The Davis Graveyard

My friends Jeff & Chris Davis, truly awesome haunters and two of the coolest people you'll ever meet, have their video submitted to the Home Haunters Association 2009 Halloween haunt video contest. They are currently in third place, but having one of the best haunts in the contest, if not the country, they need your support! Watch their video on YouTube (all the way through so it counts), rate it and help them get a much deserved win.

The Davis Graveyard 2009 Haunt Video

I'm fortunate enough to have hung out with Jeff and Chris and seen this haunt in person. Trust me, it truly is an incredible sight to behold. Go watch and vote!

The House thanks you for supporting outstanding haunters.

Halloween 2009 video

Just posted this year's video up on YouTube. You can watch it above or here. I also have WMV and QT versions up should anyone actually want to download it.

rose2009.wmv

rose2009.mov

My thanks to Pumpkinrot for the video inspiration and also for the recommendation of Sony Vegas Movie Studio 9. Though it was my first time really editing a video, the program is very intuitive and easy to use.

And, of course, my thanks to Rob of Skull and Bone for artisitic inspiration and without whom there'd have been a lot less to shoot.

Some of you may notice the conspicuous lack of actual video in the clip. Nearly unusable footage from an old camcorder and lack of a proper video capture on the PC were the culprits. I'm not able to acquire new hardware so soon after going just a 'smidge' over the Halloween budget (haha), so I kind of had to make due. Better equipment is definitely on the list for next year. If, at some point, I'm able to get some of the footage to a usable state, I'll edit it in, or do something seperately later.

Thanks for watching. Hope you guys like it.

PS: Thanks to the lovely and talented Shellhawk for jumping the shark and posting about this before I even had it up here. Haha! I so love her enthusiasm!

The Halloween Tree of Woe

I always hated this tree.

It's a Japanese Maple and over the past few years it's been an overgrown lump. It was just a giant weeping hulking mass of shrivelly leaves with little to no branch or trunk to be seen. In trying to make room to be able to see more of the haunt in the yard, it became obvious that we needed to trim it back. At first I was hesitant to do so figuring it wouldn't be anough to just trim it and hacking it almost all the way back would make it even more of an eyesore.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

Once we got under the canopy and took a good look underneath, I very quickly decided to lay into it. Once we trimmed up the outside, cut out all the small dead stuff and got to the knuckles, it literally became a thing of eerie beauty. All those gnarled, intertwined branches growing and twisting around and even through each other gave it a new, darker life of it's own.



I themed it as the Halloween Tree this year, but henceforth it shall be known as The Tree of Woe. The best part, though, is it's like having a built in Halloween prop in my yard all year 'round.

I love my tree.

Tribute

For Rob and Lisa... you are, ever and always, a part of the House.

My heartfelt thanks for everything.