through before I went green I found out that the two motion activators that I built, though working all week long just decided that they didn’t want to work correctly so I had to ditch one of them and then work the other manually by looking through a slit I cut in one of the walls, so I guess it pays to always remember to have a backup plan. So while this was a lot of work, it went over great and I appreciate all the ideas and comments from this board and will have an even bigger better one next year. Also I intend to take some pictures and post them here, I was going to take and post some building pics but I’m always bad about not taking pics.

Sounds like it was a big success! And ALWAYS.. I repeat ALWAYS plan on going overbudget ROFL... I never set a budget... I just tell the wife when I need to go buy something and she tells me if we have to $$ or if I have to wait till Payday LOL

Can't wait to see pics!

Congrats on the success with your garage maze! Fun scaring the crap out of kids, isn't it??? (as long as they aren't too little)
Aahh, rewards of the job. :twisted:

OK, here are some pics from my first ever garage haunt 08, it went very well and am already looking forward for a few to go through tonight as well. I took some pics last night after I made the repairs from the damage from last weekend, these are with all the room lights on, it does look much better with the lights off and the environment lights on and the sound and fog, we got some great scares and it ended up pretty much true to form and follows my plan on the image I posted of the maze. Now I know it looks awful compared to what some of you guys are doing and keep in mind it was pretty much thrown together as cheap as possible but it served its purpose which was to scare the pants off of some 6th and 7th graders at our party, already I have been asked what I am going to do different next year from both parents and kids, and I do plan on a major overhaul next year and have my floorplan already done with some design ideas finalized, also I plan on starting prop building soon as well as starting the layout much earlier than the first of October like I did this year.

Entrance hall



This hall had a single dim flickering light



Behind this sheet was the blacklit hall with the air cannon



First pop up prop



Blacklight hall



Before you turn the corner into the dot room.



The dot room, the clown head at the end was on a spinner as well as there was a loop running on a laptop playing Jigsaw from Saw, which was the spook who came from behind and who got the second scare as they were watching the video.



The strobe light hall



Hall 2 of the strobe light hall with the rickety, wobbly floor, this simple prop worked very well.



Onto the dark room which was pitch black



The end of the dark room before entering the next hall, once at the end of this before entering through the caution tape a bright light was supposed to be activated from behind but my motion detector was not cooperating so I left it off.



The next area was dimly lit in red light and there was a motion activated monster in the box, this motion detector also didn't work right so I had to cut a slit in the wall and activate it manually, this looked and worked really good in the lighting but didn't get much attention or jumps from anyone.



Another dimly lit hall with a hanging Donna the dead at the end which sometimes worked sometimes didn't, more of the latter.



Hall leading into the final tunnel, it was very dark in here.



What you first see when standing up from getting out of the tunnel, it was dimly lit blue for a couple seconds, then that light went out with a loud alarm and then a chainsaw sound then a bright strobe was activated and then Leatherface started the chase out through the big white sheet that said exit, though some wanted to go through the black plastic wall for some reason and stepped all over some of the props, another one of my "lessons learned" this year, about what not to do the next time. Also you can see my wifes idea of incorporating our pool toilet into the setting by decorating it in more of a humorous non threatening scare before the actual final exit, though here is where a great scare came from as the final spook simply set up on the floor and once they made it out of the chop house exit and thought they were safe he got them there.

This is very cool! Something I've done in the past is collect a bunch of free shipping pallets, and screw them together to make temporary walls. They have that weird "lathe and plaster look to them, especially if you partially cover them with card board or scrap masonite.

Old thread revived!!!

Question for you. Was the plastic just hanging down? Did you have any issues with people falling through or breaking a wall section??. I thought of doing this this year for a haunted garage but was worried about the sturdiness of plastic walls. I am going to have some jumping startle pneumatic props in the haunt.

-PB

(07-03-2009 02:09 PM)propboy Wrote: [ -> ]Old thread revived!!!

Question for you. Was the plastic just hanging down? Did you have any issues with people falling through or breaking a wall section??. I thought of doing this this year for a haunted garage but was worried about the sturdiness of plastic walls. I am going to have some jumping startle pneumatic props in the haunt.

-PB

One solution I came up with when creating black plastic "walls" in my garage scene was to use a staple gun and attach 2x4 boards to the bottom of the plastic tarp. I wrapped black landscape weed barrier around the 2x4 boards to camouflage them. Simple, but it worked.

Prop boy

one thought is is you know there are going to be some walls that will be absorbing the random TOT then go to a store and pick up a few pallets. these can be screwed together and make a more sturdy wall in key areas.

just an idea