# Ideas?!



## dusty588 (Oct 8, 2006)

Hey there. For my small front yard display this year, I want to do something different. I was thinking of what I could do this Halloween, and one thing that I thought up is that I could get several (3-8) old tube TV's and place them around the yard. Some would have creepy images/video in black and white and others would have static. But now I'm stuck! I don't know what kind of theme to do or what I could include in the yard/house with the TV's. I don't want to spend a ton of money. I can get TV's from garage sales, I have two old ones at home right now. Any ideas and/or suggestions are greatly appreciated, and I know that there is a TON of talented people on here! Looking forward to any and all comments!

Thanks,

Dustyn :jol:


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## Troll Wizard (May 3, 2012)

That's a really different idea. Does it rain a lot where you live during Halloween? That is the main thing you would have to worry about. Since you would be dealing with electricity. You would need to find a way to keep them from getting wet and shorting out. Other that that, it's a great idea.


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## Headless (Sep 4, 2011)

Sounds fascinating - look forward to seeing what you come up with.


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## fontgeek (Jul 24, 2006)

Don't forget, this means you would need to have a VCR, a DVD player, or a computer hooked up to each TV.

As far as what to show, maybe loops of scary scenes from some of the great horror or monster movies. Michael Myers rising out of the flames or chasing his next victim, Freddy's metalic claws coming up through the child's chest, the little girls or the blood oozing down the doors from The Shining, The creature from the original Frankenstein, The mummy (original) stalking his next victim, The mummy (remake) sucking the life out of the guys, or the beetles/scorpians capturing and devouring their captured prey. The birds attacking the phone booth in Alfred Hitchcocks "The Birds", From The Exorcist the child sitting up, rotating her head 360 degrees and spewing pea soup, The aliens popping out of their host's chest in Alien, Zombies swarming the house in Dawn of the Dead, etc.
Even the simple things like the light left swinging from Psycho.
You have so much stuff to choose from that you could have a different show happening every few minutes or even seconds.
I'd also be tempted to add in one doing a magic mirror type effect that ends with "happy Halloween" at the door.


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## dusty588 (Oct 8, 2006)

The last few years it hasn't rained on Halloween, but thats something I didn't consider (the rain) If I go with this idea, I think I will have a back up plan just incase of rainy weather.


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## fontgeek (Jul 24, 2006)

Also consider how big the screen/monitor size is compared to the distance the viewers would be from them. The smaller the screen size the closer it needs to be to the viewer for them to see and understand what's being played/on TV, and if your chosen scene needs to be seen close up then that comes into play too.


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## Hysteria17 (Jun 15, 2012)

There are always TVs given away for free on craigslist, so I would check there often. Maybe you could a Saw-type theme with traps and stuff set out in the yard as well. Also something that would be fun for the TOTs is to make a creepy video for some of the TV's that explains some sort of game that they can do in the yard. Just a couple of ideas I had. Hope this helps, and I'll keep thinking to see if I come up with any more.


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## dusty588 (Oct 8, 2006)

I really like the Saw type theme idea. I'm sure theres a bunch of stuff I could do for that! I better get thinking though, only 4 months! 

Dustyn


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## Lunatic (Oct 3, 2006)

I can imagine the cool bizarre theme having the tv's lying at different angles on the ground with moss, branches, tombstones, a little fog, subtle back-lighting and such. Something like in the house scene at the end of the movie in Pet Cemetery. But, I just can't wrap my head around a theme title. A tv or two or maybe all of them could have close up of a person's eye moving side to side as they are watching you. The experiments are endless. 

I like the concept! Let us know what you come up with.


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## MurrayTX (Nov 4, 2011)

I like the idea, but you will need a pretty big power strip. Those old TVs were energy hogs. You may be resetting the powerstrip breaker a few times. Putting in a few dead TVs (also free) can be a little unsettling as an image too. Intersperse them with the live TVs. Set up some lighting on the passerby to cause a distorted reflection on the dead TV screens.


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## dusty588 (Oct 8, 2006)

Ya thats one thing that I'd have to consider would be how much power the TV's would suck. I like the idea of shining light on the screens and having it reflect off. Also I just thought I could take the monitor out of the casing, and attach some spandex material on the inside, and have a light or strobe light on the inside of the TV behind the spandex.


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## fontgeek (Jul 24, 2006)

It's not just the power and shelter for the TV's you have to deal with, you have to have a signal source for each of the TV's, be it a VCR, a dvd player, a computer, or...
And you have to store or mount those units with the TV's too.


