A bright Halloween idea

<p>While some folks are getting ready to set out jack-o-lanterns and paper skeletons for Halloween decorations, best friends Chad Dunbar and Austin Allen are putting the finishing touches on a holiday display of a grander scale — a Halloween music and light show.</p><p>With 8,000 lights, all programmed to blink and twinkle to a spooky soundtrack, the home at 1623 Cabernet Court will come to life from 7 to 10 p.m. every night through Oct. 31. </p><p>“Around Sept. 2, I was out in front of my house doing yard work and thinking about Halloween coming up,” said Dunbar, a first-year college student along with Allen. “Every year, I’m in charge of the house decorating and I was trying to think about what to do. That’s when Austin called me. We were talking about it and it was like a light bulb turned on and we said, ‘Let’s do it!’ We both knew what we were talking about.”</p><p>Allen is no veteran to the concept of musical light shows. His senior project in high school involved rigging his own house with lights synchronized to Christmas music.</p><p>“I had seen a few light shows on YouTube and after looking around the Internet for a few hours, I found the company that makes the hardware and software that allows us to do this,” said Allen. “It’s not the easiest thing to do, but it is a product for consumers.”</p><p>The device, which connects to a computer, allows them to control how much power goes to the various channels for the lights, meaning they control dimming, strobe, twinkling and other light effects. </p><p>“You can do pretty much whatever you want,” said Dunbar. “We took advantage of that by putting the lights to music.”</p><p>After listening to a number of songs, Dunbar and Allen chose “Hall of the Mountain King” and “Night on Bald Mountain” by Mannheim Steamroller for the music. They’ve also added different Halloween sound effects to transition from song to song.</p><p>The next task Dunbar and Allen had was learning how to broadcast the music.</p><p>“We had to figure out how to do that one,” said Allen. “It’s totally separate from the light show. You know how they make FM transmitters for iPods for the car? What we have is a bigger version of that. It transmits about 100 yards and any stereo can tune into it at 96.3 FM. You should start hearing it as soon as you pull into the court.”</p><p>Between the planning and production, the musical light show has taken two months to put together and 30 to 40 hours of stringing up 8,000 lights.</p><p>“In addition to that, it took a lot of programming and time going back and forth checking what we did,” said Dunbar. “The two songs together, merged into one song, lasts around six minutes. Then there are the parts in between the songs, which last about four minutes.”</p><p>“Every minute of the show took three minutes to program,” added Allen.</p><p>While musical light shows on homes are not a new phenomenon, Dunbar and Allen’s Halloween production is a first in Petaluma — not counting Allen’s Christmas production.</p><p>“Austin’s house was really the first, but this is our first major production that we’re also advertising,” said Dunbar. “Our parents told us they were buying the normal amount of candy they get every year, but told us we had to go to Costco to buy more. We also warned all the neighbors that they need extra candy this year because we may have an extra load of kids.”</p><p>Dunbar said that the amount of trick-or-treaters in their neighborhood has declined over the years, so the challenge this year is to see if their show will change that.</p><p>“Every year, our court has been getting less and less trick-or-treaters,” said Dunbar. “I kept telling Austin in the beginning that if we do this, we need to come up with something other than the D Street thing. Everyone goes there. The challenge for us was to do something different This is entertainment — a show. It’s something you can come see any night between now and Halloween.”</p><p>While Dunbar and Allen have worked hard for the past few months putting the show together, they admit they had a lot of help and support along the way.</p><p>“We had a lot of friends who helped us throughout the project,” said Dunbar. “One family member helped by donating some decorations. We also want to thank the neighbors for putting up with us. They’ve said they haven’t seen anything like this before and are having a good time watching us put this together. They’re also willing to put up with the car volume we’ll have in the court for the next few weeks. We’re very happy our neighbors are letting us do this.”</p><p>In addition to light shows every night, a special live show will be held from 6:30 to 10 p.m. Oct. 31 when trick-or-treaters can listen to the show on speakers.</p><p>For more information, visit http://halloween.deejaychad.com.</p><p>(Contact Yovanna Bieberich at yovanna.bieberich@argus courier.com)</p>