Halloween 2010 Videos

[CLD Kevin]

Hello All….

Here are my 2010 Halloween Videos. Because of the unfortunate situation with my PC/files, I had to redo all of the songs. I still had my 2008 files (not much mouth sync that year) and a few partial songs from 2009 which help so I didn’t have to redo from complete scratch. I worked on them every chance I got and recently took several weeks off work and locked myself in a room to complete the sequences. I up the channels from 112 to 140 and added floods, firesticks, and outlined my house.

I will post more videos tomorrow....need to re-shoot a couple of songs. I messed up a few songs and had one of my floods and icicles assign the same channel...oops! Every time the flood triggered the icicle would turn on…and vise-versa. It was obvious. 140 channels is hard to track.

Kevin



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[ainsworth]

very nice! I feel your pain even though I only have 80 channels this year.

What brand/model camera do you use? I need a new one, and I have no idea what to get. Your videos are excellent.

Bruce

[Wess Hoskins]

WELCOME BACK PROFESSOR!!!! You r the man that is simply amazing, "the cracker effect" hands down!!!!

[boborino]

As always Kevin.. Great work!! Hey.. what did you outline your house in? I can't tell if that is ropelight or something else.

[CLD Kevin]

Here some more of "the cracker effect" that I shot tonight. I changed the crossed channels and also noticed not all my floods on the lawn were firing. Kinda bright after I fix those...need shades :cool:



This is Halloween - Marilyn Manson

ainsworth...camera is Canon Vixia HF11. Nice little HD camera.

boborino...yes orange, red & blue rope light outlined the house and garage doors.

[Thejones]

Great Job, mouth movement is dead on! it also looks like you have inspired a ton of people to follow in your footsteps.











Mike Jones

http://www.TheJonesChristams.com

http://www.youtube.com/user/micahmykala?feature=mhum

[CLD Kevin]

Here is another....



Thriller

[ainsworth]

What great work! Looks very good.

Thanks for camera info.

[Amazingmg]

That rocks!

I have channel envy.

[boborino]

Kevin,

Can you give a short tutorial on your approach to your sequencing? I've read your past posts on face positions etc, but the rest of your lights are sequenced perfectly. When I was doing thriller, I tried using the Tapper tool. I'm a drummer and am generally pretty good at keeping a beat. But the results are less than spectacular. It always appears to be like .10 to .20 after the actual audio. My wife said "Oh nobody notices it"..but she's wrong.. I notice! It's like watching a show in HD with the sound .3 off. Are you using any of the chase features or other tools within LOR? Even the wave form seems to be skewed and isn't accurate enough to determine beats. In general I start my sequences with tenth second timing inrements.

I have a friend down the street that's way into this as well and he is monkeying around with trying to convert MP3's into MIDI and use the MIDI tool for the sequenceing then put the MP3 back into the sequence for the final performance, but I haven't found that to work very well. Most of the MP3 to MIDI conversions seem to just be junk.

Anyway.. great work!

[huskernut]

Hi Kevin,

Another question, the floods pointed out are a great effect, what kind are they?

Rick

[Rwebb1]

I enjoyed the light show and your music i was thinking maybe Rob Zombie but Marilyn Manson was fitting Bravo.:]

[CLD Kevin]

boborino wrote:

Kevin,

Can you give a short tutorial on your approach to your sequencing? I've read your past posts on face positions etc, but the rest of your lights are sequenced perfectly. When I was doing thriller, I tried using the Tapper tool. I'm a drummer and am generally pretty good at keeping a beat. But the results are less than spectacular. It always appears to be like .10 to .20 after the actual audio. My wife said "Oh nobody notices it"..but she's wrong.. I notice! It's like watching a show in HD with the sound .3 off. Are you using any of the chase features or other tools within LOR? Even the wave form seems to be skewed and isn't accurate enough to determine beats. In general I start my sequences with tenth second timing inrements.

