A 'maze' HH building method

[Beepem]

hi, on the halloweenforums, someone called madmax told me he constructed his maze like this:
If you have trees, the corner of your home and one or two post in your yard you can do the maze without PVC or wood. It'll be cheaper and actually hold up a lot better.

You take picture hanging wire (Lowe's 200 ft around 4 dollars) and connect one end to the corner of your home. Then go around the trees and connect the other end to your home. You can get it very tight, then you just criss cross the wires to make your rooms.

Take the black plastic and drape it over the wire (it's best to leave it an inch or 2 off the ground) with a 4 inch over lap. The hot glue the seem to make a pocket. You can hot glue it in spots....it doesn't have to be a seem over all the plastic.

Take down is a snap....cut the wire and slide the plastic off and fold it up for the next year. I use to use this set up before I started building out of wood.


do you think it will work? I think im gonna try it!:jol:

[fontgeek]

Hi Beepem, yes it will work.
While it may not be the most solid of wall construction, it will work.

You may have problems if you have high winds in your area, just think of those walls as giant sails, catching all that wind.

[madmax]

Speaking of high winds and giant sails. That reminds me of the worse night and early morning of my life (Halloween HH life).

In one section I had to use metal conduit poles to hook the wire to. The night before Halloween the wind got up to about 15 mph with gust of 35mph around 3AM and stayed that way till around 4pm. At this point (3AM) I had been up for around 30 hours and was getting ready to take a 4 hour nap and get back up at 7AM.

I wasn't able to go to sleep because the plastic catching the wind was strong enough to bend the metal poles (staked 3 foot in the ground). So I stayed up fighting to keep my hard work from being destroyed. The part I did with just the wires, and plastic was ok. It was blowing the plastic like crazy but since the plastic had more give to it and wasn't connected to anything solid (like poles in the ground) it would just go back down when the wind let up.

I worried my self to death that night and morning, afraid if the wind didn't let up I was doing to have to take down that section (about 1/3 of my haunt and the end room). Well around 4pm the wind went away and the slanted walls of the bent poles actually added to the haunt. But I was dead and really didn't remember much about that night......after being up for over 2 days.

For someone as young (and short on money) as Beepem I think this would be the best choice for him.

The price of PVC has went up around 75% since last year. Plastic has also went up but not as much. In my area 1 inch PVC cost right at $3.00 for one 10 foot section. To make a maze out of PVC you would need a bunch of PVC (and fittings) probably more than 30 pieces. And if it was windy....you would still have the same problems with the wind.

I don't think he wants to even think about making it out of wood panels....I spent over $1000.00 last year on wood alone. Not counting the many 2x4s and pieces of paneling I got for free (enough to make 10 4x8 panels)

[trishaanne]

I had a maze in my backyard last year for the first time. We were struck with very strong wind for an entire week before Halloween and it made setting up the maze almost impossible. I was fortunate enough to get a few pool covers that people were getting rid of on freecycle, which is what we used for the walls. And yes, it turned into a giant kite. It tore down the tents, the stakes, etc. I finally took a knife and cut slits into the plastic so that the wind could get through. At night time, in the dark, you can't see the slits AND, as an added bonus, I could stick actors behind the "walls" and they were able to reach through the slits either with their arms or stick their heads through. I'm going to do this again this year, just to save on all the added steps in case we get hit with more wind. I like the idea of using wire though. Thanks for the suggestion. It saves time trying to dig holes for the pipe and wood posts!

[Beepem]

hey im getting responses 10 days later lol

anyway cutting slits or holes sounds like a good idea. I was going to do some tall ones down to the ground incase of fire.

as for the noise I'm going to put it up on halloween. The wire will be put up saturday and sunday, graveyard on monday after school and ill take most of the big day, tuesday, out of school to place props inside the maze and construct the plastic walls.

and hey, its madmax from the forum too

thanks people

[Beepem]

yeah yeah ive made like 3 trheads about my maze. but now i have to think about content. heres all the props i have and how they will be layed out. im not sure if i have too much or too little or if this will totally be stupid.:xbones:

http://img478.imageshack.us/img478/2779/maze2pc4.png
each square is 4'x4' and in between all the rooms is like an employee area

ghost room:
2 glowing jason masks(1 for hanging, one will be an 'invisible' actor standing still until the right moment)
3cheesecloth ghosts
24" black light

skeleton room:
toepincher coffin
3ft blucky
3ft posable skeleton(looks like a thrifty)
spider webs
flashing skull
spider...id say its a 6 incher
bag of bones
a blucky or 2
flaming skull i made today

Strobe hallway:
well...a big strobe light...

