Ever wonder how they made the costumes for Darth Vader and the Storm Troopers in Star Wars? Basically they did it the same way car bodies are made… in a mold with fiberglass, or a similar resin. In fact, so many things are made with plastics and resins today that it’s not likely you have any device that doesn’t have a molded part on it. I have seen some really complicated, and convincing, costumes made entirely from molded fiberglass, including whole suits of armor!

With the basic knowledge of how to do this, you can make almost anything you’d like. Below I will describe how to make a simple body part, but these concepts can be extended to almost any level to make extravagant costumes, monsters or even sets (think of the Jet in the opening scene of Mission Impossible II. That was made as a fiberglass model a bit larger than a minivan).

For this project I have decided to make a body part, a hand. Not just any hand, but a mummy hand. I also chose materials that you can buy locally:

• plaster of Paris which you can buy at any hardware store
• cheese cloth which you can get anywhere cloth is sold, or where canning supplies are sold (Walmart carries it in their fabric section)
• fiberglass resin and fiberglass cloth or spun fiberglass, which you can get at an auto supply store
• plastic cups and spoons, and cheap (a.k.a. disposable) “chip” brushes

The Mold

I wanted my body part to look like a mummy’s hand, so I needed to make a mold that would give it mottled skin. I could have taken modeling clay and sculpted the part that I wanted, which is how most parts start, but I decided to use my own hand and arm, since I’m not so good at sculpting.

I mixed up some plaster of Paris as per instructions, and dipped strips of cheese cloth in it. I then coated my arm with Vaseline petroleum jelly so the plaster wouldn’t stick, and then layered the plaster infused cheese cloth onto my arm.

I pushed the cheese cloth into the spaces between my fingers, but made sure I had no convolutions (where the mold folds under itself – when you try to take the finished product out, you will have to break the mold in order to get it out – bad if you want to make another, identical part). I let the cheese cloth hang over the end of my fingers to make sure I covered the tips of my fingers.

I used a canned vegetable can to rest my hand on so it would have the right bend to it. I made sure I had a tall cup of coffee, good music on, and then I waited the requisite time of about 45 minutes for the plaster to harden, trying not to move my hand or arm during that time.

After hardening, I carefully pulled the “cast” off (Ouch! Not enough Vaseline, too many arm hairs), pushing and pulling at my skin to get it to break away from the mold.

Casting the Fiberglass hand

I coated the inside of the mold with Vaseline to keep the resin from sticking to the mold. Unfortunately, one of the problems with plaster is that it is porous, and it takes a lot of Vaseline. I did have some trouble getting the resin hand out of the mold, ultimately breaking the mold. There are commercial anti-stick materials that work really well, which I’ll tell you more about later.

I wanted the skin to have a mottled look to it, so I made up a small amount (about two ounces – see below on how to do this) of resin and coated the inside of the mold, not getting rid of any air bubbles (that helps create the mottled look) and let that harden before making the main cast.

Next I cut a piece of fiberglass mat material to fit inside the mold. I also pulled some individual fibers out to fit into where the fingers are.

I then mixed up about 8 ounces of the resin with the hardener as instructed on the can of resin, and stirred it. Then I poured the resin into the mold.

…and spread it out with a chip brush.

I let this harden for about 2 hours, and then began pulling the mold from the “hand”:

This, it turns out, was not so easy. The Vaseline had been absorbed into the plaster, and the resin was stuck in many places on the mold. I ultimately destroyed the mold getting the hand out. That’s ok; I can always make another one. Great way to sit and pity the folks with broken arms set in casts…

Painting Your Body Part

I trimmed this with a jig saw and with “nippers” to cut away the excess, and then painted the hand using acrylic paints (modeling paints would have been better, but this is what I had on hand). I painted it with yellow ochre:

After drying, the molting looks like a mummy’s hand:

I added some red and black paint to make a “wound”:

…and did the same for the fingers:

…and, viola, a mummy’s hand!

Going Further With Your Newly Acquired Casting Skills

This ain’t nothin’, folks. The sky’s the limit, literally. There are airplane kits you can buy to build a whole airplane out of fiberglass! But that’s a different article. Let’s stick to costumes, sets, body parts, weapons… and the list goes on.

I said above that there are better materials out there. You betcha… there is a company that specializes in moldings and castings called Smooth-on, and you can visit their web site at http://www.smooth-on.com/

They have every material imaginable for making molds for casting, anti-stick material, casting resins, silicon rubber (like for a mask), etc. They have training videos you can watch, and videos that introduce each of their materials. Even Martha Stewart has a video on this web site!

There are also hundreds of “How To” videos on YouTube that will lead you step by step in molding and casting. When you become the resident expert, then make your own video and post it on YouTube…

Ok, now, get started on that seven foot monster, and Happy Haunting!

Each year I think I’ll add new items to my yard display, but every year the same thing happens: I‘m broke and have no time! Let’s face it, the two most important things we all need if we want to add something really great to our Halloween display is time and money. Both always seems to slip though my fingers like grains of sand in an evil inspired hour-glass.

But no matter how short on time and money you are, you’ll have most of the things to make a few fast scarecrows. The only thing you need to have is a few old clothes, garden stakes, and an hour or so and you’ve got instant decorations for little or no money!

Supply list:

• Tall poles or PVC pipes
• Trick-or-treat Buckets
• Yarn, wigs and/or old hats
• Wire
• Duct tape
• Plastic shopping bags or garbage bags
• Newspapers and/or Leaves
• Cutters
• Clothes
• Old gloves
• Shoes

Step One–Scarecrows (SC)

Before we dive in, I want show you the three scarecrows I made once and talk about making a twist to the basic SC. How about making them in poses so that they do something rather than just standing there? Look at the photo of my family of scarecrows as if you’ve caught them in the act of adoring their daughter. I’ll describe how I made these so you can get ideas of how to branch out and pose your own SCs.

Step Two–Construction

Mommy Scarecrow

I drove one long bean pole into the ground for the standing mom. I held up the housecoat to the pole and measured where the neck needed to be and then measured a wooden garden stake to make her shoulders. I then wired the garden stake and then wound a strip of duct tape around the wire for stability. I grabbed a hand full of the plastic bags and stuffed another bag fairly full of newspaper (also try leaves) and taped it to the neck and chest for her body. Then I slipped her housecoat on and let it drag on the ground since I didn’t have any shoes for her.

Daddy Scarecrow

Now it was time to make the dad SC, and this is going to be fun since I wanted to make him sitting down. I stuffed an old pair of sweat pants with newspaper inside garbage bags and filled the pants until they looked like legs. Between the picnic table top and seat, I drove into the ground a shorter bean pole until it was the right height for his head and shoulders. I attached the cross piece the same for him as I did for the mom. Now I ran some wire through part of the waistband of the pants and attached it to the stake so the legs wouldn’t fall off in high wind. I slipped on the sweatshirt without stuffing him and started the child SC.

