> INTRODUCTION a fascination with imagination   > THEME PARK MAGIC inspirational rides and attractions   > A PHANTOM PLOT UNFOLDS a 2003 test from Disneyland ideas   > THE HAUNTING BEGINS five years of Halloween, 2004-2008 > BACK FROM THE GRAVE 2010-2011 with new technology   > A 2013 RESURRECTION a mix of new and age-old effects   > DAWN OF THE UNDEAD 2014 show, part one   > THE ZOMBIES EMERGE 2014 show, part two   > A CHANGING CONCEPT 2015 show, part one   > BUILDING PNEUMATIC FIGURES 2015 show, part two   > ROLL UP, ROLL UP! 2015 show, part three   > INTO THE TUNNEL... 2016 show, part one   > MAKING MONSTERS MOVE 2016 show, part two   > TO HELL AND BACK 2016 show, part three   > SHARPENING THE SENSES 2017 show, part one   > A MAGNETIC ATTRACTION 2017 show, part two   > THE BIG EXECUTION 2017 show, part three   The undead rises on October 31st 2014!     The diagram to the right shows the layout of the zombie display. While it has some basic similarities to 2013, there were new scenes and effects that I created, including the electrocution in the crate, the barrels of toxic waste, and a hooded ‘wraith’ figure that was to turn and face visitors as they approached! In total, the garden was presided over by ten figures, including a host of zombies that were on hand to make lots of visitors jump! Let’s look at some of the effects in more detail.                                           The Crate       Visitors were first confronted with a zombie holding glowing electrodes on cables attached to a giant wooden crate, marked ‘DANGER HUMAN REMAINS’. As they moved nearer, the zombie turned its head to face them with a ghoulish laugh. Buzzing sounds were heard as the electric cables glowed more brightly. Suddenly, the front of the crate became transparent, and visitors saw a skeleton, bound in chains, being electrocuted, amid loud zapping noises and his anguished screams!           I had originally intended to find a suitable wooden crate that I could adapt. But it turns out that wooden crates cost a lot more than I thought! I soon discovered that the most abundantly available crates were impressively enormous structures that looked as though they could withstand nuclear blasts. While I was looking for something reasonably big, the quality of build was rather unimportant – I was only going to chop holes in it anyway. So in the end I gave up the search, bought a load of wood and built one myself!         I had initially imagined the crate looking metallic; the highly artistic drawing to the left (!) shows it with 'metal' bars, giving a more cage-like appearance. For simplicity the bars were scrapped, but the wooden frame was sprayed black and silver to give a more imposing look. Sheets of MDF were added to create the top and the base on which the skeleton sat inside. The idea for the sides of the crate turning transparent came from the 2013 display, where a skeleton (the same one as in this new effect!) suddenly appeared from behind a sheet in the porch, giving a great shock effect. Both this and the new crate effect would rely on a piece of scrim fabric to operate (as used prolifically in the attractions of Disneyland Paris, Blackgang Chine and other theme parks).         The material I used in 2013 was quite thick, and as such did not allow the skeleton to be as visible as I wanted. So I got hold of some professional theatrical ‘shark-tooth’ scrim and stapled this to the inside of the crate, completing the sides. This top quality stuff had excellent transparency, but when lit from the front, appeared opaque – this really enhanced the surprise element of the effect, hiding the skeleton from view before it was revealed amid the bright electrical flashes! It had the added bonus of being able to be painted, so ‘DANGER HUMAN REMAINS’ was cut out of card and stencilled with spray paint onto the front of the scrim.                                                       The electrode conundrum     The biggest challenge I had whilst building this prop was the big ‘cables’ attached to the crate and held by the zombie. I wanted them to appear as translucent ‘tubes’, about 2cm thick, that glowed uniformly and could dim and brighten in sync with electrical buzzing sounds. Initially I had considered using rope light – easily dimmable, and the electric blue colour could be easily achieved using some coloured gel. The problem was – how could this be installed so the ‘cables’ gave off a soft, diffused light?     Rope light was later found to be unsuitable after my idea to coat it with frosting spray did not work – the individual LEDs in the tube could still be seen. I then tried another method; electro-luminescent wire, or EL wire. This is a thin piece of phosphor-coated copper which glows when powered. But after ordering some test pieces, I found that not only was it much dimmer than I'd expected, but due to the high frequency of the drivers, it also made a high-pitched buzzing sound that very easily transferred to nearby sound equipment! Clearly this was not suitable either! The solution I chose was to use LED tape; in this case, adhesive strips of RGB LEDs that can be colour mixed and dimmed. I went for really bright, 4000 lumen LEDs to create a vibrant, neon look. The tubes were then wrapped in semi-transparent rubber than diffused the light to a soft glow. One strip was stuck along the bottom inside edge of the crate, to light up the skeleton, while another pair of strips were stuck into each rubber ‘cable’ held by the zombie.             