| The graveyard was built with the cemetery fence that I had from
the previous year. We added lighted skulls to the back edge of
the graveyard and then stretched generous quantities of webbing on
it. The skulls were on a dimmer set at the lowest setting so
that they didn't light the entire cemetery up. We could hit
the dimmer switch and light up the entire graveyard to fix any
problems or scare off anyone tempted to climb over the fence.
We did actually have one girl jump the fence and try to make off
with one of the lighted skulls, but I don't think that she realized
that they were all connected, so when she pulled the stake out of
the ground and tried to make a run for it, she got pulled back by
the cord and almost fell back on to the fence. We saw her on
the camera and were on her heals in a matter of seconds.
I found that the large flaming cauldrons you can get around Halloween time
worked well for lighting the gravestones. They are not too bright to ruin
the scene and work well to make the gravestones visible and put the grave jumper
in shadow. I put a cauldron in front of the two largest gravestones (one
of which hid the grave jumper). When the grave jumper was activated, a
spot light illuminated the face of the grave jumper. The exhaust from the
pneumatic piston was sent through a whoopee cushion valve so that when the grave
jumper was active he razzed the kids.
There were 2 bats hung from a wire support grid that flew over the graveyard.
The wind played havoc with them most of the time though and the batteries died
within a few hours.
I had a hidden camera on the fence behind the graveyard so my friends and I
could see and hear the trick-or-treators as they came up the driveway and in
front of the graveyard. |