Child Scarecrow

The child SC I assembled differently. I drove two short garden stakes though a pair of old shoes, dropped her pants on over the stakes and stuffed her pants before I wired on the stake for her shoulders. I lightly stuffed her sweatshirt with more plastic bags, and then I was ready to attach all their heads.

Scarecrow Heads

As you can see, their heads are two sizes of old trick-or-treat buckets that I cut x’s in the bottom of so they’d fit on the poles. The treat buckets are perfect for this purpose because they’re weather resistant, have ready made faces, and we all have scads of them lying around the house. I finished off the heads with some yarn hair and old hats. I then safety pinned the gloves to the sleeves, and I was finished.

I can’t tell you how many people stopped by and talked about how much they loved my scarecrows. Some families stopped and as asked if they could have their picture taken with them. Others had the kids do some silly poses by them.

To this day, my family of scarecrows are the hit of the neighborhood, and now they have lots of other scarecrows to play with in my neighbors’ yards. So gather your family, a pile of old duds, a few garden stakes, and makes memories as well as decorations this Halloween season without spending a dime!

Let’s get one thing straight: I’m not here to tell you how to make a 105 minute Halloween horror blockbuster. I’m talking about a little 1 or 2 minute “tickler”, to chill the bones of people at your party or those pesky trick ‘n’ treaters who may come to your door with the intent of scaring you. Ha! And you aren’t going to need a 2 million dollar budget, either. You ARE going to have to have some kind of video camera. These days, even cell phones have those, so you probably already have what is needed.

There are four elements to making a scary movie:

1) A scary story. Remember, we’re not talking about voyeurism, or revulsion, like when you pass by an accident and you just have to look even though you know you shouldn’t. We’re talking about fear; you want to tell a story that tickles the part of the imagination that trips off the “fear switch” or creates an imbalance in the viewer, which can lead to fear.

2) Lighting. Good lighting is essential to a good movie. This does not have to be expensive, simply picking the right time of day, or the right day, can be all that is needed.

3) Sound. Sound creates half of the fear (perhaps even 75%). The sound creates empathy, and makes the image up close and personal.

4) Playing it in the right setting. A scary movie playing in a brightly lit room just doesn’t have the scare appeal that it would have in a darkened room full of hidden ghosts and monsters!

1. Setting Up a Scary Story for Your Movie

Let’s start with the first element: A story. What you are going to do is sit down and write a simple story. Don’t let it be longer than a few sentences. The story should have an element of hopelessness, where there is no escape from the “nightmare”. Better and easier if there is only one or two characters.

The story should have a single location. A rule that every low budget producer knows is don’t have too many locations. More locations mean more time and money. A location, by the way, is where the story takes place. In your story you will only want one location. Here’s a simple example:

A face, cloaked in black with a black background, unmoving except for its mouth, lit from below to give it deep shadows in dark surroundings, is talking backwards. The video has an old film grain given to it, and the image is mirrored so that the face is in duplicate, and turns to look at itself every now and again. End. Loop back to the beginning.

Play this over and over again, maybe just a little out of focus. Make sure you have the sound up loud enough to keep everyone’s attention. Maybe while you’re playing this, run a little “mist” low to the ground from your fog machine (see my article on “Maximizing the Effect of Your Fog Machine”). The ideas are endless.

Here’s another, simple, example:

A hooded figure, lit from below its face only by a hidden flashlight carried in its hands, walks in from one side of the video frame, across the frame, and out the other side. End. Loop back to the beginning.

Or, how about:

A guy, who is also the cameraman pointing his camera down at the path he is on, is running through the woods. All you see is his shadow, but you hear twigs breaking and him breathing. There is an element of desperation in his voice. He trips once in a while. End. Loop back to the beginning.

Finally, maybe this:

A guy is walking through an old cemetery, maybe with fog or mist. He senses someone is following him. He looks over his shoulder and sees a dark form following him. He starts to walk faster. He’s breathing faster, deeper as he works up a “fear”. The breathing has desperation to it. The figure seems to be keeping up with him, gaining on him. End. Loop back to the beginning.

2. Lighting in Your Halloween Movie

The second element, lighting, is the bugaboo of movie makers. Good lighting is expensive, but you’re lucky since you’ve decided to make a short, scary movie. Simple lighting is all that is needed because scary movies do better with fewer details. Remember, it’s the imagination that creates the fear. You just have to spark it.

You can do that with one light on each subject in the movie: Set it low and point it up. Lots of long, upward shadows means scary… OR, you can use the sun, but you’ll need to pick the time of day, and the kind of day to make it work. A bright, noon day sun is not scary. Early morning or evening is good, but it doesn’t last long. But, then again, neither is your movie.

Overcast days are good as they flatten the color and the details, but the disadvantage is they don’t have good shadows. This kind of light would work if you were making the cemetery movie above.

As an example, consider the guy above running through the woods: This would be best shot in the mid-afternoon or in the mid-morning, so that you get a good shadow, but there is plenty of light to see the shadow on the forest floor. IF you are going to make an elaborate set with lots of lights, which I don’t recommend, light the background and background characters first as it frames the foreground, then light the foreground and characters. I’ve seen amateur movie makers following the “three point” lighting scheme you’d use in portrait photography struggle with the lighting because they didn’t understand this simple concept.

For the other example of the talking face or the cloaked figure walking across the room, use a dark room, or a black backdrop, so there are no details in the background. Have the character wear dark clothing. Only light the face with a single light, like a flashlight held under the chin, pointed up.

Creating Spooky Sounds

Now, what about sound? A good scary sound is breathing. It’s easy and doesn’t require any editing. But, to really explore the possibilities, I’m going to refer you to my other article “Making Scary Sound Effects with Sony’s Sound Forge.” However, I still need to make a mention: There are simple sound effects that you can do with a video editing program that do not require a program like Sound Forge, but that also means you’ll need an editing program, which brings me to the next topic: Editing.

Using a Video Editing Program Like Sony Vegas

Certainly you can make a simple video without doing any editing, and it will play pretty well as is. But to create a clean story, that is, it tells exactly what you want without extraneous start-ups and “FUBAR’s”, you’ll need a video editing program. There are several video editing programs available, but I will discuss the one I am familiar with, and that is Sony Vegas Movie Studio.

The nice thing about this software is that it ties in with Sound Forge, and you can do audio editing easily. But even if you don’t have Sound Forge, then there is enough power in Movie Studio to do simple effects.

The best way to do this is by example. I made the talking face movie mentioned above (because it’s easy) by putting on a black turtle neck and standing in front of a black backdrop. I stood to one side of the frame so there would be room to create a duplicate “me” on the other side of the video frame. I shined a flashlight up at my face.

I recited “Mary Had a Little Lamb” and the tape lasted about 15 seconds. I’m going to lead your through how to edit my movie, but understand the possibilities are endless.

