麻豆视频

YORKTON — For the fourth year in a row, a Yorkton man has decorated his front yard for Halloween with a 'Stranger Things' themed display, garnering the interest of trick-or-treaters and fans of the show alike.

"Ever since Stanger Things came out...I started putting this display together," said Kurt Karcha, an enthusiast of the critically acclaimed Netflix series, adding, "the nostalgia of the show and what they put together kind of hit me the right way, so I decided to put together homemade props."

Karcha said the first prop he made was from season one of the series.

"I put together a letter board sign which is a very important piece from season one," said Karcha.

In the show, the letterboard represents a way for characters Joyce and Will Byers to be able to communicate with each other through different dimensions.

Karcha, a network administrator by trade who dabbles in programming, said the LED lights on the board are individually programmed.

"That was a project of about 35-40 hours because I had to take—and basically make—a string of lights because the programmable LEDs were not long enough – I had to cut them up, do some soldering...when that thing goes it's pretty cool," said Karcha, noting a sound clip from the show plays along with the lights.

"An Arduino runs that...a little minicomputer," said Karcha, adding "it has some programming stored in it and there's a little sound system and a flash drive that kicks in and plays the audio."

After four years, Karcha said the letterboard is still his favourite part of the entire display.

"My favourite piece is still my letterboard simply because that was my original piece," said Karcha, adding, "I had an idea and it honestly just came to life when I started monkeying around."

The scene on Karcha's front lawn, complete with flickering lamps and an old couch, is meant to depict the living room of Joyce Byers' home in the fictional Hawkens, Indiana.

"It's supposed to kind of represent a real 80's bad-looking living room," said Karcha with a laugh.

When it comes to small details of the show—flickering lamps for example—Karcha said he used smart light bulbs that can be controlled digitally.

"I have a phone that runs inside—an old Android phone—that's running a Halloween hue app for Phillips Hue Bulbs and that is what's making the flickering of the lamps," said Karcha.

"It kind of all works through a Google Home environment with Phillips Hue Bulbs and smart controllers, so at certain times certain things will go off," said Karchas, adding, "I found that with my letterboard, it was slightly getting out of sync, so I actually reset it every ten minutes to put it back into sync so it shuts off for a minute."

Karcha said that during the downtime of the letterboard another display starts up, this one from season four of the show.

"In that time that it goes off, the grandfather clock will kick in...it will chime and then play the Kate Bush 'Running Up That Hill' song," said Karcha.

Fans of the show will recognize that the song plays a major part in the plot.

When the clock is finished playing the music the letterboard comes back on.

"It just kind of switches off like that, just so there's something all the time – that was new this year," said Karcha of the grandfather clock and accompanying music and sound fx.

Another recognizable display is the 'Scoops Ahoy' sign, made famous by characters Steve Harrington and Robin Buckley.

"I got that printed and then I just rolled the decal on myself," said Karcha of the signage, adding, "that in itself took quite a while to do because I had to drill all the holes, make it perfect, do all the math to make sure the string of lights would go through it."

"I kind of made it like one of those 80's vintage signs, that was the whole idea with the lights around it," said Karcha.

"All-in-all, it's probably a 50-hour project – the setup time each year is four to five hours," said Karcha when asked how much time he thinks he's put into the project.

Karcha said that putting in the work isn't an issue, but he is running out of places to store all the components that make up the display.

"It's a lot of work—I like doing it—it's just storage and stuff like that gets kind of tough."

Now, with the next season of Stranger Things announced but no definitive date on when it will be released, Karcha said he might take some time off from the project before adding to it next year.

"I might take a year off and maybe we'll see what happens in that season to add something else," said Karcha.

Karcha said the enjoyment of others is what encourages him to continue with the display year-after-year.

"I think I just enjoy people enjoying it, that's really it," said Karcha, adding, "I think it's really cool when you can do Halloween and do homemade props and stuff rather than just buy animatronics—I mean that's great too—but I think there's more of a real feel when you can make these things and bring them to life."