I can't come up with any ways to conceal the projection when shooting onto the scrim. Does anyone have any tips or ideas I could use? Say I am setting up in my garage if I hang the scrim and shoot from in front it goes right through. Same from the sides. Down a hallway I might be able to hide it a bit better. Not using a front window so that won't work either. I was thinking of using the cursed helmsman projection somehow this year. I already purchased it and have the scrim but I can't come up with a good way to project it. I did see someone on another forum use some white board to project a female ghost from spectral illusions onto and it looked fantastic. They cut out the Projection the shape of the ghost and projected from the front. There was no bleed through or worry about hanging scrim. I can't do that either because the helmsman is swaying all over the place in the projection. The female ghost was mostly stationary. That would have been perfect though. I really like how it looked. I am stumped for now. Turning to everyone here for some creative juice now. Thanks.
I need some tips for controlling projector sight lines
Atmosphere Effects:
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I was hoping to do some sort of ghostly projection since the helmsman is the bluish type that looks like a ghost. I was hoping to do some sort of invisible scrim type projection. If I project from the back I would need the shower curtain or sheet type material. It would be very noticeable. Using my scrim from behind the projection would come right through if projected from behind. Thanks for the replies. If mounted from behind and up top I'm afraid it would still bleed through onto the ground. I just can't seem to figure out a good way to project this.
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If your projecting onto the front of a scrim and are wanting to keep it so you can't see the projection landing on anything in the background, your going to need to angle the projector in such a way that it either doesn't hit anything behind the scrim, or where it is hitting, isn't visable to the naked eye. Using the keystone feature might get the image on the scrim back to a viewable plane, but you may need to do some work in a video editing program to keystone it more. Try setting the projector to shoot onto the scrim, with any bleed through shooting up to the sky, and map out your scrim. Import that map into video software and corner pin the edges of the helmsman video to the corner of your map.
Well I appreciate all the help. Icepick thanks for the ideas. Not very good at editing in any way at all though. I'm not sure if you happened to see how spectral illusions uses the ghost bride by cutting out the shape on white foam board the projecting onto to it. You can virtually place your projection any where and it looks like it's appearing out of thin air. I wish I could do that with my helmsman but he is made in such a way that it's constantly pitching and rolling. The bride ghost doesn't move much so that's why I thing it works very well. And it looks very very good.
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Next year, I'm going to try projecting, either front or rear, onto (through) screen door material.
I anticipate having to project the "overshoot" into someplace not visible to the patrons.
I have the same helmsman projection, but didn't get a chance to incorporate it into the haunt in 2014.
I anticipate having to project the "overshoot" into someplace not visible to the patrons.
I have the same helmsman projection, but didn't get a chance to incorporate it into the haunt in 2014.
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This may be a "when you have a hammer everything looks like a nail kind of idea"*, but could this maybe be pulled off with some kind of Pepper's Ghost effect? It might work if you paint the "blue room" black and project the helmsman onto the back wall of it. It would probably have to be a strong projection, though, as it would be doubling as the light source that drives the illusion.
* I stumbled across this a few years back and I'm bound and determined to find a way to use a Pepper's Ghost effect in my own haunt.
* I stumbled across this a few years back and I'm bound and determined to find a way to use a Pepper's Ghost effect in my own haunt.
Yah I was thinking of going the peppers ghost route too. I am thinking about using my garage but not letting TOTs enter. Just watch from right at the doorway of the garage looking in. Spectral illusions does some quality work and I will probably be using a few more projections from them this year. I plan on putting a few of my projectors to use for this years haunt. It's on a weekend so need to raise the bar a bit this time.
This past halloween I did quite a bit of experimentation with projection. Used source material from both spectral illusions (Daisy and Prudence) as well as atomsfearfx (bones, jackolanterns, shades of evil and ghostly apparitions.
For Daisy - cut her general shape out of board by projecting image onto the board from approximate distance / location I planned to project from and then tracing that out. Covered the entire form in grey weathered bridal mesh, hid projector behind a tombstone with construct standing behind it to project onto. Worked perfect.
Prudence - ran nearly transparent mesh screen on fishing line at top and bottom and stretched it across our library room. With appropriate candle and chandelier lighting in the library, mesh completely disappeared and you could see our ghostly librarian 'Prudence' floating about the middle of the room. That room happens to have windows at both the front and rear of the house so people could see her from either location. Placed the projector on top one of the bookshelves and had to angle it so the bleed through fell onto a wall not visible from either window. Worked great.
Projected shades of evil onto white curtains that were already hanging in the room, simple.
In the upstairs guest window created a peppers ghost effect for ghostly apparitions. It's really challenging to figure out appropriate angles but with some trial and error - looked amazing. I ended up positioning the projector essentially hanging just above the curtain rod pointing straight down onto the floor. I used a white poster board laying on the floor to project the video onto and used a very large piece of plexiglass (purchased at orchards hardware for about $40) angled between top of window and floor at about 45 degrees. Lit the back of the room a little with standing candelabras and from the street you could clearly see ghosts floating around the middle of the room.
