PORTLAND, Maine — Spooky season is here and if you’re looking for decoration ideas, Rich Brooks from Flyte New Media has you covered. He picked out some of his favorites from audio recordings to video projections.
With Halloween right around the corner, we decided to talk to our tech guru about how technology could make this Halloween spookier than ever.
What technological terrors do you have for us this year?
I really wanted to focus on how tech could help set the mood when trick-or-treaters come to call. In years past I've shown scary movies projected on a sheet on our front window, but there's always an ebb and flow to the horror, so I went looking for something with a more consistent spooky vibe.
What I found were downloadable videos that consistently show ghosts, goblins, witches, zombies, or whatever ghouls you want to haunt your house. You can display these right on your window. These are downloadable digital files, and you'll still need a projector to make it work.
There are plenty of options out there, but I found a good collection of ones at AtmosFX.com.
What else can we do to set the mood?
Decorations are critically important, and obviously, you can find plenty at local party stores. But if you can't find the exact horror-themed candy dish or spooky decoration, what can you do? Well, a lot of people are turning to 3D printers to create just the creepy vibe that's in their head.
Now, if you do have access to a 3D printer, you don't need to start from scratch. I found a number of sites with downloadable instructions so you can quickly create your own, or use it as a jumping-off point for your own creativity. Printables and Thingiverse are just two websites with plenty of downloadable files you can use.
When I think of Halloween, I often think of great playlists or spooky sound effects. Can technology help us there?
I feel the same, so I went looking for an AI tool that can generate text-to-audio. In other words, if I say I want a werewolf howling or distant screams, it should be able to create it. Unfortunately, the only AI tools that offered sound effects as an output weren't so great; I couldn't recognize the sounds it was making, so that was a bust.
So, I turned to streaming music services like Spotify and Apple Music, both of which offer creepy Halloween sound effects as well as pre-made Halloween-themed playlists. Unfortunately, most of the playlists are songs you've heard on every Halloween playlist ever, so I turned to ChatGPT and asked it for a playlist that was more deep cuts, staying away from overplayed songs like Monster Mash, and got a great collection of music to play.
See, that's something new: turning to AI to help set the mood. Any other ways you used AI in your Halloween prep?
Absolutely! I turned to image-generation tool Midjourney to generate some spooky images.
First, in case you have some young children and you're looking for activities to keep them busy before trick or treating starts, you can use a prompt like "Halloween coloring book for kids, black and white, no shading..."
For people who like their Halloween more festive than spooky, you can create cutouts like this: "happy pumpkins on a white background."
Or, if you want to create a spooky setting with a Maine flavor that you can either cut out and use for a decoration or use with a projector against your window, you can create images like this with prompts like "creepy night in Maine set by the coast with a lighthouse."
I also generated some creative, Halloween-themed snack ideas through Chat-GPT. However, since AI doesn't have any taste buds, it might be a good idea to give these a trial run before serving them at your party.
Great ideas... any other suggestions for making your Haunted House the talk of the neighborhood?
Well, you could make it next level like this homeowner in California who used an army of drones and LED lights to create an unbelievable Halloween light show.