These LED strips ran from a 24V power supply, via DMX decoders that converted the DMX signals from the controlling computer to voltage levels to switch on the red, green and blue LEDs on the tape. Two decoders were used, which meant the LED tape in the crate was on a different DMX channel to that inside the electrocuting cables, allowing them to be addressed and controlled separately. It was surprising how quickly the power consumption from these tapes went up! 5 metres of tape was used in total.       The trick with the scrim was to illuminate the front of it as much as possible all the time the skeleton was to remain unseen. So two PAR 16s were added either side of the crate, with their light grazing its surface to allow for the skeleton and everything behind to fall into darkness, and also for the lettering on the front to be seen clearly (see image above). At the appropriate moment in the sequence, these lights would be quickly switched off, allowing visitors to see the skeleton through the scrim, lit up by the bright flashes from the LED tape inside. The sounds for this effect were created as a stereo soundtrack. Ghoulish laughter and electrical buzzing played from a speaker next to the zombie in front of the crate, while loud zapping noises and the skeleton’s anguished screaming came from another speaker positioned behind the crate, giving a sense of direction to the sounds as the effect unfolded.       Watch the crate in action with this clip recorded on the night (.mp4, 15.1mb)   The Pop-up Zombie   The animated axe figures from 2013 had worked successfully and were popular with visitors, so I was keen to re-use the workings of this effect for a new feature; a zombie that would emerge unexpectedly from a barrel in the toxic waste scene. One of the figures would also be reused too: the axe-swinging goblin himself, given a cunning green spray paint for a more undead appearance! This was to be another motion-activated effect, with a great ghoulish laugh to accompany his sudden appearance!       Watch this clip of the zombie during development, and in the display (.mp4, 12.9mb)                                                           This new animated prop was based around a seesaw-type assembly, with the zombie figure at one end of a metal bar, a counterweight at the other, and a stepper motor mounted in the centre to move the figure up and down on cue. The almost inevitable problem of the motor not having enough torque to turn this much weight about a point was solved, in the end, by mounting the bar on a pivot, and repositioning the motor underneath the figure, such that it actually pulled the zombie end of the bar downwards, held it under tension, and then released it when triggered. This configuration, while less ideal for the motor, had the added bonus of giving much improved movement to the effect. The counterweight was slightly heavier than the zombie; when the motor released its hold, the weights accelerated the bar downwards causing the figure to shoot up quite violently!     Adding some water magic     A nice little touch to the toxic waste scene was the inclusion of a water pump that allowed the large zombie holding a yellow bucket to actually pour ‘toxic waste’ into his barrel as part of the animated sequence. As he did this, thick smoke then rose from the barrel, implying a powerful chemical reaction!     In a similar way to the witches scene of the previous year, a large pipe connected to a hidden smoke machine was run into the base of the barrel, and another pipe was threaded up the arm of the zombie and into the yellow container. A big container of water was positioned inside the barrel, with some underwater lights to provide a safe way of illuminating the falling water in a ghoulish green from below!         Pepper's Ghost returns     I loved developing this effect in 2013, and remember being really chuffed at how effective it looked the very first time I tried it out. So it had to return for 2014!       I found a great full-size zombie figure for this year's Pepper’s Ghost effect. It had highly detailed features and clothing, and the resulting reflection in the Perspex screen looked positively holographic! In fact, during the evening I overheard one visitor say to her friends “Oh look! They’ve got a hologram!” - if only the budget stretched to a proper one…! For a more detailed demonstration as to how this effect works, see the page describing the effects for the 2013 display.         Take a look at the ghost in action with this clip (.mp4, 11.4mb)   The Wraith   The wraith was a later addition to the display, perhaps not in keeping with the rest of the theme, but I just loved its creepy appearance and thought it had to go in! While doing the research into Alton Towers’ Haunted House, I found some promotional material for their rollercoaster TH13TEEN. As part of the theming for this ride, a number of costumed actors known as ‘wraiths’ are known to wander the queue lines of the attraction, spooking visitors. I thought their faceless appearance was really creepy, and decided that I could build a similar figure to scare our visitors. Shortly afterwards, I found an old lighting effect (and I mean old!) known as a PAR 36 scanner – basically a 30W beam of light that scanned left to right through about 90 degrees, slowly and repeatedly. This gave me an idea. On taking it apart, it had a very hefty motor that could handle turning a lot of weight…perhaps the wraith figure I was about to build could be mounted onto this...               