Last few props

Finished painting the last few tombstones and props for this year. We made a few auction props for the fundraiser and a gift for a business that is helping out.

Typical scene in our shop

Just a funny picture of the things lying around in the shop right now.

Do you hear that?

Its the clock ticking down the minutes until we setup the display. AAAAAHHHHHH!

Here are some photos of the work we did this past weekend.

Chris is a sculpter!

This is a Houdini monument we are working on. Chris says she used her one-time-only sculpting skill to create this bust out of a foam head a box for latex gloves and some newspaper soaked in monster mud.

I say FANTASTIC and hope this isn't the last time!

Last 3-day weekend before Halloween

We worked on halloween stuff all weekend but don't have a lot of pictures to show. In spite of the wet weather we were able to get a lot of little stuff done. It has become our Labor Day weekend tradition to put out the sign to entice the neighbors about the upcoming display.

A new Voice from Hell

While we were at HAuNTcon in Houston back in May we met a really great guy named Dick Terhune from Connecticut. Dick provides voice-talent services to the haunt industry. We asked him if he wouldn't mind being the voice of our new talking hearse driver. After working out a script and a few takes this is what he created.

We created a funeral scene for a short film

We were contacted by a independant film maker who asked us if we could setup a funeral scene with our props for her movie. We knew we would have a mausoleum completed and setup in the backyard this summer along with some other new props this year so we said yes. It turned out pretty nice.

We received a Grant!

We were awarded a grant from the Clackamas County Cultural Coalition and the Oregon Cultrual Trust. As some of you may know we have always done our annual hallween display using our own money and have never taken donations or done any fund raising for ourselves. This year we were planning on spending some additional money on our events and thought we'd try appling for some grant money to help offset the expenses.

We were one of 9 awardees out of 14 applicants and the only artist team. The funds will go towards profesional custom costumes for the dancers and airbrush makeup supplies. It will also help pay for the rental of a PA/Sound system for our events too.

Tombstone Workshop was a big hit!

It was a long day Saturday but everyone had a great time. Our morning session started at 9am but people arrived as instructed a little earlier. We had 12 people show up and carve out their own custom epitaphs. Everyone got right to work taping their epitaphs together and gluing them to their tombstone blanks. It took a while for people to get their tombstones carved but once that was done they cut out their shapes and added any details. Then they painted their lettering and the tombstone black. When things were dry (which took a while with the cloudy morning) they added a coat of dark grey and after that dried they added the light grey with a sponge roller. The final step was to age the tombstone with some watered down black paint with a brush and rag or a sponge. The morning session wrapped up by 2pm while the afternoon session arrived. We repeated the same process with the afternoon group of 11. The afternoon session was done and we cleaned up just after 7pm.

There were some great tombstones created during both sessions. Some great ideas for shapes and layout. Some good painting techniques too. Here are just of few examples of our wonderful students!

Our friends got married

Our good friends Jason and Becky got married this weekend. Friar Eblen officiated. Jason's long time friend Jeff Eblen got ordained as a Friar on the Internet and performed a short, sweet and humorous ceremony in a small tree covered corner of the grounds at the Grand Hotel in Forest Grove.

Jason wore a kilt he had custom made for him at the Scottish Country Store.

What a great day for Becky, Jason, Quinten, Gabe, and Colin. We wish them all the luck in the world.

Skelingo's in their natural habitat

To do before going away for the weekend

1. Set the timer for watering the lawn.
2. Fed the cats.
3. Brought in the mail and the paper.
4. Packed the cooler.
5. Close the windows.
6. Set the alarm.

But I seem to think I am forgetting something....

Oh yeah, this is what happens when you forget to feed your lawn ornaments while you are away.


(Thanks Mort!)

Back from FrighFest 2008

Well, I have to say even though our attendance was down and the schedule was pretty loose with not a lot of different things to learn, it was a great weekend.

Chris and I thank everyone for the interest in our video effects information. It was a challenge trying to figure out how to turn a 60min seminar into a 3 day event. But I think we did okay and filled in a bit with some graveyard decorating tips.