Open Up Sony Vegas Movie Studio

Let’s start by opening up your editing program and follow along, if you have one. Most new computers now come bundled with some kind of video editing software. Most are user friendly, but may not have the ability to do some of the things I will be suggesting here. I am using Sony’s Vegas Movie Studio, version 8 because that is what I’m used to using (actually, I’ve used several very sophisticated editing programs, and Vegas Movie Studio is just on the edge of being a professional editing program – just right for the beginner).

I’ll just have to assume you have it, or something close, and will guide you through as I use my video clip “Scary Movie 2”.

Upon opening, you get an opening “Show Me How” window that gives you a list of tutorials if you need help getting started. The tutorials are very helpful, though I would like it better if they provided a manual to go with it. (Editor’s Note: There’s lots of Sony Vegas video tutorials on Youtube.) Just call me old fashioned. Anything not covered in the tutorials is covered in the Help window, but sometimes you may not know what key word to use to do a search, and that can be frustrating.

Luckily Vegas Movie Studio is relatively intuitive, once you get the hang of the layout. Here is what you’ll see at startup:

Close out the “Show Me How” window and then, next, you want to start a New Project. Go to the File menu and choose New. Name the Project “Scary Movie” and click Next. Let the program choose where to put the project. Usually it will be in My Videos if you have windows.

Select the output. I always choose “I’m not sure yet. I will choose later.” This gives me more control over how the movie will be published when I’m finished.

Click Next and you will be given default values for editing in a new window. These are typical: Television size is 720 by 480 and the Frame rate is 29.970 if you are editing in NTSC standards (the America and Japanese standard). PAL if in Europe.

Video-capture Your Clip

OK. Hook up your camera or camcorder to your computer (read your manual to your camera for how to do this), or if you’ve previously recorded a video, save it to your computer and click the “Explorer” tab to find it, then drag and drop it onto the timeline.

Otherwise, to capture a video, go to the “File” menu and choose “Capture Video”:

The Capture Video window will open and it will ask you how you want to capture your clips. A clip is any segment of uninterrupted video. I chose “Don’t capture any clips right now”, because I like to have control over what the computer brings in. Every time the video camera was started and stopped, Vegas will start a new clip.

This is what the full window should look like:

Press the Play button at the bottom and “Shuttle” or use the fast forward or reverse to find you beginning point for capture. Once you’ve found the start point, click the Capture Video button. Once you get to the end, click the Stop button. You’ll get a confirmation window that your video has been successfully captured.

Click Done. You’ll get a clip listed at the bottom. Mine says “Scary Video 2”. Click and hold that file and drag up to the “Timeline” to the Video track just above the Voice track.

Next, “crop” the clip by placing the cursor on the right most edge of the video clip and “pushing it” toward the last sound wave, or wherever the scene “makes sense”. Repeat on the left hand side. Now you only have video where there is talking:

Then, place the cursor over the middle of the video clip and click and hold as you drag the clip to the beginning of the timeline.

Editing and Adding Effects to Your Spooky Video

Ok. Let’s do our first effect. Let’s reverse both video and voice tracks by right-clicking on the video and choosing Reverse from the menu:

Do the same for the voice track and you’ll see two arrows; one on each track. That arrow indicates the track has been reversed.

Ok. Now press the play button and see what happened. The face is talking backwards – scary.
Let’s do another effect. Go to the bottom of the page where the files are listed and you’ll see six buttons. Choose Video FX tab. Scroll down the menu on the left hand side and choose Mirror:

Then choose the effect “Reflect Left”. Click and hold and drag that effect up to the video track and release. You’ll get this window. Ignore it and close it.

Now you should have two images, one the mirror of the other:

This is now double creepy. Let’s do another. Let’s do an old film look. Click on Film Effects in the menu to the left. Choose Very Old Film and drag it up and drop it on the video track. Now play the clip. Double creepy with extra creep on top:

So, right now the “movie” is only about 10 seconds long. You can make it as long as you want (don’t go over two hours – your DVD can’t hold that much). Simply click on the video track which should highlight it. Then Copy, or Ctrl C, and then, at the end of the clip, Paste, or Ctrl V. Keep doing this, each time adding another 10 seconds on the length, and making the clip repeat over and over. Very Creepy:

Now you want to print this to a DVD, or to your camera. Go up to the “Make Movie” tab at the top tool bar, and click. Vegas will ask you what you want to do with your movie… make a DVD, etc. Choose the final way you want to make your movie. I choose Burn it to DVD since I will want to play this through my DVD Player into my video projector:

Click Next and the following window I just use the default values Vegas chooses, because that is the most general and will “render” the whole video track. Rendering is when Vegas converts the timeline video into a file that is actually in a video format that can be played in a DVD Player. This part takes a long, long time, usually about five to ten times longer than the video track. The more video effects, the longer it will take to render. So, if your timeline track is 10 minutes long, it will take about 50 minutes to render…

Time to take a break and go out and see your favorite scary movie while your movie is rendering. It will save to a file, and then you’ll be prompted to burn the DVD via Sony’s DVD Architect, a program that is bundled with Vegas Video Studio.

If you would like to see how my Scary Movie turned out, see below:

You can also export the audio to Sony’s Sound Forge by right-clicking on the audio track (see my article “Making Scary Sound Effects”), do some creepy stuff there, and then import that audio track back into Vegas. Totally Creepascious.

So, now that you have an academy award winning scary movie, where to play your movie? Get a video projector and project your movie on your window as the trick or treaters come to the door, or on a manikin head, or on a balloon (see my other article “Scary Video Projections on Your Window”).

If you’re having a party inside, keep the lights down low and have the video playing in the background on your TV or projected on a wall. If your party is outside, there are inflatable screens you get buy or rent just for this purpose. Or, if you are a craftsman, make a frame and hang a cheap sheet of white, disposable vinyl table covering over it and project the image from the back!

And don’t forget, use your fog machine! Mix creepy with creepy and you get scary!!

Happy Haunting!

What is a two-way mirror?

Also known as a one-way mirror or a transparent mirror, it is a piece of glass that has been coated with a super thin layer of metal. It is placed between a darkened room a lighted room, which allows a person in the darkened room to see through the glass, but a person in the lighted room to only see his own reflection. Mirrors like this are usually used for security purposes. Police use them in interrogation rooms so that they can see the suspect, but not vice versa. Cameras can be hidden behind them to catch shoplifters, and news programs employ them in the form of teleprompters.

If, however, the lights in the darkened room are turned on, the mirror becomes transparent on both sides. This is how we can produce ghostly images in mirrors for our haunted house!

Uses in Haunted Houses

If you’ve ever gone through one of Disney’s Haunted Mansion or Phantom Manor rides and been amazed by the hitchhiking ghosts that seem to sit beside your reflection, you have seen a two-way mirror at its fullest spooky potential. We can create a similar effect in our own haunted houses without too much effort. The mirror does most of the work for you!