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## walterb (Jul 27, 2010)

You could build tombstones boxes for them and integrate them into the theming and solve you weather issue. Plus it makes storage easier.


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## Cat_Bones (Jun 1, 2012)

Hmmm well the first two things that immediately came to my mind:

you could have one tv with just static with a small child kneeling in front of it with her hands on the screen ala Poltergeist









and if you want to have a broken tv you can have the creepy character climbing out of the screen like in The Ring









Those were my first two immediate ideas hope this helps


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## austenandrews (Aug 22, 2010)

Awesome idea for a display. That would be a great visual. Fog misting around random old TVs - very nice.

Some old, dead electronics might be a good complement. Wires pulled out, whatever. Melt a bunch of candles on top of some TV cabinets. Put a fake brazier in a broken TV.

A moving TV seems like an obvious choice for this crowd. Play a video of a trapped monster banging the walls of the TV to escape and have the TV wiggle and shake.

You could steampunk/"dieselpunk" some TVs - add old-fashioned switches, pipes & nozzles, cables, etc. Maybe make them Lemony Snicket-like or Tim Burton-y or Terry Gilliam-esque or whatever.

How about a TV with a video projector pointed out through the screen? Put translucent paper inside the screen and you'd not only get an image on the screen (reversed, of course) but projected on whatever's in front of it, too. Project a face onto a blank head or blood spilling down a surface or whatever.

As for what to play, there's a video floating around where they scanned the thoughts of test subjects and rendered them in mashed-up YouTube clips. It's not a long video but it's weird and vaguely disturbing. There are some artsy B&W videos that are pretty creepy. Poking around YouTube turns up some funky, visually interesting stuff. 

What about test patterns interspersed with flashes of scary images?

A couple of years back I compiled a DVD of scenes from really old "scary" cartoons with ghosts and witches and whatnot, and looped it on my big TV as background noise. It was a cool visual diversion. Think Skeleton Dance and the Betty Boop shorts with Cab Calloway, and you're on the right track. I recall there was some Mutt & Jeff, Casper, Felix the Cat and Little Lulu. A Mickey Mouse clip or two. There was also some really old animation from China and I think Norway? with cool creepy bits. I pulled some from YouTube and similar sites, and a whole lot from archive.org. (Alas my DVD is long lost.)

Very old movies are also pretty cool and surreal, like Haxan and Murnau's Faust, plus old standbys like Nosferatu and Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Going back even farther, a lot of Méliès's work is weird and fun, a real hoot as random ambient video. Maybe a mashup of old Universal monster movies.

On the more disturbing side, I've seen video compilations of 19th-century post-mortem portraits that will chill you.

Clips from regular horror movies would work, too. I'd be wary of playing anything too extreme, of course. Certainly no cursing or nudity, obviously.

For audio, check out some recordings of "number stations." They're creepy and probably suited to your theme.


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## dusty588 (Oct 8, 2006)

Awesome suggestions austenandrews. I will have to look for some of the things on YouTube that you mentioned. I also really love the Steampunk idea. And I also love the idea of a monter in the box, but in a TV. Thanks!

Dustyn


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## QueenRuby2002 (Oct 23, 2011)

I just had a small thought not sure if it would work with what your doing but the last two songs off the origanel 'Fantashia' (sp). Something about those have worked there way into our brains and eaither we stop and star because we think it's reall cool or because it gives us the chills. eaither way its a good distraction to let something else jump out and scare them.


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## fontgeek (Jul 24, 2006)

How about something like "I screen, You scream"? If it's just your front yard haunt you may not need or care if you have a formal name for it.
You may need to run extension cords from several different circuits so that you aren't constantly fighting the circuit breakers or fuses.
You could paint suitable epitaphs on non-working screens if you want something different.


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## Sawtooth Jack (Apr 9, 2011)

Some friends used to throw a pretty large Halloween party in their art studio. They had a room like this with a bunch of TVs in it, some showing oddities, some just on static. It was supposed to feel like a sitting room, only creepier, so they had a bunch of partial, white-painted mannequins sitting in some of the chairs as if watching. The white paint allowed color from the monitors to bathe the forms in eerie light...overall it was very unsettling.


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## DynomiteDaniel (Apr 3, 2012)

I will be doing this.... You can actually make a cast of an arm out of saran wrap and clear packing tape. Take the arm and clear tape it to the center of the screen while the tv is on a static station. It really looks like the arm is coming out of the tv. Easy and very creepy! Allen Hopps has a video on youtube about making these type of body molds. I was actually at that particular workshop!


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## austenandrews (Aug 22, 2010)

I'm curious, dusty588, did you come up with some good video?


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