Our hats are off to Steve and his WONDERFUL movie theater display. My only disappointment was having to go home each night instead of camping so we could sit and watch at least one of the movies each night. Next year that will change.

Stacy and her snake charmer tent was fabulous! Of course her role as the ex-Pirate King and creator of “The Code” book just go to show how creative she can be. And don’t let her fool us with her reservation about public speaking she did an fantastic job an our new Pirate Kings ceremony. We also LOVEd the book making session. A lot of REAL creative stuff came out of that.

The Canadian’s (Dyanna, Corinne, Grant, et al) were as always a hoot! Loved to see you get your foot!

It was always fun to hang out with the Darkwing Manor crew and even though the décor was WAY down this year and we missed you in our neighborhood we tried to keep the area interesting for you.

It was also a blast to hang out next to the Scareaway Frights Pederson group. Loved the space alien costume Ross!

Thanks again for the music Chris. How do you know how to pick out those songs for all of us older generation folks I’ll never know. It seems like each song was something we all enjoyed. (maybe not the kids that crashed our dance?)

And of course Vern and Sue! How could we have FFNW without you. We are looking forward to lifting the stress off your shoulders for this event so you can be as involved as you want to be and not be so stressed out over the details.

To everyone else that we talked to or shared with us thanks for a great weekend. Here is to a great Halloween season and looking forward to next year’s FFNW (July 8-12 2009).

You can't build a Mausoleum in 3 days!

Not even if you work your butt off! We know, we tried! I started Friday morning cutting out all the frames and building them. Had to cut out early to go to a 4th gathering. Started back up on Saturday building the frames and getting all the foam cut and attached. Had to run to Home Depot for glue for the foam. We cut and textured the wood doors. On Sunday finished the panels and then started to put it together. Drew the lines. Had to run to Home Depot to get a bit for the Dremel for the grout lines. We got the panels all textured and painted black by 8pm on Sunday. We were EXAUSTED. Still need to paint the panels (grout, coat of grey, coat of light grey, and age) and the doors. Then we have to assemble it all and do some final details (glue handles to doors). THEN we can take pictures of it for the book. We also are going to have to mock up some parts of the process so we can photograph the steps in between. Our photographer help is on vacation until August so we will just store it until then?

What have we been doing

Well, we have been working as hard as we can on our how-to book. Every free weekend we have we have been building the props that are going to be in our book. Not only just building the props but building them in various stages and taking pictures of them. Our friend Marci has been very generous with her time and offered to help us take pictures of everything for the book.

This past 100 degree weekend we made a monster mud guy and a angel monument. We took advantage of the heat and built both of these props so they would dry fast. It was a lot of work for just the 2 of us and Marci taking pictures.

Here is a VERY rare shot of us working together. You don't see this very often.

It's usually more like this...
She does her thing I do mine. Teamwork!







So far the book has 9 projects

Tombstones
Memorials
Mud Monk
Monuments
Columns and fencing
Corpse and Cage
Coffin
Animated Ghost
Mausoleum

We have made and photographed almost everything except the Mausoleum which should be done soon.

These are what the book photos look like...boring huh?

Back from Utah!

We just got back from a road trip to Provo Utah. To hang out with fellow haunters from the Rocky Mountain Haunters Gathering. We gave our Video Effects presentation to a very eager crowd. We also got to hang out with the Jon and John from EFX-TEK and of course buy more of their products.

The trip began on Thursday when we drove to Pendleton Thursday after work. We got up early the next morning and headed to Provo. We got to the hotel about 5:30pm (PST) forgot about the time change so by the time we made it over to the dinner at Paul's house (with 70 other people) it was 7pm (MT).

The next morning we got up and met the group at the Pavilion early. It was cold and rainy be we made the best of it. Our seminar was at 3pm and we were allowed to use a stage area inside the Church (did I mention that the pavilion we held this at was on a LDS church lot?). We were able to project our Power point presentation and show the video effects as well as film all in that area. We took off for dinner and the hotel around 7pm but there were people working on props after 9pm.

We hung out with some new friends and a few old ones at the hotel and had a good time.