Just set your mirror into a false wall in your haunted house and place something spooky behind it. Then find a way to click on the lights at just the right moment for the maximum scare effect. Depending on the size of your mirror and what you have available, you can hide a person in a costume, an animatronic or just a scary portrait behind your mirror. Your victim will walk down the hall and at first see only their reflection. Then, when the time comes, light up your ghostly apparition and let the mirror do it’s work. Your victim will suddenly see what is behind the mirror. Eek!

We find that strobe lights work well for lighting up your apparition – some of them can be set to timers, and others have foot controls. For smaller mirrors, a flashlight under your chin is the simplest and most effective method for getting that traditional scary face.

How to make your own

It’s fairly easy to buy a two way mirror online, and it’s not too expensive. But then there is the matter of having it shipped, which could be expensive and a big hassle, depending on the size you choose. Then you will have to find a frame that fits and looks right. I have found that it’s easier to make your own.

You will need:

• Picture frame of your chosen size and style
• Privacy window film (mirror style)
• Adhesive spray
• utility knife or razor blade
• squeegee

If you plan on putting a person behind your mirror, you should choose a larger-sized picture frame. You may want to use a poster frame, but the thicker the frame, the better. If you can find a large antique-looking frame (try a second-hand shop or check around at garage sales), that would be ideal. A neat idea is to paint your frame black or crack the paint to make it look old.. Just don’t damage the frame too much that you can’t get the glass back in!

After removing the glass from your frame, you will apply the privacy film to one side. This film is usually used on the windows of cars and buildings to keep people outside from seeing in during the day. (If you’ve ever stopped to check out your reflection in the side of a building, there were probably people inside laughing at you.) You can buy this film at some auto parts stores, or at Home Depot or Lowes. I found mine at Home Depot for $25, but you will also need to buy the adhesive spray and the package of tools, unless you already have a small squeegee and a utility knife (razor blade).

The only company I know of that makes this mirrored film is Gila. See their website here: http://www.gilafilms.com/Residential/window-film-mirror.htm

Follow the directions in the package (Gila rolls their instructions into the film) to apply the film to your glass. See our video below for a tutorial. It’s easier to attach the film to a loose piece of glass than a window because there’s no measuring involved. Just lay your glass on top of the film and cut around the edges.

Make sure you cut the film so that you have an extra inch on all sides. Next, you may want to ask a friend for help, as it’s easy to crease the film or get it stuck to itself when you work alone. Apply the film and squeegee it as flat as possible, removing any bubbles. When you trim the excess film off the edges, it doesn’t have to be perfect, as the edges will be hidden beneath the frame. You may want to hold the squeegee on the edge of the glass when you pull the excess away, as it tends to stick and pull up what you’ve already squeegeed down.

After you’ve trimmed and dried the film, place the glass back into the fame with the film facing forward.

Installing your Haunted Mirror

False walls are the key to a great haunted house. Monsters can hide behind them and spooky hands can reach out from them and grab passers by. They are also the place to install your haunted mirror. You will need to cut a hole in one of your false walls to hang your mirror in front of. It should be smaller than the outside of your frame, but larger than the visible glass so you can hide the seam of the wall behind the frame. Your guests should not be able to tell there is anything strange about the wall.

Ghostly images

If you want to get really advanced (or just don’t want to sit around behind a wall for hours) you can put a TV or computer screen behind a small mirror and loop a spooky video on it. You can make your own video if you like – It should be black most of the time to allow for the appearance of a normal mirror. Then create bright, ghostly images that emerge from the blackness. Do this by simply moving into a beam of light (flashlight under the chin works) and make a scary face! You don’t have to limit yourself to just faces – get creative, you can put anything behind your mirror!

After your get your video up on the screen, you will want to turn the contrast way down because even when the screen is black it can emit a glow that will alert your guests that something’s up. You may also need to cover the sides of your screen with black cloth or paper (paint it black if you have an old spare) and make sure all lights on the knobs and power button are hidden and won’t glow through. Then push the screen up behind the mirror and let it work its magic!

I am a firm believer in real scares, not cute stuff that might scare a two year old. So here’s a twist on window decorations that will send a chill up the spines of all those cute little trick or treaters as they approach your house: Live (or at least on video) shadow dramas taking place on a window, sound and all. Even better, how about a talking head, or if you like “cute”, a singing head?

Back in the old days, you could just hang a sheet on the window and project an out-of-focus 8mm movie on it from the inside and viola! Shadowy weirdness that people can see from the outside. Most people don’t have that stuff around anymore, and if you do, it probably doesn’t work. If you’re a real cheapo all you need is a bright harsh light, a cape with a fedora hat and you can stand, maybe holding a knife, in front of the sheet with the light behind you and sway back and forth. All they see outside is the shadow.

…OR…

OR… you can make a video of said creep and, using a video projector, project the video onto a sheet, or a large piece of white paper hung over the window, complete with scary sounds coming from your stereo (see my article on “Making Scary Sounds with Sony’s Sound Forge”). Even better, I think, are those old 8mm home movies copied onto DVD and projected, out of focus, on your window.

How to Create Video Projections for Your Halloween Haunt

First, come up with a creepy idea and video tape it. Keep it simple. If you are going to project this on a tall window, turn your video camera sideways and then project it sideways so the image fills the window.

Second, you’ll need a projector. You’ll need one that has a fairly bright light. At least 2000 lumens, I’d say. “But video projectors are expensive” you say, and I agree. But if you live near a larger town or city, there are audio visual rental houses that will happily rent you a projector for a day or two for not too much money. OR… maybe it’s time you bought your own. I did a little checking around to see if there were any good quality projectors for a relatively low price.

It turns out there are several inexpensive projectors available, “inexpensive” being a relative term, but my main concern is if there are enough lumens (how bright the light is coming from the projector) to pass through the paper or sheet. The least expensive is the Merch Source Entertainment TV Projector. I couldn’t find the lumen level, but it has to be low. It uses a standard 50 watt, 12v, MP-16 halogen light bulb, which means inexpensive to replace. It has its own speaker, albeit mono. The reviews were fairly good for this projector, with brightness and “lines” being the biggest complaint, and it’s less than $200. My best guess is that this projector would probably work for how it’s being used, so long as it’s not too far from the screen, and the ambient light is kept very low. I couldn’t find anything else this cheap.

The next level up in price for a video projector is about $400, but the projectors at this level look pretty good and most run around 2000 lumens. The 1080i HDMI Video Theater Projector at 2000 lumens appears to be a good piece of electronics; it had a good review, and is reasonably priced at about $450. That is about what you’d pay for a regular TV, and this could project on a wall, so you wouldn’t have to put it away ‘til next year. You could play movies and games with it in the mean time!

Next, you’ll need a translucent “screen” to project the image onto. A sheet is okay, but the light from the projector will “defract”, and you will have to experiment to see if the light is strong enough to penetrate all the way through so the trick or treaters will be able to see it from the other side.

