Alien Invasion layout for a Sloped or Terraced

Photorealistic evening photograph of a two-story house set above a terraced front yard with stone retaining walls house on a sloped or terraced, 55 ft of street frontage with a 30 ft front setback, photographed from the public sidewalk at the bottom of the slope looking up the terraced front yard and its steps toward the house above, camera height 5.5 ft. The yard is decorated in a alien invasion theme. Something landed on the lawn and it is still here. A saucer low over the grass, a beam of green light, and small gray visitors standing very still in places they should not be. Decorations, in position: 1. The star: a lit green inflatable alien sitting cross-legged with a huge head and black almond eyes, glowing from inside, 5.1 ft tall. Top terrace, beside the walk. Being uphill already adds apparent height, so you can go a size smaller than you would on flat ground and still have it tower over the sidewalk. This one works just as well mirrored to the other side of the walk, so if a tree, a slope or the way you come and go says the far side is better, swap it and swap its partner with it. What matters is that it is beside the path and not standing in it. 2. Sidekick, left: a small green alien peering out from behind a tree trunk, only its head and hands showing, 1.2 ft tall. This one hangs rather than stands, so it wants a tree trunk, a post or a fence at about head height. It also does not light up, so put one of the green spotlights at the foot of whatever it is peering round. Unlit it disappears completely after dark, which rather defeats it. 3. Sidekick, right: a tall narrow metal warning sign reading Proceed At Your Own Risk with an alien on it, fixed to a porch post at head height, 1 ft tall. This one is not a lawn object, so do not put it on the lawn. Two zip ties onto a garden stake, a fence picket or the mailbox post, at about chest height, right where the walk meets the sidewalk. Face it up the walk rather than at the road: a warning works on the person deciding whether to come closer, and every visitor passes within a foot of that spot. Eight by twelve inches reads at three feet and at no distance beyond that, which is the whole reason it goes there and nowhere else. 4. The step lights: 2 of them, a line of short stakes throwing sickly green light up the edges of a path, the color of something radioactive rather than something growing, 1.3 ft tall. Both sides of the steps all the way up, then along the top of each retaining wall. Lighting the wall edges is what makes the tiers visible after dark, and it also stops guests from walking off one. 5. Roofline and porch: 2 of them, a run of tiny blue-white bulbs following a roofline, cold and bright against the dark like frost catching a streetlight, 0.2 ft tall. Gutter line and porch. Remember the house already sits above eye level, so the roofline is further up than the ladder you used last year. 6. The bottom tier: a wide flattened ring in a lawn at night, the grass laid over in one direction so it catches a low green light from the side, 0 ft tall. Put it where the plan marks the secondary scene, but treat that marker as the center of the ring rather than the footprint: it is twelve feet across and wants clear grass all round. Keep it off the walk and away from the flower beds, and light it from the far side at ground level so the laid-over grass catches the light. Lit from above it disappears. This one works just as well mirrored to the other side of the walk, so if a tree, a slope or the way you come and go says the far side is better, swap it and swap its partner with it. What matters is that it is beside the path and not standing in it. 7. Under the porch roof: a small square metal road sign reading Area 51 with an alien on it, screwed flat to a door or a post, 0.7 ft tall. On the wall beside the door rather than on the floor, at eye height, straight rather than tilted. This is the cheapest plan in the theme and the porch is the one place where nine dollars can do as much work as ninety: at arm's length nobody can tell what a prop cost, and a sign that says the government has been here does more for the story than a small figure standing in the dark would. Do not light it separately. Whatever is already lighting your door is the right amount. Shot at dusk with the sky still faintly blue, every lit decoration switched on and brighter than anything else in the frame, warm light spilling onto the lawn. Palette: #7BC043, #2B2118, #8A6FBF, #D6E85A. Nothing floats; every piece sits on the ground at the stated distance. Scale reference: the front door is 80 inches tall.