Sunday morning we got up with regret and headed to Melisa's house where she had set up a great area for EFX-TEK to do their presentations. After that we headed to Castle of Chaos were we were given a tour.

We left for home after the tour about 3pm. We headed to Ontario Oregon where we stopped for the night. We slept in and then headed to La Grande to meet our new friends who do a haunt at the Historic Union Hotel in Union Oregon. We got to tour their haunt and then have lunch with Jeri and Jay Mackley that put on the haunt. We then headed back to Portland and got in at a decent hour. Chris would LOVE to mention the time about 12 mile before the Dalles when I noticed that the gas gauge was on the red line and we did a little cosmic mediation so we would NOT run out of gas on the freeway and have to wait hours for someone to come get us. Fortunately we made it and were able to get gas and continue on our way. So that is why I wouldn't have mentioned it. But Chris probably wants to say it was a VERY stressful couple of minutes.

We are glad to be back and look forward to our Halloween projects we have planned for this year.

Did anyone get a cat with their trophy?

Missing: Black & White Tuxedo cat

Name: Mason, but also answers to "Stop clawing the furniture!"

Last seen while packing the HauntX awards for mailing.

Talking Skull

I created a video the other day on the progress I am making with our talking skull.

HAuNTcon (the trip home)

Got a 4:45am wake up call (that was 2:45 Portland time) to get a taxi to the Houston Airport at 5am to catch our 7am flight. We flew to Chicago and then changed planes and flew to Portland. After over 6 hours of flying even with the sleeping we did we were ready to get of the plane. We got our bags and picked up our car in long term parking, then grabbed some lunch and headed home to some lonely cats and a stack of mail and a bunch of emails.

We are both exhausted but had a great trip. I'm sure my blog entries each day didn't do the trip justice and I likely forgot a bunch of things. Hope it helps explain what we were up to this week.

Thanks to Leonard Pickel (and family) for putting on a great show!! We are looking forward to 2009! We will get to finally see The Terror on the Fox - the haunt of the famous (and ultimately cool) Bad Boys Scenic Design crew.

HAuNTcon Day 6

Got woke up by housekeeping so I made my way down to the first class which started at 10am and grabbed some more complementary breakfast (very helpful that they have that arranged!) I left Chris (who did not get up early - as we suspected) to catch some much needed rest. The first class was Scene Painting by Nick Collins of NC. He was a very talented scene painter and great speaker. I learned a lot just watching him.

Chris joined me for the next seminar. We attended All about Servos from EFX-TEK John Barrowman. As usual there were some delays with technical issues getting started. (not sure why these couldn't be addressed during the 30 min breaks?). I left the seminar a little disappointed I was expecting something with a bit more meat (funny comment from a vegetarian.)

He covered a lot of ground quickly and concisely. I could tell he pushed the skill level about as far as he could with the audience he had. Chris won a RC-4 by answering the question about which John/Jon was a opera singer (these two are always full of surprises!) correctly (John). (Drinking with fellow haunters/vendors pays off!! :)

Our last seminar was Greg Chrise, an experienced concrete technique contractor. He talked about the alternative to monster mud called Monster Crete. It was and odd format for a demonstration/seminar but he was informative, he talked about a lot of his experiences and explained the materials and how they are used.

We went back to the show floor for the last time and purchased another Midnight Syndicate CD (as a haunter you can never have too many of their CDs.)

We also talked to the Wolfe Brothers a bit at the Graftobian airbrush makeup booth to get some hints on what to buy.

John of EFX-TEK tracked us down and gave us a gift as a thank you for all our support of their products. Thanks guys, we cannot say enough good things about your products and your support of home haunters. See you in Provo!

Throughout the weekend we were constantly surprised when a local home haunter comes up to us and says "Wow, your stuff is amazing/cool!" Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy :) We love answering their questions and send them to the a vendor we trust and know will treat the yard haunter right.

We had a light dinner and then went on a tour bus to National Museum of Funeral History. Turned out to be a FANTASTIC time. The museum had the largest collection of horse draw hearses I had ever seen. There were tons of unique caskets and other funeral history exhibits. We grabbed a bite to eat there and then headed back.