Other ideas I’ve seen for this purpose are those cheap disposable table clothes. Another idea is a vinyl shower curtain, or, check out the local hardware store for translucent sheeting in the lighting department.

I was using a very low power projector, about 700 lumens, and so I tried using a large piece of white paper that comes in rolls used as art paper or to cover table tops.  I pulled off about six feet of it which was plenty to cover my window. That worked ok if the image was bright, but some of my images were dark to start with, and the projector didn’t help, so I dashed off to Walmart and found some cheap, white, vinyl table covers and used that. Being thinner than the paper, it did well with the dark images.

Here’s a video of me reciting poetry in black and white, in duplicate. This was on white butcher paper, and it did not cover all of the window. It showed well since the image was bright, but for a darker image, this didn’t work well at all:

Below: I hung a cheap, white, vinyl table covering over the window (I just realized that I had knocked one of the support rods loose… don’t tell my wife).

Below: Replacing the paper with the plastic vinyl, I did a spooky face by simply putting a cape over my head and only lighting my face with a flashlight. This one really creeped my wife out when she saw it, and she’s a teacher so it takes a lot to creep her out!

Other materials you can get just for this purpose are, if you want to do this up like a real pro, theatrical gels from Rosco or from Lee Filters who make special filters and papers for putting over windows and lights to diffuse light. The gel that will make your window into a translucent screen is what is called “heavy frost”, and comes in rolls or large sheets. This stuff is a little pricey, but is made tough and flame resistant. The good news about the heavy frost sheeting is, if your projector doesn’t have a bright light in it, this gel will let enough light through to see the image well.

Finally, sound. Make sure the windows are open so that you can crank up the stereo and let them have the scary stuff, up close and personal! Sound is the depth of vision (have I mentioned my article “Making Scary Sounds”?).

Sounds easy, right? Well, here’s the problem (there’s always a problem). To keep the image going for as long as the little devils are coming to the door, about two or three hours, you’re going to have to make as long a video as you can. Some of you might act creepy all the time so no big deal, but for most of you, you could get pretty tired acting creepy for longer than a few minutes. Here are your options:

• See if your video player has a “loop” or “repeat” feature.
• Have your little brother sit and keep hitting “Play” button every time the video ends, or… drum roll please…
• Read my upcoming article on “Making Scary Movies” coming soon to a Halloween Alliance Website near you! I’ll show you how to take 2 minutes of video and stretch it into an hour!

Another cool thing to do (it’s an old idea from the film days), is project the image of someone’s head on a mannequin’s head (like you would store a wig on), or an inflated balloon. If you’re using video, the head appears to be talking.

I made a simple little video wearing all black and a black background, and I recited some poetry. I then went into Sony’s Vegas Movie Studio and reversed the image and the sound (again, see my upcoming article “Making Scary Movies” and I’ll show you how to do this) and projected it on a white balloon sitting in the window. Zer kool!.

As you can see below, I cut a small hole in a cardboard box and stuck a balloon in it so it wouldn’t move around too much (a little bit is good – spooky) and then projected the image on it. What’s cool about this is that the image not only projected on the surface, a little bit went through to the other side, only real blurry.

Don’t stop here. Come up with ideas that follow the basic principles of “scare” and make your own video version of Window Horror!

Happy Haunting!

What was that!? Did you hear something? I KNOW I heard somethin’! Get up and check it out!!!!

You know, I still get scared when I wake up in the middle of the night and hear a noise. And I’ve been around a while. Yeah, yeah, I know: It ain’t nothin’ and when I get up to check out the noise, it always turns out to be something harmless. But it’s still scary. And, living out in the country, I still get the creeps when the coyotes start saying good night to each other at 4:30 in the morning.

So, what is it about sounds? I’ll tell ya… it’s because you CAN’T see what’s making the sound; and the first rule to creating scary stuff is that you’ve got to tickle people’s imagination with what they don’t see, or just barely see, or see just in a flash.

Spooky, Background Sounds

My first introduction to the use of sound to create a scare was when I was a young fella who attended a friend’s Halloween party. When guests arrived, his house was decorated as you would expect, dark and creepy. But what made my hair stand on end was the sound. There was a low frequency moaning that sounded horrendous, and it just kept on going. In fact, if my memory serves me correctly, it went for the whole time I was there. How did he do that? Not easy to give up secrets, he finally told me with enough prying. I think I might have stepped on his toe a few times, too.

Here’s how he did it: My friend was fortunate in those days to be able to afford a reel to reel tape deck. The cool thing about a reel to reel was you could record something at fast speed and play it back at slow speed, and that is exactly what he did. He took the tape deck outside when he was cutting wood with his chain saw. He recorded the sound at high speed for the duration of the tape, which was, I think, about an hour and a half, which is also a lot of wood. He then brought the deck in, reconnected it to his stereo, and played the tape back at slow speed which made the tape last about three hours.

And there you have it; the method simple, but the effect immeasurable.

Creating Your Own Spooky, Atmospheric Sounds For Your Halloween Haunt or Party

I’m going to show you essentially the same thing, only using modern digital equipment and software. You’ll need three things to do this:

1. A digital recorder… don’t go out and spend thousands of dollars on a professional recorder… I’ll show you why in a minute.
2. A computer that will handle media well. Most modern computers will do what I’m going to show you, so unless you’re still using the IBM 365, you’re probably o.k. on that end.
3. You’ll need a sound manipulating program, and there are several “out there”. I’m going to recommend Sony’s Sound Forge Audio Studio because it is so powerful in what it allows you to do with the sound you import. I think it is up to version 10 by now, but I have version 9, so that’s what I’ll demonstrate.

1. Collect Your Sounds

First, you want to “collect” sounds. You’ll need a recorder of some kind. I used to just use my video camera and pull the sound off the video tape with my “Capture” program, but I knew that technology had advanced since I was in high school and dinosaurs ruled the earth. I wanted a recorder that I could plug directly into my USB port on my computer.

At first I thought I’d just buy a digital pocket voice recorder, but it turns out when shopping I found an MP3 player that not only played music but it also picked up radio stations AND had a “voice record” feature… AND, it was cheaper than the recorder dedicated just to voice recording. Having a choice between a dozen different MP3 players, I chose the RCA model 1702. When I got it home I tested it and I was impressed by the quality of sound it gave back.

Editor: I couldn’t find the model, but this RCA Mp3 recorder from Amazon is similar in features, and has great reviews

I’ve attached some sounds that I made with this recorder, and I think for the price, this little item is a winner.

Once you have a way to record that is compatible with your computer, start collecting sounds. Experiment. Try everything. I recorded not only my chain saw, but one of my roosters crowing, background noise while walking across the leaf-strewn yard, me moaning, me reciting “Mary Had a Little Lamb”, etc.