This seemed a good way of adding movement. The figure was, like the zombies, mounted on a lighting stand for ease of adjustment, however this time the big motor pilfered from the PAR 36 scanner was attached to the stand, and the actual framework for the figure (made this time from lightweight PVC pipe, see the photo opposite) was bolted to the motor spindle. I decided to make it more challenging by adding the requirement that the figure should initially face away from the path. Then, when triggered by a visitor, slowly turn towards them, pause for a few seconds, then turn back to its original starting point, ready for the next trigger. This was no problem for a little Arduino Uno microcontroller, hidden away underneath the figure, which handled all the stopping and starting of the motor, including working out where the figure was currently pointing in order to know when to stop turning it. These Arduino boards would later go on to be used in future Halloween shows to control a new 'generation' of figures...more about that in the next pages! As the effect turned out, I’d overlooked one important element – actually triggering the movement in the first place! I’d already filled the garden with the crate and the toxic zombie scene, and it was difficult to know where and when the wraith should be triggered. I wasn’t keen on installing yet another PIR sensor (I already had three sensors covering about four metres of path!) so in the end it was tacked onto the crate sequence, triggering directly after the zombie had done his thing with the electrodes and skeleton.                                                       The only problem here was that there wasn’t really a good way of triggering this completely standalone effect, given that the whole crate was a full-on DMX controlled affair, and the wraith most certainly wasn’t! So in the end it was triggered via a dimmer channel turning on a 12V transformer, which in turn would cause the Arduino board to begin its motor turning sequence. A bit dodgy, and it lead to some slightly unpredictable behaviour, but it did the job! The wraith looked brilliant at night, and like the other figures it was a full size thing, at least 5ft tall. During the evening it caught several people off guard as they walked by! I deliberately programmed for it to start turning just slightly before the crate effect finished, such that the visitors would be distracted looking elsewhere, and then when they moved further up the path, this sinister hooded figure would be already moving slowly in their direction!                                                 Watch the wraith being tested. The first part shows the figure before the control system was built - it turns continuously. (.mp4, 8.3mb)                                                   Zombie in the Porch           The final shock effect, located in the porch and activated when visitors stepped underneath, was to use the same basic idea as the previous year, so it was time for more scrim! A big piece of the shark-tooth material was cut out and stretched floor to ceiling in the far corner of the porch. Behind this, a fairly gruesome-looking zombie with bulging eyes was positioned. When a visitor came near, the lights in the porch would go out, and the zombie would be lit up behind the scrim with some strobe light flashes, accompanied by a loud, tortured scream! This was one of my favourite effects; very simple, but it made a lot of people jump!                                   Watch our zombie make visitors jump with this great clip from the night (.mp4, 21.2mb)                                                       Unleashing the un-dead for 2014...     The Halloween Experience opened for business at 5.30pm on October 31st 2014. By the time of completion, it was the biggest display I had designed for Halloween. It turned out to be very popular, with lots of people visiting thanks to the weather being very nice to us! It was noticeably scarier for some, with several younger visitors needing considerable persuasion to venture down the path! I’d had a lot of fun designing and building all the props and figures – much bigger than previous years - and it was quite special to see them working for real in front of me! This image to the right shows the whole display. You can see all the effects operating in the video clip below.       See all the effects plus a full walkthrough of the 2014 display with this clip (.mp4, 33.5mb)                                                         And so that was it! It's always a strange feeling at the end of the night when it's all come to an end; sad in its own way that it's over for another year. But with a tenth year display all done and dusted, I was undecided as to what to do next: finish the experiences on this high note, or start thinking about how it could be topped for next year? I think you can probably guess what I chose to do...!