Greetings Halloween Lovers! Welcome to the 3rd Issue of the Fear Crafters Newsletter! We need your input! If you would like to write and article, review, recipe, or suggest a subject for the newsletter, please Click Here to send it to us via email at info@fearcrafters.com! Just type up your article, review, recipe, or suggestion in the email along with a link (if available) to the related web site/page. Please note all images and videos are copyrighted and may not be copied or reproduced without the owners permission! This edition's features: (click on article to go directly to that section) What's New Featured Haunt - Davis Graveyard Featured Web Site -Haunt Cast Featured Product - Wolfe FX Tips and Tricks - Fog Machine Info. Recipes - Halloween Recipes from Britta Extra Goodies A new book! "How to haunt your house" By Shawn and Lynne Mitchell. Shawn and Lynne Mitchell are the creators of The Mitchell Cemetery in Pensacola, Florida, featured in the Fearnet.com 2007 series, Route 666, America's Scariest Haunted Houses and selected as a finalist for the Haunt X Awards, Best Yard Haunt 2007. The book has over 300 color photos of step-by-step projects and inspirational photos. You can even "prewiew" the book on their web site www.howtohauntyourhouse.com, take a look! Here is a dvd I stumbled upon while surfing the internet. At first I thought it was one of the "Halloween" movies you know the one with "Jason", as I read on I discovered it was a 55 minute "Shockumentary" full of photos, live shows, haunts, tour of dracula's castle in Transylvania, Dr. Shocker's House of Horror, haunted attractions, haunted hayrides, real haunted places,and more. The dvd is Hosted by Daniel Roebuck and Bob Burns with celebrities Robert Englund, Alice Cooper, Tony Todd, Angus Scrimm, Tom Savini, Christa Campbell, Doug Bradley, Don Coscarelli, John Gulager and many more! "Halloween - The Happy Haunting of America shows us a country filled with rendered corpses, killer clowns, classic monsters and blood-splattered teens jumping out from a maze’s darkened corners!" It's looks really cool. I can't wait to see it! If you get a moment check their website out for more information and reviews. Be sure to watch the trailer below! Watch the movie trailer below! Fear Crafters April 2009 meeting & Make 'n' Take! Thanks to everyone who attended our 1st Make 'n' Take! We had a great time, and everyones corpse looked great! Check out the Video from the event below! This will also be posted on the web site! The NEW April FREE online Newsletter from Home Haunt News is now available for your reading enjoyment! www.homehauntnews.com Rapidly Approaching: Hauntcon 2009 April 30th - May 4th 2009 Milwaukee, Wisconsin For more information on, registration, prices, events, tours, vendors, travel go to: www.hauntcon.com * Online registration is now available * Midwest Haunters Convention June 5th-7th 2009 Columbus, OH For more information on, registration, prices, events, tours, vendors, travel go to: www.midwesthauntersconvention.com * Online registration is now available * Davis Graveyard This haunt is owned & created by Jeff and Chris Davis in Milwaukie, OR. The Davis Graveyard is one spectacular graveyard display they create in their (large) front yard. We had the privilege of meeting them at one of the conventions, they are very nice people. They taught a couple of classes at the convention too. One on making tombstones and the other on how to create and use video projection in your haunt. You can also read info on how to do these on their web site on their projects page at, www.davisgraveyard.com They create some great tombstones, statues and other props for the graveyard. Not only do they create satic props but they also incorporate video effects. Many of the props are hand-sculpted with very realistic details. They also help out their local community by allowing the Milwaukie High School Dance team perform their “Thriller” dance routine in the graveyard to raise money for their dance team. The Davis Graveyard sells raffle tickets and extra props with 100% of the proceeds benefiting the dance team. While visiting their web site be sure to check out the "gallery" page to view pictures and videos of their haunt. Davis Graveyard Video Check out this youtube video of the Davis Graveyard featured on FearNet's Route 666 - America's Scariest Home Haunts If you haven't had the chance to check out www.hauntcast.net take a couple of minutes and take a look and a listen! Haunt Cast is a web site of podcasts for the Home Haunter and Halloween Enthusiast. The audio episodes are lead by your host Chris Baker and each one is filled with interviews, info., haunting news, top 10, spooky music, movie reviews, "theater of the mind", letters form listeners, and more. These are great to listen to while surfing the internet! Keep in mind these podcast are more for adults and not for little ones ears (some adult humor & language). Wolfe FX Professional Make Up One of the best Halloween lines of make up that you will find is Wolfe FX's Brand. They make Hydrocolor (water activated make-up available in a wide variety of colors including blacklight/neon colors and "metallix"), fx silicone, make up kits, glitter, books, and make up supplies. Hydrocolor make up - It works like watercolor paints. You use a fine tip make up or paint brush. Dip the brush into water (you just want a small amount on the brush) then lightly brush the tip across the color then apply. Of course you can use sponges to apply to a large area or your whole face too. "The highly-pigmented Hydrocolor line of professional water-activated make-up has the best coverage and the brightest blacklight colors in the industry." You can purchase the colors in seperate round containers available in 3 different sizes or you can purchase a "appetizer" which is a pallet of 6 to 12 different colors. These are great to get a starter kit of a variety of colors and they last a long time too. You can also get "refills" for the "appetizer" too as each color is in a seperate container. The Hydrocolor make up is also more resistant to smearing and holds detail and colors longer than other brands. Glitter - The glitter is available in 14 different