It turns out the chain saw didn’t sound like what I wanted, as I wasn’t able to get the “motor” sound out of the sound. The rooster was good, and so was walking through the leaves. But the best was me moaning, and with me reciting “Mary Had…” running second best. It also turns out that the best “moan” was not an up and down kind of moaning, like you usually hear, but a somewhat consistent moan at about the same pitch range.

I’ve attached .wav files of the unaltered sounds as well as the altered sounds for you to download and play with.

2. Download Your Sounds to Your Computer

Second, download your voice files from the recorder to your computer. I saved my sounds in My Music folder, as I did with the altered sounds from Sound Forge. From the RCA 1702 the files are labeled as “Voice001.wav”, “Voice002.wav.” etc.

I always add a tag of what each sound is. For example, the file “Voice001.wav” became “Voice001 Chain Saw.wav”. When I altered the sound, I then added the effect I used to alter it. So “Voice001 Chain Saw.wav” became “Voice001 Chain Saw Pitch Bent.wav”, and so on.

3. Open Your Sound Editing Program

Third, open “Sound Forge Audio Studio” and “Open” the file you wish to use. I chose “Voice004 Moaning.wav”.

The following is what you’ll see when the file is imported. This is the raw sound, and the blue “splotches” in the window are what is called the “waveform”. The waveform is laid out on a “timeline”. You can see the time elapsed above each part of the waveform.

This is the waveform of me moaning. It sounds hokey, and there is a lot of background noise. I want to get rid of the spaces and make the sound scarier with a lower pitch and some echoing.

First let’s get rid of the spaces between each “moan”. Do this by highlighting the area you want to eliminate, then hit “Delete” on your keyboard. I did this for every space on the waveform timeline. Here’s what it looks like when all the spaces have been removed:

Next, I want to change the pitch of the sound, to make it sound really low. I do this with a feature in Sound Forge called “Pitch Bend”. Go to “Effects” in the top tool bar and choose “Pitch Bend”:

It will give you a window where you can make changes to the pitch and then sample how it sounds before you actually apply it. You’ll see the waveform on the window and some key points with a graphic line to show how the pitch will change with time:

“Grab” each key point and drag it down to a level just above -24 on the graph. Then adjust the “Semitones” to about three fourths the way up above “Range” on the slider to the left. If you’ve highlighted any of the waveform, only that will be changed. If you don’t highlight any of the waveform, then all of the waveform will be changed.

This is what it should look like when you’ve made the changes:

Hit “OK”.

Now, push the “Play” button on the timeline and listen to the effect. Pretty cool, eh? Save this file as “Voice004 Moaning Pitch Bent.wav”. But to give it more depth, it would be nice to have a bit of an echo. Do this by choosing “Effects” in the top tool bar again but this time choose “Reverb”:

Set the sliders “Room size” to ~75 and the “Liveliness” to almost 100%, and choose the Room type as “Rich hall”, and hit “OK”. Now you should have a nice, low-pitched moan that sounds like it is coming from a dungeon or a cave. Listen to the example “Voice004 Moan Pitch Bent Reverb.wav” . Now that is a scary sound, I think.

4. Lengthen the Sound

Next you have to lengthen the time this sound plays. There are two ways to do this: One, highlight the whole waveform on the timeline and “Copy”, then place the cursor at the beginning or the end of the timeline and “Paste”. Keep doing this until you have as much time as you want, limited only by the size of CD or DVD disk you have…

or… burn this file to your CD or DVD and when in your CD or DVD player, have it “Repeat” the “song” over and over.

5. Burn to CD

Last, burn this as a “song” to your CD or DVD burner. There is a feature in Sound Forge that will do this for you: Under “Tools” in the tool bar at the top, choose “Burn track-at-once CD” and follow the menu. OR, save this as a .wav file (Sound Forge will do this automatically) and burn it to a CD or DVD using your own “Burn” program.

The cool thing about Sound Forge is that there are so many effects to play with. The professional version is even more AWESOME than Audio Studio, but a lot more expensive. It is up to version 10, now.

I have yet to download the new version, but from what I’ve read, it’s way above and beyond version 9 in respect to use of files with video, the Web, and also with publishing. I recommend experimenting (playing) with as many effects and processes as you can.

If you mess up, just “Undo…” in the Edit menu in the tool bar. I took my “Mary Had a Little Lamb” sound bite and “Reversed” it (you’ll find “Reverse” under “Process” in the tool bar). The result was me reciting “Mary Had…” backwards, which is a bit creepy. Even better, I then took that and did “Pitch bend” on it followed by a “Reverb” and got a really creepy recitation of “Mary Had…”. Brrr-r-r-r. Chills down my spine! And I’ve only touched the surface…

Happy Haunting!

It’s scary. It’s terrifying. It’s blood-curdling. It’s…a week before your big Halloween bash and you don’t have a single decoration yet!

Never fear: help is here, and in a hurry. Here’s how to haunt your own front yard or indoor party area with these chillingly good graveyard scene ideas.

Terrifying Tombstones

Naturally, the first thing you’ll want to grab a hold of is a set of eerie cemetery tombstones. Don’t worry if these don’t all match; different sizes and textures add to the spooky effect and will make your grave scene more believable.

If you’re pressed for time, buy premade foam tombstones; three to four are sufficient for a small to medium-size front yard, and two to three will work for an indoor scene. Plus, the ones you can buy today are not your cheap plastic decor – they look quite realistic and sophisticated! Check out a huge variety of tombstones, fences, and other graveyard props from Buycostumes.com.

You can also make your own gravestones in a flash with our Ten Minute Tombstone tutorial.

Finish off your stones by adding some realistic moss around the tops; glue the moss on if your display will be outdoors and exposed to the weather. Another handful or two at the base of each stone delivers a realistic look that’s even creepier after dark!

They Come Out at Night

Since all the best cemeteries are haunted, create a few creatures to set the scene.

Use an old Halloween monster or ghost mask, metal coat hangers and a torn sheet to make a ghost or mummy in minutes. To do this, tie some of the sheet (the more torn the better) around the mask and stuff the inside with paper or rags to fill out the “head”. Then carefully unwind the hangers (careful—the metal can be sharp) and twist enough together to make a lawn stake that’s one to two feet higher than one of your tombstones. Insert the metal inside the “neck” of your creature and stake it behind the tombstone. For added effect, insert wires crosswise in the fabric for “arms” and fold them in front of the stone.

As a speedy alternative, you may wish to buy inexpensive “ground breakers” for this purpose and reuse them year after year.

A Little Atmosphere

Create finishing touches with novelty spiders, bugs or poseable skeletons. If you have an old Halloween skeleton prop that’s missing a rib or two, it will be all the more perfect for your “neglected cemetery” scene. Set up the pieces in front of one of your stones or scatter bones all around the cemetery. Realiastic props can also be found here.

Hardcore haunters like to add lighting, fogger machines and/or strobe lights with sounds (to mimic thunder and lightning).

Add novelty bugs or birds, old cloth and other scraps to your graveyard and you’ll have a haunt fit for any Haunted House. Happy Halloween!