I have a friend down the street that's way into this as well and he is monkeying around with trying to convert MP3's into MIDI and use the MIDI tool for the sequenceing then put the MP3 back into the sequence for the final performance, but I haven't found that to work very well. Most of the MP3 to MIDI conversions seem to just be junk.

Anyway.. great work!

I don’t use any of the LOR features….except for only 4 items

.05 sec cells

Wave form

1/4 speed

And lots on patients



I first make a beat channel (nothing assign to it). Then fill in 2 cells for the beat by watching the wave form and listening at 1/4 or 1/2 speed. The beats are usually the exact same for the duration of the song. So if there is a beat every 15 cells, make a few, then cut and paste the rest of the way. Most of the times you will need to add that 16^th cell about every 4 to 5 seconds on the song. Adjust accordingly. Having your beat correct is important so spend some time on it.



I’ve been asked several times about the floods. Just standard 100W white floods from Lowes or HD. I have 8 up top…2 at each location and 4 on the lawn. I rather use LED White floods, but wasn’t sure how bright they would be?

The color floods for the house are 4 each of the 72 LED orange, red & blue from Minionweb. The orange isn’t that great so you would have to double up to get it better color wash. Next year I’m thinking I want to use the rainbow floods if the design adds more red LED’s.

[CLD Kevin]

I had a long conversation with my wife yesterday. This year may (just may) be the last for this type of show. It’s not the syncing of the faces….its the time I spend putting it up. It takes me several weeks and I’m so burned out by the time Halloween is over…I have to take it all down. It’s the second story that is the problem. I’m not saying I will stop completely…just tone it down.

I really like jcraigcx show with the FCG. Maybe I’ll go that route and get back to the scariness of Halloween....and have everything down low. NO MORE LADDERS!

[boborino]

I know exactly how you feel! Second story houses are great to show things off, but a PITA to hang from. My house doesn't have gutters across the front, so nothing really to hang from. Every year I've hung icicles from the shingles, they get blown down. I paid the neighbor kids $50 to hang them because I 'don't do heights!'. I've seen some great hanging systems that use tracks, but that just may be getting a bit outside the budget. So far this halloween it took weeks because I had to build the faces for the first time. I'm hoping less time next year, but then again.. light trees, LED floods.. *sigh*.

Most of my christmas stuff is down low. Arches, multicolor minitrees, blowups etc.. but it sure looks barren up high.

You should be able to leave your ropelight outline on the house shoudn't you? Just encorporate it into Christmas, Easter, valentines day, aurbor day.... heheh.

[CLD Kevin]

Nothing to do today....so I sequenced a short song. No faces/singing. Took me about 2 1/2 hrs to make. Once I got the beat down...it went fairly quick. There are a few things I will change after seeing the video, but overall happy.

[johnm160]

awesome work,



wow that was 140 channels???

[Richard Waite]

Howdy All, I'm not even close to the quality of Mr. Cracker but here is our 2010 Halloween show. Hope to improve for next year.

Mr Cracker is the King!

[R Weiland]

Kevin;

Nice show!

First, you set the bar.

Now you raised the bar, Always a step ahead.

Great Work!!!

[evandewindt]

Cracker wrote:

Hello All….

Here are my 2010 Halloween Videos. Because of the unfortunate situation with my PC/files, I had to redo all of the songs. I still had my 2008 files (not much mouth sync that year) and a few partial songs from 2009 which help so I didn’t have to redo from complete scratch. I worked on them every chance I got and recently took several weeks off work and locked myself in a room to complete the sequences. I up the channels from 112 to 140 and added floods, firesticks, and outlined my house.

I will post more videos tomorrow....need to re-shoot a couple of songs. I messed up a few songs and had one of my floods and icicles assign the same channel...oops! Every time the flood triggered the icicle would turn on…and vise-versa. It was obvious. 140 channels is hard to track.

Kevin



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Kevin, thats amazing! where do you live in riverside? i gotta check your display out! I got a lot of inspiration from your 2009 videos for my first halloween display this year. I live in Lake Elsinore, hopefully not to far from ya...

Evan