colors including 4 Iridescent. "Great for adding extra detail" to your make up or character. FX Silicone - is a "unique medically safe silicone prosthetic material" that is used to create cuts and different facial effects. Available in red, clear, and a light tan. You can paint over it with make up to complete your "effect" you created and you can clean, reuse and reapply it. You can also cast it in almost any mold. Besides the make up they carry make up supplies, like brushes and sponges (the regular white triangle wedge sponges won't work with their make up they are for oil based make up and creams), step by step books of various levels to help you create different faces, and make up kits. They go to many of the haunt conventions where they sell products, do demonstrations, and will answer any questions you may have. Of course you can purchase their products on their web site or email them with any questions too! Fog Machine Information Ok, lately I have decided to get a new fog machine, one a bit more powerful than your local walmart or party store $20-$30 ones. Knowing I didn't want to spend a small fortune but, wanted a good product I started looking around and doing some research to find out what brands are out there, find reviews on them, find out prices, wattage (how hot the heater gets), and output (how much fog it puts out, cubic feet per minute). Most of the walmart, party store or $20-$30 foggers have a 400 watt heater and an output 1,500 cubic ft. of fog per minute. If you are using the fogger for a small, enclosed area, or for a party these are great. My experience with these is that I have had ones that will work for a couple of years, if you clean the tank and lines in them. I also have had ones that only work for a couple of hours and plug up or stop working all together. The one thing I have noticed is that these will usually "spit" or "emit" moisture from the tip where the fog comes out. I have learned that this is called "wet fog" and it means that your fog machine is not heating up enough (low watt machine heater is not capable of reaching a higher temperature) to make all the fog fluid turn into "fog". Which means the excess fog fluid in the line that did not turn into fog still comes out of the front tip in liquid form spitting and/or spraying onto the surface in front of your fog machine. So, if you have ever have noticed one of your fog machine doing this or making the area "wet" now you know why! The next step up is a 700 watt fog machine. These range in price from about $30-$60 and have an output of 3,500 cu.ft per minute. Another step above that is an 1000 watt fog machine. These range in price from $60-$80 (depending on brand-I have seen some for as much as $699.00) with an output range from 3,500 to 5,000 cu. ft. per minute. If you have a "commercial" haunt that is open longer than a week you probably will go a step higher yet to a 1200 watt fog machine or greater. These range in price from $150-$600+ with an output range from 7,000 to 20,000 cubic feet per minute. I decided to go with a 1000 watt fog machine for the following reasons. It has a lot more heating power than the 400 watt ones, so I can have one "good" fogger and more fog volume coming out compared to 2 or 3 hopefully working 400 watt ones. And, I won't have to worry about having "wet" fog anymore. As I was doing my research I knew "chauvet" was a good brand with a great reputation for their products so, I started searching for the chauvet brand 1000 watt fog machines (Chauvet F-1050 Hurricane to be exact). BUT..... after reading some "reviews" from various people on the internet I decided NOT to get the chauvet! Most of the reviews I found on this particular item were bad. Ranging from comments of the product not working at all after they just recieved it, only working for a few hours before the pump went out, and more. Here are a couple of qoutes from actual reviews: "The fogger arrived with a burned out pump. Chauvet was easy to work with to have it shipped back, repaired, and returned to me. I used it 4 times and it worked great...until the pump burned out again., "The specs say there's an auto-shut off when the liquid gets low. I specifically wanted this because I ruined another fogger by accidentally letting it run dry. The auto shut off DOES NOT WORK. Be prepared to monitor the machine very closely. It uses fluid faster since it kicks out more fog, so it may run out before you expect.". Now I know there are some good reviews as well on this product but after reading the amount of bad ones I found I decided not to choose this one. After reading different Halloween articles on the internet and especially after reading www.gotfog.com 's article "FOG MACHINE BUYING GUIDE" I decided to get the "Eliminator EF-1000". I couldn't find any negative reviews on this item and I found it for sale on many haunt sites. The best deal I found for the Eliminator EF-1000 is at www.eliminatorlightingdirect.com (they are an authorized dealer) on sale for $59.99, I'm not sure how long they will be on sale! They also have great deals on other dj lighting & effect equiptment in different brands as well. If you decide to purchase a new fog machine in the near future or even a few years down the road please don't take this article as a "you have to purchase this one because it is the best". I simply wanted to share the results of my research in hopes it would help and encourage anyone deciding to make a fog machine purchase to spend a little time and do some searching to find out what products are avaiable and at what prices. This will help in making sure you are getting the item for the specific needs of your haunt or party! Halloween Recipes from Britta, Webmistress of the Dark! Extra Goodies! Still hungry for more? Here are a few extra goodies for your hunger! Halloween-Online.com - Tons of stuff for and about Halloween. HauntedHouse.com - Lots of links to all kinds of cool Haunt sites, haunted attractions, home haunts, products and information. HomeHauntClub.com - A NEW online club for home haunters from all over. It is getting ready to launch and you can learn what it is going to be all about and what benefits they will offer on their web site.