There’s no way around it: Fog machines are cool. I usually don’t like expensive fancy schmancy stuff to make my Halloweens creepy. But when fog machines came on the scene, and did so inexpensively, I had to get one! I waited until they were about $35, which would have been about ten to twelve years ago. Now you can get one for about $25.

The nice thing about fog machines is it doesn’t take much to create a creepy, scary scene. In fact, it allows cheapskates like me to fine tune cheap. What makes something scary is not what you see, it’s what you barely see, or see just in a flash, or maybe don’t see at all but you think it’s there. Fog hides things so that you don’t see things clearly, or enhances light so that it gives objects a mysterious depth, like extending it out into the space around it, and hence makes it perfect for a good haunt.

Getting the Most Out of Your Fog Machine – Setting Up the Scene

But how to get the most out of the effect a fog can create? I’ve been making up stories from when I was about 14 years old, and from that background I realized to make a Halloween spooky, you needed more that effects… you needed a story. The effects were there to enhance the story. Fog is simply a tool to make your Halloween story come to “life” (Hm, maybe a story about zombies).

Let me repeat myself: FOG IS A TOOL that is used to enhance a story.

It is not the story itself. And that’s where most folks make their mistakes when trying to out-do their neighbors. It’s like a movie with a lot of special effects, but if there is no story, you walk away from the movie feeling a little empty, like “What did I miss here?” kind of feeling.

The first step in using a tool is to learn how it can help you achieve your means. That means EXPERIMENTS! (Lightning flashes, thunder rolls, horses whiney – Igor, fetch me my lab coat!)

Fog and Light

Not all fog effects are scary. Sometimes they’re just plain cool, like at a concert where they shoot laser light through a fog to give a futuristic look. If you want scary, then experiment with your tools to get the effects you want. Try to keep in mind that everything happens for a reason: Light comes from somewhere and different light has a different emotional effect.

Fog is the same way. It takes you from a normal place and puts you where it’s mysterious, even scary. Think about where you’d find fog: In a hollow or on a dark night when the weather is changing. Fogs are common in the Fall. Use that to your advantage. What if your “scene” took place in a “field” where the corn harvest was done, and stalks are stacked about? Fog belongs in such a place. But fog is just at home in, well, your home. Homes can have fog when there are ghosties around. Right?

Think about this: If you’re driving at night in a real fog, it’s tough because the light coming from your headlights is being reflected back at you. It makes a blank screen in front of you, and you can’t see beyond it. That in itself is not scary, but not being able to see beyond ten feet in front of your car and you’re going kind of fast can be scary. Anything could be moving around out beyond your lights. What if a deer jumps out? You’d not see it until too late… the effect is… drum roll please… startling… which is a form of scary.

Like I’ve said, sometimes it’s not what you see that is scary, it’s what you don’t see, or only see in a flash. Your imagination is put into “hi-gear” when it has to deal with imagined dangers.

Try a simple experiment with your fog machine: Get a small flashlight, and darken the room with your fog machine set up. Fog up the room and “play” with the flashlight. Cool, eh? The light is being bounced off the tiny smoke particles and you can see the light beam.

That little effect is powerful stuff because it’s just so cool. Now let someone else play with the light while you watch. Experiment with all kinds of lights and shadows. Here are a couple of photos from when I played with my flashlight in the fog:

There’s nothing really scary about the light, but you can see how light behaves. Every ray from the flashlight is seen, and the effect is, at the very least, mysterious.

Fog and Color

Color makes a difference, too. I know the neon-green-LED headlight advocates will disagree with me, and they have done so, too, but the best light to penetrate fog is yellow. Anyone want to guess why school buses are painted yellow? Because it’s mid-spectrum and your eyes see yellow far better than any other color. Have you ever driven down an isolated street in a fog when the golden hew sodium street lights are on? And have you ever seen blue safety reflectors on construction workers?

So what does this mean when you are building your Halloween scene? Based on what I said above, do I want a color that is not seen easily? Well, yes and no…

Look at these photos of a fake pumkin:

First image is with no fog … then fog…

Here’s with no backlight and a little extra fog:

If I was using this pumpkin as a prop in my Halloween scene, I would have decided on just the light from the pumpkin. The orange light is much more powerful than the purple backlight, and the pumpkin looks like it is almost floating. I’ve seen this a thousand times over the years, and it still feels scary to me.

So, in this case, “yellow” light (well, orange, close enough) is best. I want the pumpkin to be seen, but nothing else.

Fog and Monster Props

You wouldn’t want to use natural light for monsters or live characters. The whole idea is for them to look fuzzy, mysterious, slightly unrecognizable … scary. A live character might have a hard time emitting light from his eyes (well, alright, there was Mrs. Crombie in second grade…). So how to light that scene with fog?

Easy schmeezy: Backlight.

Let me repeat myself again…. BACKLIGHT.

Here are some photos of a simple “zombie” scene. I’ve used a simple shop light with some blue gel over it (see my previous article on lighting to learn about gels), and pointed it at the back of the “bad guy”. Again, I’m experimenting here. Note that all the character is doing is standing there:

And here’s the exact same scene with natural, yellowish-orange light. Not as dramatic and scary now!

This is a case where the blue light, which is not as easily seen, is better than plain light, which is closer to yellow, the kind of light your eye can see the best. The blue light didn’t let me see as many details, and therefore fell into the rule of “What you can barely see is scary”.

I learned a lot from my simple experiments above. So, let me give you the three rules of learning: EXPERIMENT, EXPERIMENT, EXPERIMENT. Then write down a simple story, and keep in mind you want to use fog to enhance the story (professional screenplay writers often will write a whole script around a very simple gimmick or concept, or perhaps they have a favorite actor and they write the play for them), and then create the story for real in your living room, back yard, or where ever.

Other Foggy Tips

Other things you can do with fog machines:

Controlling Where the Fog Goes

Get a long dryer vent and you can operate the machine in one room and put the fog in another. The vent allows you to put the fog up high, or down low… in other words, more control of your tool for telling a story, and you can hide the fog machine where no one can see it. This also allows you to have the fog come out of places where you wouldn’t expect it, like from inside a piano, or a coffin.

Misty Fog on the Ground

Another effect that is cool is not a fog, but a mist that hangs low to the ground. Here’s how: Get a large diameter tube, like a four or six inch dryer vent or PVC pipe, and a small diameter pipe, like a 2 inch PVC pipe, and put one inside the other. Have the tube and pipe at least four feet long. Six feet is better.

Cover one end with duct tape, but cut out a hole for the small diameter pipe. Put the tube on end and fill the area around the small pipe with ice. Then cover that end with duct tape, cut an opening for the smaller pipe, and put it up to the nozzle of the fog machine.

Viola, the fog cools as it travels down the pipe, and since it has less heat in it to rise, it holds close to the ground or floor! Warning, keep a towel under this little baby. Messy’s the word here.

