Halloween 2007

Table of contents

Summary

Way back in 2007, before kids or our own house, we lived in a townhouse. The complex had a lot of kids compared to where we used to live and I wanted to do something special as our first big halloween on the candy giving side. I think the general inspiration to this was seeing this skull software, and I already had a projector to work with.

Bill of Materials

• Projector
• Fog machine
• Foam sheet
• PVC Pipe (prison bars)
• White fabric
• Sheer black fabric
• Tempura paint
• Pirate props (chain, treasure chest, etc)
• Computer gear (PC, laptop, headset, speakers)

Construction

Faux Brick wall

Sheet foam was cut to fit the hallway, some of the extra from the middle where the screen fits doubles up on the top and bottom. The bars on each side provide support to the top half of the false wall, without them it is held in place only by the foam squeezing against the walls.

The brick texture was carved into the foam with a piece of hot wire curved into a U shape, brown tempura paint on the flat surfaces and black in the “grout” of the bricks.

Hidden to one corner of the wall is a passthrough for the fog machine, which is boxed in to force the fog out to the front

Projection Screen

The screen is two layers of fabric, a more solid white piece to serve as a rear projection screen, and a sheer black layer on top to make it look better from the front.

Digital Puppet

The skull itself is a digital puppet called Yorick from imagineerieing. His facial expressions, mouth movements, and where he’s looking is all controlled via simple keyboard commands.

Audio

At the time I had a rather high-end Creative Labs soundcard in my PC, which had a lot of options for voice manipulation. I used this to add reverb and other effects to my voice without making it too hard to understand.

Other

The treasure chest in front of the brick wall had a hole drilled in the back, and there was a PVC tube that passed through the wall into the chest. I could then put candy through the tube into the chest for each kid.

Having a wall in my entryway made it hard to tell who was there or who I was speaking to, so I hid a webcam in the corner of the projection screen and had that up on my laptop on the other side, so I had some visibility of what was going on.

Issues / Lessons Learned

• The only way to get to the front of the house was by opening the garage door and walking around. This combined with the poor visibility from the backside of the screen made it virtually impossible to tell how many kids were coming, etc.

Gallery