Graveyard:
spider webs
graves
groundbreaker
grim reaper maybe animatronic....and his trusty scythe
fog machine min strobe combo

Pitch black hallway:
dozen GID skeletons(about id say 10" long) they dont really light anything up but they seriously glow!
screaming scream mask....motion sensor screams when you walk by.

well, outside the maze
foam entrance
bat boy
spider webs
flame torches
stuffed body
caution tape
a blucky

i know i spelled entrance wrong once on the picture:D lol

[HibLaGrande]

don't forget to dangle strings in your dark hallway. strobes before the dark hallway will make the dark hallway that much darker.

[Beepem]

i would do more strobes however my brother is epileptic and the doctors say possible photosensitive epeilepsy so im trying to cut down on strobes, however the strings idea seems so evil i have to do it

[roadkill]

Have you considered putting latex gloves for hands along the walls of your black hallway?

Also - what about making the walls of the black hallway become more narrow as the victims progress through it. I don't mean moving walls I mean they are built more narrow at the exit forcing them to sidle along coming into very close contact with the walls (and the hends).

Another thing I'd suggest for the black hallway - have a whisper track running with the stereo very carefully panned and separated.

Lastly - have one panel of your black hallway (which has "employee access" all around it) with a clear panel (plexiglass) and an actor hitting the wall timed with a strobe or bright light coupled with a very good yell/scream.

Another thing I have seen done is the paint along the walls and ceiling of a room running in angled lines. The floor actually came up but because of the lines on the walls and ceiling it actually looked like the room was shrinking from the ceiling. VERY clausterphobic feelings especially when actors joined you and were getting into your personal space asking if you "want to stay and PLAY?".

Just some ideas.

Like the layout. Can't wait to see the finished product. Hope you're taping.

[madmax]

Christmas Garland works great in a dark hall way. Especially when they enter the totally dark room after a room full of spiders. Your mind will make you think the garland is thousands of spiders hitting you in your face, on your arms and all over you.

You can get enough garland (the type made out of string not wire) to fill a long hall for a few dollars....THRIFT STORES. The 2 thrift store I check out already has boxes of it out....for .50 a bundle/roll. That's around 25 feet in each roll.

I'm using it in my 3 stage spider room/s

1. small and medium size spiders with webs every where and 2 drop down spiders.

2. a long dark hall with the garland and a sound tract

3. my spiders den will open up half way through the dark hall...with a full body moving victim in webs and a giant 3 foot spider that jumps from some crates right at you. then you exit through the other part of the dark hall way with garland hanging every where.


The narrow hall works great after a scare......people hate to be separated. Even if the others are right behind them. I love using the narrow walk ways to actually "separate" people. Right before the exit of the hall you have a hidden wall that a actor can get through. You let one person go through the exit. Then he pop out in front of the next person so they cant get by and keep them there for a few seconds. And activate a loud long screaming sound tract. The person that went through the exit will be scare something is happening to their friend. And the friend trapped will be scare because they can't see their friend.

You can have the best props money can buy but NOTHING works better than playing with peoples senses and fears.

[Beepem]

roadkill all those ideas are great, but im

A)14
b)barely getting by with cash
c)gonna be playing halloween sounds of horror loud enough to be heard everywhere

but seriously those are cool, I very well might have it be like a trapezoid like you said, getting narrower as the progress in it

madmax i think i got plenty in my closet right behind my comp here, garland, thats so evil!!!

maybe maybe like you said with seperation, i could somehow think of a way to have a divider wall in the room, that if 2 tots are walking side by side, one will be on the left and one on the right...muahaha
that'd be evern more than just being behind them

----
and good call whoever joined these 2 threads i should have thought of doing that form the start