Also used ghostly apparitions in the graveyard - toward the back of the tombstones. Again, ran mesh strung on fishing line at bottom and top so it would keep the material fairly taught. Placed the projector at ground level shooing at a slight angle upwards so that the bleed through would predominately hit open air above the wall that outlines our front yard / graveyard. There was some image bleed onto the wall itself since I couldn't angle the projector quite as high as needed without placing the 'ghost' higher than I wanted and couldn't figure out a way to anchor the scrim that high. So for the bleed through that was visible on the wall and plants just in front of it, I used a fire and ice light and a small dim blue led flood light to wash out the area. It lit the area a little more than I would have liked but did the trick. I had tried rear projection first but couldn't hide the source projector well enough so just opted to keep the setup with front projection. Will probably rework this one a little this year.
For Daisy - cut her general shape out of board by projecting image onto the board from approximate distance / location I planned to project from and then tracing that out. Covered the entire form in grey weathered bridal mesh, hid projector behind a tombstone with construct standing behind it to project onto. Worked perfect.
Prudence - ran nearly transparent mesh screen on fishing line at top and bottom and stretched it across our library room. With appropriate candle and chandelier lighting in the library, mesh completely disappeared and you could see our ghostly librarian 'Prudence' floating about the middle of the room. That room happens to have windows at both the front and rear of the house so people could see her from either location. Placed the projector on top one of the bookshelves and had to angle it so the bleed through fell onto a wall not visible from either window. Worked great.
Projected shades of evil onto white curtains that were already hanging in the room, simple.
In the upstairs guest window created a peppers ghost effect for ghostly apparitions. It's really challenging to figure out appropriate angles but with some trial and error - looked amazing. I ended up positioning the projector essentially hanging just above the curtain rod pointing straight down onto the floor. I used a white poster board laying on the floor to project the video onto and used a very large piece of plexiglass (purchased at orchards hardware for about $40) angled between top of window and floor at about 45 degrees. Lit the back of the room a little with standing candelabras and from the street you could clearly see ghosts floating around the middle of the room.
Also used ghostly apparitions in the graveyard - toward the back of the tombstones. Again, ran mesh strung on fishing line at bottom and top so it would keep the material fairly taught. Placed the projector at ground level shooing at a slight angle upwards so that the bleed through would predominately hit open air above the wall that outlines our front yard / graveyard. There was some image bleed onto the wall itself since I couldn't angle the projector quite as high as needed without placing the 'ghost' higher than I wanted and couldn't figure out a way to anchor the scrim that high. So for the bleed through that was visible on the wall and plants just in front of it, I used a fire and ice light and a small dim blue led flood light to wash out the area. It lit the area a little more than I would have liked but did the trick. I had tried rear projection first but couldn't hide the source projector well enough so just opted to keep the setup with front projection. Will probably rework this one a little this year.
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Did anybody mention using "barn doors" around the lens of the projector, to control spill? Just like you would use on a theater spotlight. On some projectors, "black" is still pretty darned bright, and masking off the parts of your scene that you want to keep dark will be helpful.
That's a good point. I noticed when projecting the other day on some new scrim I was trying that it was a bit brighter around the image than I would like. I was thinking I may need to turn my brightness down. Gonna try this also.
As much as it pains me - no. I had shot some video of the front on a phone that went missing only a couple days later and I never had a chance to either upload the video file or time to re-shoot. I did a similar but less involved setup and have a clip (video/lighting was poor). Upper LH wlndow = Atmosfearfx ghostly apparitions projected onto scrim but I didn't have the lights on at the back of the room. Upper RH window = trick'or'treat video from same, just shot onto the white curtains in that room. You can also see the jackolantern setup I used but the setup and lighting ended up being a better done version than what is in this vid (I'll be smart enough this season to record and save a few nights):
That turned out great. I am considering a much larger projection setup this year. I now have 4 so it's going to be an interesting setup this time. I just hope I can do everything that I see in my mind. So far have a long way to go.
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The most important thing, as others have pointed out, is controlling sight lines. Decide where you want the image to appear and then try to figure out how to keep both the projector and the bleed-through out of sight.
When I had Ghostly Apparitions playing out my living room window I stretched gray chiffon across the window and projected from the floor at an upward angle. With all the lights on in the room it made a beautiful Pepper's Ghost-looking effect. I didn't let anyone get close enough to look in the window and see the projector on the floor. The bleed-through sailed off over the heads of the observers and into the night sky.
Another idea I had but didn't use - the garage had a front door and a back door that were directly across from each other. You could look through the front door and see out the back door into the yard. I was going to cover the back doorway with the scrim and hide the projector somewhere in the garage off to the left of the doorway. The projector's beam would hit the scrim, creating the appearance of a ghost in the doorway and the bleed-through would go off to the right, behind the garage where no one would see it.
Every situation is different and a lot of it will be simple trial and error.
When I had Ghostly Apparitions playing out my living room window I stretched gray chiffon across the window and projected from the floor at an upward angle. With all the lights on in the room it made a beautiful Pepper's Ghost-looking effect. I didn't let anyone get close enough to look in the window and see the projector on the floor. The bleed-through sailed off over the heads of the observers and into the night sky.
Another idea I had but didn't use - the garage had a front door and a back door that were directly across from each other. You could look through the front door and see out the back door into the yard. I was going to cover the back doorway with the scrim and hide the projector somewhere in the garage off to the left of the doorway. The projector's beam would hit the scrim, creating the appearance of a ghost in the doorway and the bleed-through would go off to the right, behind the garage where no one would see it.
Every situation is different and a lot of it will be simple trial and error.
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Well, how about a front projection on a bank of fog?
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