As usual we met another Oregonian. A couple who run a haunt in La Grand out of a 1920's hotel on its 3rd floor. They were a lot of fun to talk with and we look forward to getting together with them soon.

We went up to the Pickel Suite and said "hi" to some great new people. And then thanked Leonard and Jeanne for a wonderful time as always and headed to bead to get get up in 4hrs.

HAuNTcon Day 5

Got up early and grabbed the complementary breakfast. Sat down in the Bad Boys Scenic Design Foam Masonry IV seminar. As usual, it was packed. Went over the same stuff that seminar II & III did. (They were selling the same DVD as last year, but they say that a new one is on its way?) It is always a treat to listen to a crew that is so passionate about their work. Bert is one of the most creative guys we have met in the industry. They also were planning a full day seminar on Monday (cost $450 per person) so they said it would cover much more detail. Too bad we were leaving and didn't pay the extra bucks. I hear they are filming it and selling it for $75 - we will be looking for that!

The next seminar was the intermediate Prop-2 Programming seminar from EFX. As many of the other seminars before this one there were some technical difficulties getting started and then a mix up on what the class was about. It ended up being about basic programming than the advanced Prop-2 specific stuff. Which was good for the majority of the attendees but left Jeff a little disappointed. (Sometimes he is so high maintenance :)

Grabbed some lunch and ate with Dick Turhune a voice talent and PR service provider that we have met from CT and who might be able to help us with our talking skull.

I went to the silicone for makeup by Smooth-on (missed their molding and casting class since it was back to back with ours). Pretty cool stuff watching them making wounds and stuff with silicone right on the spot. Great speaker and great products.

We both sat in on the Airbrush makeup for haunts by Nick Wolfe. Which was fun and informative (including the impromptu philosophy lesson.) We watched him paint an already applied latex prostetic and then a full body paint job on a lovely (and brave) woman. All the men thanked him later for the frontal nudity experience. Nick is a great speaker and is fun to watch work and listen to.

I sat in on the Advanced Animatronics Keynote by Garner Holt who founded Garner Holt Productions It was a fascinating look into the most popular animatronic company in the world and its founder.

We stopped in on Mini Spotlight and placed our order for our lights this year. They have a few new products including a water-proof (important for the NW) strip of white LEDs. They are great people to work with and anyone looking to improve the lighting in their haunt or yard display should look into replacing their floods with low voltage LED lights.

We had dinner and went up to our room to get ready for the costume ball (Chris got to wear her white trainers with the black dress, because one of the boots zipper when flying across the room!)

The costumes were fantastic this year and we had a great time. We tracked down Leonard for a picture (above). His vampire costume was quite appropriate since he went to Transylvania last year.

Chris won a picture from Ghoulish Gallery - they make amazing changing photos! I won the Napoleon's Last Ride portriat. They have a couple graveyard photos that I need to get. We left at about 12:30 when they shut down the bar. We changed out of our costume and went to the hotel bar and had drinks until they kicked us out with some other haunters. We made our way up to the Pickel suite which was FULL of people. We said hi to a few friends and then went to bed around 3am.

The question is.....will Chris make it to the show floor tomorrow am? :)

HAuNTcon Day 4 (the seminar)

Had a little trouble sleeping having gone to bed so late and thinking about the seminar. We didn't plan on attending any of the morning seminars so we slept in and ordered room service breakfast.

I posted some blog entries. We headed down to the show at about 11am. We took a brief look at the creative class room we were speaking in and it was bigger than we thought. We sat in a class in it for a while but then left. The show floor opened up at noon so we took a look around to scope out our purchases.

I talked to Leonard Pickel about getting something we could use as a stand for holding up our background and he kindly lent us a sign stand he had that worked great (thanks Leonard!) We walked around the show for a while and then headed to our room to order some room service lunch (bar wasn't open and the restaurant was called the "Cattleman's Club" - yep, just full of vegetarian food - like the rest of Texas).

