We revisited the pirate theme this year, and were able to improve a lot on what we did in 2003. As usual, the best way to view the haunt is with the video. But here are some of the pics we took. We had multiple pirate animatronics including singing skeletons, sword fighting skeletons, plank walker, skeleton at the helm of a wrecked ship, and did the usual pepper's ghost effect.

The haunt starts with an animatronic Billy Bones welcoming the vistors to the haunt. Billy Bones was originally a Gemmy Zultan. A large skull with glowing red eyes hangs above the entry way. A video of when we completed Billy Bones is here:









A small scene in Tortuga with drunken pirates singing (using the Talking Through Boris).



Leaving Tortuga, you see the beginnings of the battle scene. There's a pair of animated skeletons sword fighting (FCG Mechanism), and a skeleton forcing another lubber off the end of a plank (animated with a windshield wiper motor).




A close up of the plank walker prop. More info here. For a video of how I made this prop, here's a video:






The swash buckling skeletons.




Our version of Captain Barbossa, yelling battle commands. The cannon behind him uses a lightning machine to light up the barrel with red light when a cannon blast sounds. This is the same cannon we used in 2003 to shoot smoke rings, but that wasn't working this year. More video of the animatronic here:



Pirates running into battle.




Pirates on the other side of the battle. We used our leer prop for a pirate with a spyglass watching the battle. We also used our box fan faux flames for some battle fires. A lightning machine was used here as well for red light flashing when explosions sound.













Two more Boris's make our mutineer pirates, singing pirate songs while shackled.



Next you enter the garage and see a skeleton still steering his ship, even in death. We had storm sounds and a lightning machine to flash lightning as the skeleton turns the wheel. More info on the ship wrecked captain. Also a video of the captain as we were building him.






The pepper's ghost effect is difficult to photograph. I didn't take the time this year to try to get a good picture. But here's a crummy shot from the video. It's probably best to watch the video to see the effect. Or better yet, look at our 2006 haunt, because I got better video and pics of the effect that year.



At the end of the haunt, we had a lenticular changing portrait of a pirate hung above the candy treasure.