# 2018 at our house.



## Tokwik (Oct 12, 2011)

Evening everyone.
I know I'm not on here too much, but I do lurk quite frequently and decided to put up a few pics from last year. A bit late to the party for posting. Thank you to everyone who posted and put up the inspiration.

With that being said, we did get a little carried away this year. 
We started out with a witch theme in mind, but it got a bit chaotic. It kinda ran away and I went a little overboard with the lights. It was substantially less than it shows in the pics. 
At least the horse and a few other props stayed inside.

Also looking for theme ideas for next year. Under 260 days today and counting. 
Would like to try to have a more organized witch theme while keeping everything spooky, not scary (horror). Possibly a cemetery theme with a gathering of witches. Don't know yet.

Any comments, suggestions, criticisms, or rude remarks are greatly appreciated.

Thanks again.


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## Tokwik (Oct 12, 2011)




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## Hairazor (Mar 13, 2012)

Love your lighting and fence set up, fun over all haunt


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## Tokwik (Oct 12, 2011)

Tried to keep everything fun and not scary. We’re new to this development and there’s the range of ToT’s. Can’t afford to scare off the little ones. &#55358;&#56618;

This was our second year here. Would like to focus it a bit more for next year. Local reputation is slowly growing. 

Thanks again.


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## jdubbya (Nov 6, 2005)

Killer space to work with! I think filling some of the larger open areas with a graveyard scene would work really well. Lighting is a personal preference. Our own thinking is that less is more. Create darker areas, shadows, highlighting select props or scenes but not flood the entire haunt with light. As you said, you want it spooky. Very nicely done!


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## Tokwik (Oct 12, 2011)

Thanks. 
Graveyard is kinda the way I’m leaning. Only have a dozen stones and would need to make a ton more. Probably will have some blanks filling space in the back. 

Was also thinking about a mausoleum for the FCG or possibly a cottage house for the witches. 

The lighting got out of hand with the constant addition of stuff being brought out. Like I said, wasn’t as extreme as it looked in the pics, but was a bit much. Could drop the red filters for some more subtle blues or something. 

Appreciate the feedback.

Edited to add, we also trying to make a bit of a presence trying to bring Halloween back into an older neighborhood. Luckily, I have Halloween neighbors who have proclaimed a self imposed contest for next year. Should be fun. &#55357;&#56443;&#55357;&#56443;&#55357;&#56443;


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## RoxyBlue (Oct 6, 2008)

Lighting will always look more intense in photos than in real life. We favor blue lighting which gives a nice spooky feel to the human eye, but can appear over the top through a camera's eye.

I think you did a smashing job, and I'm in total agreement about not being too scary for the younger visitors. We do a graveyard theme every year and add humorous touches throughout the display to keep it lighter.


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## PrettyGhoul (Oct 7, 2005)

Tokwik I love your Haunt!! It _is_ spooky without being over the top scary. Like Roxy I like some blue lighting plus I tend to put my sounds and fog in the background so it's wisping (sometimes pouring) towards the TOTs as they come up. No one can see my foggers or tell where the sound is coming from. Your Haunt is larger than mine and so nice that I feel I have nothing to offer except appreciation. :eekin: :eekin:


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## Tokwik (Oct 12, 2011)

The big fogger is in the upper part of the front yard and the wind finally cooperated this year and we ended up with a nice low lying effect. 

I think we’ve decided to expand the graveyard theme next year. Planning to add a mausoleum for the FCG and a few other items. The witches can be doing a seance or something. Also toying around with the idea of blocking off the driveway and making a TOT path through the front yard...somehow. 

Also need to up my sound game. Currently just running a couple Bluetooth speakers from my phone. Might help tie everything together a bit better. 

Appreciate everyone’s kind words.


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## flyonglideslope (Sep 20, 2016)

I absolutely understand how lighting looks brighter in pictures with some cameras, when in reality, lights are in many cases subdued. For example, you had a candelabra in one photo where the "flames" seemed to be bright as the sun. So I get that is the camera problem. That being said, I think you still have too many lights, and as another poster said, too broad of floodlights instead of smaller spots. I think the green and pink windows, although VERY cool looking, actually detract from the spookiness of the entire scene. In fact, a house with all the lights off might seem the spookiest. Try extremely small, floods, such as solar powered lights. Again, it is VERY hard to tell how dim or bright the lights are in the photo, as even the candlelight seems too bright in the photo. So I could very well be way off base. BUT, and this is a very big BUT, the scene looks awesome! Very awesome indeed. Thank you for sharing.


