Halloween 7/24/365

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Day 35- Peppers ghost redux





As promised,we revised the peppers ghost effect in zone 4 and it does seem to work! To remind our ghoul visitors, an explanation of the effect can be found here. As you recall when we tried to set this up a month or 2 ago, we were not successful because I tried to use plexiglass. There was way too much distortion. See the post from August 1. Fortunately, a similar size piece of glass was found for about $15. I used foam from an old hot tub cover (the same one I used to make the stone 'slabs' for the entrance hall) A slot was created in the foam at the top to slide the glass in. A square hole was then cut through and through. Finally a 2x2 frame was created around the foam. See the images above. The entire frame was then suspended from the ceiling and the glass height was then adjusted. I secured the back of the frame with one screw to stabilize the glass at the 45 degree angle necessary for the effect. The 'electric chair' is then illuminated with red LED which you can see in the top image. I have a small stool in the fx box area (where the actor will sit) in the second image from top. You can see in the images, the actor area which has the stool illuminated by a white light LED (second image from top again). The yellow border of the stool can be seen projected through the glass, again, angled at 45 degrees, onto the chair in the top image! An actor will APPEAR to be seated in exactly this spot although he is really sitting on the stool pictured in the second image from the top. Confusing? This is the pepper's ghost effect! Now again, once the guests get close enough to the glass, I will dim out the projected image and the actor will sneak out into the end of the zone 4 hallway to effect the scare. From here on out the rest is fairly simple and is just a matter of lighting adjustment and covering up the frame and other areas with black sheeting and/or paint.
Just remember for those trying this at home: USE GLASS, NOT PLEXIGLASS

2 comments:

  1. We're attempting to use hot tub cover foam this year, but we're told the stuff never dries out. Do you have any advice on how to use it in a haunt?

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    1. Excellent idea! I used it a few times as you have read, but I believe the best application was for stone slabs that we put inside of the crypt. I broke up the large one-piece cover into several (maybe 6-8) pieces. The thick foam painted black or grey with spray paint really does look stone-like! I put a few of these on our crush wall. Basically you could use it anywhere that calls for stone for example a crypt entry or similar. http://xtremegaragehaunting.blogspot.com/2011/08/day-87-completion-of-crush-wall.html
      As far as dryness, I didn't see any problems. The cover we used was probably not used as a cover for a very long time so there was no residual moisture.

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