We reviewed our presentation which was good because the movie wasn't working (tension rising) and we had to download the backup copy I uploaded to our website (thankfully) but I couldn't remember what I called the file! Finally figured it out (in the nick of time) and got it downloaded and the PPT working perfectly. Now if Chris can just operate it correctly during the presentation :)

Packed up all our stuff and headed to our seminar at 2:30 (30 min to go). We unpacked and put the backdrop on the stand. Got our stuff setup while the other group was taking down.

We had some trouble with the laptop showing on the projector (funny a video effects talk with the projector not working, not!) We winged it for 15 min while they fixed the projector but the attendees had tons of questions (mostly about the yard) and we were happy to answer. Finally got the projector working and the talk went smoothly. We were able to get a volunteer (the lovely Marianne (sp?) - if you read this email us, we would like to send you your "ghost") to do the video and created a short video right in the class.


The time went fast and before we knew it we were done. Everyone enjoyed the class and we talked to people afterwards who said it was great, and asked a lot more questions. If you were in the class and did not get a handout, check out our website to download it, or email me and I will send you a color print out in the mail.

We went to the show floor and ordered some skeletons from The Skeleton Store (we are going to use them for the charity auction items this year, so if you want a realistic skeleton, buy a raffle ticket!) Stopped by our Froggy's Fog friends (I still owe them some wine) and bought some Swamp Juice. (We were using the regular Fog Juice, we will see if this one is better.) One of my favorite vendors, their name is Froggy, as the Frog Queen (I have hundreds of minions at my desk), what is not to like, and they love good Cabernet's! Now that is almost heaven :) Crap, I now have a John Denver song stuck in my head.....you too? Sorry about that.

Picked up prop controllers from EFX-TEK and met (the delightful) Amber (blessed be to you too honey!) They were as helpful as ever and we look forward to seeing them again at the RMG. We talked with Kim and Bert (and met their son Adam) at Mini Spotlight about their new products. I even had a long chat with the Smooth-On folks about their products and they gave me a sample of a brushable rubber I didn't have.

We went to the dinner at 6pm with 4 tables of haunters and had a nice dinner and chatted with some great people from Ohio and Chicago (and a home haunter.) This was a new experiment for Leonard, we have a good time and with a few suggestions would recommend it to anyone next year.

We boarded the bus at 7:15 and went to Phobia to tour their haunt. They had 4 of their 5 haunts open and we waited in line for each one and went through. The 3-D clown haunt was wild and the other 2 demented haunts were intense. They put on a good show. We got back on a bus and were back by 10pm so we went back to the bar and got some food and drinks and hung with a fellow haunter Don from Seattle who does fantastic makeup for EMT training. (realistic severe injuries). Got to bed at a decent time so we could go to classes all day on Saturday.

HAuNTcon Day 3

We boarded our bus after we checked out of the French Market Inn. We drove to the Saint Louis Cemetery No. 1 the oldest above ground cemetery in New Orleans. We walked around for a bit and took some amazing pictures.

We then hopped on the bus and drove to the Haunted Mortuary and had lunch. This was one of the more impressive buildings for a haunted house. Very high tech with lots of potential. They showed a video effect on a CO2 fog wall that was amazing. Their control room for their cameras and audio was like something out of a movie studio. (No surprise to learn that their day jobs were AV professionals.)

We drove to the airport and flew to Houston. We checked into our hotel and then got ready to go to the Nightmare on the Bayou a 3-D haunt. (Not a haunt for those with Coulrophobia!) We ate dinner in their party room and toured the very large Party Boy store (they had a great costume rental company upstairs.) We headed back to the hotel and had some drinks with fellow haunters (including our friends from Texas) until late into the night. Heard a lot of good advice given about running haunts, that we will probably (don't want to jinx myself) never use - but we love hearing the stories!

Looking forward to our first official Hauntcon day and our seminar in the afternoon.

HAuNTcon Day 2

Got up at 7am and checked out of the Hotel and left our bags at the desk along with everyone else. Had a great buffet breakfast and then headed over to the 13th gate for a lights on walk through. They didn't allow us to take photographs because of all the new things they added this year. The walk through was just as fun as the lights off tour. Kathy Sanburn was our guide who is one of the owners. The amount of hours they spent doing the detail of this place was unbelievable.