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## DandyBrit (May 23, 2013)

Nice work!

How long did the spider webs take to do - there looks to be a lot of them.


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## wyndbourn (Oct 16, 2013)

Love the set up, very nice yard! With that fabulous fence I agree the larger graveyard is the way to go. Maybe have more jol's among the tombstones would help fill it in a bit. Is there a way to maybe hang a few swamp jar lights from that big tree? Also, if you want to light the windows up top, maybe have some witch or ghost silhouettes in them. Great way to set the tone from a distance. Overall, great job! And a little friendly competition for this year sounds great!


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## Tokwik (Oct 12, 2011)

flyonglideslope said:


> I absolutely understand how lighting looks brighter in pictures with some cameras, when in reality, lights are in many cases subdued. For example, you had a candelabra in one photo where the "flames" seemed to be bright as the sun. So I get that is the camera problem. That being said, I think you still have too many lights, and as another poster said, too broad of floodlights instead of smaller spots. I think the green and pink windows, although VERY cool looking, actually detract from the spookiness of the entire scene. In fact, a house with all the lights off might seem the spookiest. Try extremely small, floods, such as solar powered lights. Again, it is VERY hard to tell how dim or bright the lights are in the photo, as even the candlelight seems too bright in the photo. So I could very well be way off base. BUT, and this is a very big BUT, the scene looks awesome! Very awesome indeed. Thank you for sharing.


Appreciate the suggestions and the criticisms. I really do.

A little backstory. We are new to this neighborhood and are lucky to have Halloween neighbors. Part of the lighting is to attract attention to the cul-de-sac. What you can't see from the pics are the floodlights behind the house lighting up the trees in red and green. Definitely went a bit overboard with the lighting trying to draw attraction. 
The upstairs house lights and the rear floods went up October 1st. Once again, just trying to draw attention that we were doing Halloween.

I think this year I'll listen to everyone's advice and go a bit darker. I can change all the films on the lights to more blue and purple. It's been two seasons now, and people are starting to know we're here.

As far as the "flames" on the candelabra, those were real candles. (Thanks @Daphne) The wind cooperated this year so we were able to use them. It's amazing how bright they looked in the pics.

Appreciate the input. I think we're set on going with a large cemetery scene this year. Going to tone it down a bunch.

Cheers.


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## Tokwik (Oct 12, 2011)

DandyBrit said:


> Nice work!
> 
> How long did the spider webs take to do - there looks to be a lot of them.


Actually, not too long. It looks like a boatload, but it's also kinda haphazardly put out to complement the spider hiding under the trees. Not sure anyone really noticed, but I was trying to tie the areas together since it was a bit chaotic.



wyndbourn said:


> Love the set up, very nice yard! With that fabulous fence I agree the larger graveyard is the way to go. Maybe have more jol's among the tombstones would help fill it in a bit. Is there a way to maybe hang a few swamp jar lights from that big tree? Also, if you want to light the windows up top, maybe have some witch or ghost silhouettes in them. Great way to set the tone from a distance. Overall, great job! And a little friendly competition for this year sounds great!


Thank you. 
Apparently I've now been informed to make some more fence to make a graveyard walkway for this year. That'll be the easy part of the list. Monotonous, but easy.

Last year we had silhouettes and a projection in the upper windows. Once again, a bit chaotic and all over the place on what we were putting out. Going to try to narrow the focus a bit more for this year and not be all over the place.

And now I have to make some jar lights for the big tree. Great idea, and I'll be able to knock out a flood on that side. Thank you. It'll certainly help with the new lighting plan that I haven't figured out yet.


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## BunchOfHocusPocus (May 23, 2012)

I love lightning all over the house. Especially the green added to it. It looks fantastic with all the fog! That's what I love about haunts and decorations.  I'm sure you could always add more to it next year. Thanks for sharing!


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## bluesdaddy48 (Apr 17, 2015)

*Flood lights*

I love what you have done. You mentioned using flood lights, you may find that you can control your lighting better by using spot lights instead of flood lights. It will highlight just what you want folks to see and the darker spaces in between will make your scene spookier. Flood lights are great for some things like back lighting a scene so that you only see a silhouette in the fog.


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