Thread: Mysterious Moving Shards of Light!

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I am often looking for EASY and CHEAP ways to create lighting effects for a front lawn area. I like battery powered LED lights because they are small, easy to set up, and cool.

I started wondering about a SIMPLE way to get a wiggling strip of paper to move around in front of one of these, to create a projection of light that ends up on a wall (for example) as a collection of flickering, moving, waving shards of light.

I had seen some battery-powered garden stake lights at the 99 Cents Store, and bought three of them, thinking, "Oh, I can mount these inside a cardboard box so they shine out of the box and onto a wall. "

"But I'll make some thin strips of white paper, like typing paper, and tape these over the opening of the box. I'll tape them from the top of the box so they will hang down in front of the lights..."

"And the third step, simply to take a small portable fan, preferably a variable speed fan but small and easy to hide, and position it pointing at the box opening. When directed at the box opening just right, the air current from the fan will make the strips of paper move around in front of the LED light sources."

"And presto! You have Caligari-esque jagged shards of light dancing around on a wall. To make the effect cooler, paint the box black or cover with black fabric to conceal it in a dark environment, and place it somewhere where your audience will not get a good look at the workings of your effect."

I am testing this right now, and it works nicely on the first try. Costs very little to build, and was made mostly from stuff I had lying around.

The LED lamps can be gelled for color, to give you extra atmosphere!

This sounds genius - I don't suppose you can post a video of the final effect?

Thanks! Maybe some photos later...but the basic idea is...imagine a dark wall, like an outside wall of your house. Stand a few feet away and shine a flashlight at the wall. Then put your hand in front of the flashlight and wiggle your fingers around so that you see dancing light shapes. Simple and eerie, right?

The box with the paper strips and the fan simply creates that effect, but you can set it up and leave it there so it will run continuously.

This is the sort of thing that I love to see in haunts, but see so seldom: The abstract effect that stimulates the audience's ability to interpret what they are seeing. There are plenty of skulls, goblins, and zombies that can be built or bought, but being definite, they lack a sense of mystery. Moving shapes of light are purely mysterious!

Nice and low-tech and EASY... my kind of project.

A suggestion for colors: try going to an art supply and getting colored acetate sheets like this:
http://www.texasart.com/paper-boards...tate-film.html

They can be cut easily, and you can use different colors... if you cut them into thin strips, they should still move in the breeze and get the same effect with some color added, and you can even use different colors for the same light for a stained glass effect.

I really like this idea. Simple but effective atmosphere enhancement. I already have a whole slew of projects set to be made for my yard this year, but I think I'll still have to add this to the list

Thank you for sharing!

I have the perfect spot on the side of my house that this would look great. I think I remember I saw on here someone had drops of blood on thier house from a projector and always thought of ways to do this. Please post a pic when ya can and I agree Frankie's Girl gotta love easy!


found it....

http://youtu.be/fuKP1jI1gZw

Great low tech effect. I like the fact it is not easily definable like you said. It is a mysterious 'something' that will pique the audience's curiosity but they will have to fill in the blanks with something from their imagination (meantime, you could use it as a distraction to get a scare prop/actor in close to them for a big BOO!). Great idea!