After the lights off tour we boarded our bus and drove to the haunted Myrtles Plantation. We had lunch at the Carriage house restaurant and then took the tour of the main house of the plantation. We had a charming (and very southern), humorous tour guide named Robbie. It is a tour we will never forget.

We then drove to New Orleans across the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, the longest in the world - it is quite extraordinary to be out in the middle of the lake - you are on the road and cannot see land in any direction.

We got checked into the French Market Inn on Decatur st in the french quarter. The hotel had a lot of characters which helped make up for the lack of hotel standards (like air conditioning, which in the south we have learned is crucial, even in April.) We had some time after check in until the bus left so we did a bit of shopping and bought some daiquiris (drinking on the street in a much cooler location than Vegas!) Chris picked up some voodoo stuff at the Voodoo Blues store. (Of course, and she has named them all already, so if you feel a sudden headache.....:)

Our first haunt was Chamber of Horrors just outside of New Orleans. It was a small building with a very dedicated group of actors.

We then boarded the bus and drove to the The House of Shock. The name totally fits the haunt, no false advertising here. They had a preshow that consisted of people with hooks in their backs being dragged around with chains - that is the PG stuff - the R stuff is....well, not going on this blog (ask us in person, it is worth the story.)

They have a pyrotechnic show before we went into the haunt (one of the owners is a pyrotech for concerts and there was a score of fire and police men at the event.) The haunt itself was satanic themed and not for the easily offended. They are careful to put VERY LARGE signs up that warn you that this is all in fun, if you think you might be offended - leave now! And they mean it. (If any of you are familiar with one of our favorite drinking bands the Poxy Boggards - it is similar to that - bring your sense of humor, but not your kids.)

It was a great show, creepy scenes with actors that touched you. (I believe Michelle had "blood" on her purse for the rest of the tour.) I was impressed by the consistant story line and their attention to detail. They had the creepiest actors. (including some children.)

We ate dinner there before the show started and hung around with the owners afterwards and talked to the people that worked there. They had a very large crew of dedicated a close knit people (you would have to be to pull this off!) We ran into a local fireman whose wife and son both volunteer - and he is going volunteer this year instead of working that shift. Quite impressive.

We boarded our bus and went back to Decatur street where we walked to Bourbon street and bought a drink and walked the street looking at all the clubs and listening to the music and watching all the drunk people (or was that just me looking in the mirror :)

It was quite a day. We can hardly wait to go back!

HAuNTcon Day 1

We spent most of the day on a plane. We got up at 6:30am and left at 8am. Stopped in Dallas and hung around for a couple of hours.

We flew to Baton Rouge at 4pm and got in at 5:30pm. We check in to the Sheraton Hotel. We met Ed from New Hampsire a new haunt owner for this year. We met up with Sam & Michelle from Alaska (hanging in our usual place :)

At 8pm we went through the 13 Gate Haunt. It was a VERY detailed haunt and we had a blast going through it and seeing all the detail with the lights off and the actors.

Can hardly wait to see it in the light tomorrow!

HAuNTcon Day -1

We are packing and getting ready for our HAuNTcon pre-show trip. We are flying to Baton Rouge tomorrow to tour 13th Gate at 8pm. We leave at 6:30am and fly to Dallas and then to Baton Rouge. We are staying at a hotel casino. We can't wait. I am going to try to post an entry after each day. Hope it works?

Haunt X Awards

After the Haunt DVD's were released we inquired into whether the Haunt X Awards were going to be held this year since the Haunt X convention in LAX was not. The creator of these awards said he was too busy with personal stuff to get them done but would love us to handle them for him and keep them going this year. So we worked with a few people to get a website setup and let people who bought the DVD's vote on who should win.

The voting took place for the entire month of March. We contacted the Ghost Ride Productions maker of the trophies and ordered the 8 trophies for the Best and Finalists in the 4 catagories (Yard, Indoor, Party, and Novice). We are still waiting to get the plaques made for them.

We have tallied the votes (which were less than expected). We have the winners but are waiting to announce them pending a few details. If you are wondering we were not one of the winners and even if we were we would have declined since we are running the awards this year.