Rosco makes a cooler for their fog machines that hook up to the nozzle and the fog runs into a pipe inside what looks like an ice chest, full of ice of course. Check out the Mister Kool Low-Lying Fog Machine. This machine is dedicated to making low laying mists and is self contained, and you don’t need to go out and buy a fog machine AND a cooler. Both companies sell a special fog juice formula for cooled, low-laying fog.

When it comes to fog machines, the sky is the limit. Or, well, your haunt is the limit. The best tool you have for using fog machines is your brain. Go forth, then, and scare!

You can never have enough bodies when haunting a porch, yard, or house! Every time I haunt the house for a kid’s party or even for our adult parties, I like to have ghostly bodies placed around my rooms in chairs or at the piano. But, sadly, real bodies stink after a bit, and fake bodies cost a lot to make. And then there’s the storage issue after Halloween.

What else could I do but come up with a new way to fill my needs without the stench of death or spending big bucks? Here are a few ideas that might help you, too. Got ten minutes? You’ve got bodies!

Supplies for a Piano Ghost:

• Wig head

• Wire tomato cage
• Duct tape
• Gauzy white sheer curtain or several yards of white sheer material
• 21 gage wire for the arms

Step One:

Set the tomato cage on the piano bench and secure it with some weights wrapped in black plastic and set on the edges of the cage. Pull the three wire legs together and wrap with duct tape and pop on the wig head. You may have to play with it to get it to stay since each head is different.

Take the roll of heavy gage wire and measure from one side of the keyboard, around the cage, and to the other side of the keyboard for the arms and hands. Cut the wire and either tape it in place with duct tape or with thin florist wire. Now drape your sheer curtain or material over the head and over the tips of the wire for its hands.

Step Two:

There is no step two! Told you it was fast.

Ghost Number Two:

• White flat sheet
• Wig head
• Wooden dowel
• Rocker or other high-backed wooden chair
• Pants
• Boots or shoes
• Newspapers
• White gloves stuffed with white paper or tissue
• Florist wire

Step One and Only

Get the wig head and insert the dowel into the head. Wire the dowel to one of the rungs of the chair. Make sure the head sticks up above the back of the chair so that it’ll make your guests wonder if it’s a dummy or a real person.

Now attach the stuffed gloves to the arm of the chair so that it looks natural. Stuff the pair of pants with newspapers until the legs are firm but bendable. Set the pants into the chair, attach some florist wire through the belt loops on both sides of the pants, and wire them onto a rung of the chair.

Now add the shoes or boots and be sure to place the shoes like someone would if they actually sat there. Cover the whole thing with the white sheet but make sure that only part of the legs/shoes and their hands show as you drape the whole chair with the sheet. Done!

Some of my best props, and sometime scares, are when I toss some last-minute things together. Try these two easy ghostly visitors and watch how your guests will react. Happy Halloween!

…… or “May I make my own Fog Juice, Mommy?”

Like a lot of things (like me) fog machines have been around for a while. Originally they were designed to control insect populations by “fogging” an area with oil. It was a simple machine: pump oil into a heated metal chamber where the oil was vaporized, then the pressurized vapor exited out of a small opening. As it hit the cooler air outside, it condensed into tiny droplets; hence fog. Oil fog.

Of course, it didn’t take long for stage and screen to pick up on the fogger to create fogs and mist for plays and movies. But the oil was at best a messy inconvenience, and at worst a health hazard. Can you say “exogenous lipoid pneumonia”? (No? Never mind.)

Water-based Fog Juice – Glycerin

However, in the late 1970’s, someone figured out that you didn’t have to use oil – a water-based material having similar properties as oil but safe for all (and furniture) could be used instead. The machine was similar (check out Rosco’s web site for a really good article on how fog machines work) but required better control for the heating chamber, since the material would form some pretty nasty compounds if over-heated.

The first stuff to be used for this purpose was a common material called “glycerin” or “glycerol” dissolved in water. The mixture was usually about twenty to thirty percent glycerin.

The nice thing about glycerin being used in a fog machine was that it occurs naturally in the body. The body uses glycerin to “tie up” fat molecules so they can be stored for future use. (Some of us have a lot of glycerin in our bodies, thank you very much fast food restaurants!) It is also water soluble, so if you breath it, it doesn’t accumulate in your lungs. It even has a sweet smell and flavor to it. That’s because it is, technically, a carbohydrate, or sugar. Not table sugar, but a sugar none the less. In fact, it has about 60% the sweetness of table sugar.

And get this: You can run down to the local drugstore and buy it off the shelf. Just don’t look for it in the dietary section … it is a thick, viscous liquid, like oil, and it typically is used as a lubricant… yeah, you got it, look for it in the “enema” section!

Drawback of Glycerin as Fog Juice

O-o-o-o-h, but you just knew there was a drawback, didn’t you? This is the one reason fog machine manufacturers don’t use glycerin anymore: because glycerin is a carbohydrate, little beasties like bacteria and mold will eat it and thrive. If you use it in your fog machine, then small amounts of glycerin will eventually deposit on everything in the area where the fog machine is used.

If you use it in your home, you could very well be feeding the mold and microscopic animals that you try to get rid of (some of you may have heard of this ritual – it’s called “cleaning” your house).

Yuck. So, back to the drawing board. What to do? Solution: Use a substitute that has similar properties as glycerin, but little critters won’t eat it.

Artificial Fog Juice

It turns out that there are a couple of other compounds out there that have similar properties as glycerin, but aren’t natural products that feed bacteria and mold. Interestingly, they are put into a class of compounds called “glycol”, but don’t be fooled by their name. They are, in fact, alcohols or alcohol ethers that are not only non-toxic to breathe (but don’t drink the stuff, please) and not harmful to furniture, but they can also be mixed in such a variety of ways that you can even control the amount of time the fog “hangs” around.

The companies that make fog machines prefer to sell their own proprietary “fog juice” made from these compounds. They do this not just to keep a corner on the market, but for safety as well. Their machines are designed to work optimally with a particular fog juice mix. The drawback to these compounds is if they are over-heated in the absence of water, they will make some pretty toxic stuff. Therefore, only use the fog juice as directed.

So, Can I Make Fog Juice?

Ok. Back to the question: May I make my own fog juice? Answer: A hesitant yes. However, I don’t recommend it – and if you do make it, bear in mind that you make it at your own risk.

Keeping in mind the manufacturers of the fog machines will disown you if you do, here’s how to make the ol’ tried and true glycerin mix – Simply mix 2 parts glycerin with 8 parts water. For a heavier fog, mix 3 parts glycerin to 7 parts water.

DON’T use a mixture greater than 30% glycerin. Also, use distilled water, not tap water. Tap water will eventually ruin your fog machine.

And finally, if you use it indoor, get out the Mr. Clean. Else, you will suddenly be very popular with mold.

Happy Haunting!