Pepper Ghost Effect

[SomeThingInTheIce]

I need to know from those of you that have done this , if I am heading down the right road. I was going to buy one of those projectors that you can hook up your t.v. or dvd player too. I was going to build a large box the front would have a sheet of lexan placed at a angle. The image would be filmed with a black back ground and burned on to a dvd. The projector placed at the back of the box shooting the image on to the lexan. Will this work? If not where am I going wrong and what do I need to do make it right? This is going to cost a little bit so I want to make it right the first time, as we all know mistakes cost time, money and sanity. Thanks for any help. Ice

[SSP]

I don't think projecting an image directly onto the lexan is going to show up very well, it will just go straight through. The Peppers Ghost works with reflctions.

http://www.phantasmechanics.com/pepper.html Great article on the effect

But I am not sure if shining the projector onto the glass will work, maybe if you fogged up the glass to catch the light? I would use the reflection from a projector screen placed in the "f/x" area as shown in the diagram on that website.

[SomeThingInTheIce]

So it should be set up more like that Scream TV, project the image onto a screen and have the lexan catch the reflction. I'm not sure how the size will be then. The closer the screen is to the lexan the smaller the image will be. I was looking to make the image the size of a person. Man now I'm not sure how to do this. We were going to film the Teller Of The Tale so that no actor would have to say those lines over and over and it would make the telling of the tale a lot cooler.

[SSP]

I normall do it all with trial and error, but make both areas the same size. In other words, if you are looking from the patrons view, the area you see directly in front of you THROUGH the glass is the exact same size and distance away as the area reflected IN the glass. That's usually how you keep the proportions the same, both areas are mirrors of each other. If you place an object 5 feet from the glass in the FX area, it will appear 5 feet away through the glass in the visible area. Set the screen whatever distance from the glass you want your image to be, and then set the projector so that the image of ther person is as tall as a real person

[SomeThingInTheIce]

This will take more planing on my part. Thanks for the link and info.

[Nightmaretony]

It should work the way you describe it. You can test it for position by simply having a lit up picture and arranging it to reflect int eh glass so you can check for angles. It works on 45 degrees but a similar effect on the vertical plane uses 22 degrees.

[Jim Warfield]

Wood them-ther degrees be the wunz they git in koledge?
22 sounds inturestding.
Have 2 tri it on my hound dawg sometime
whesz my 22?

[Nightmaretony]

out by thu 44, Cletus

[Jim Warfield]

Some my "Over & Under" 22 is really a 44?
Math ain't my strong point, that's on my head. don't have to shovel the snow there it all slides right off!

[wipp]

the hardest part is getting the lights right.that means a dimmer switch on each light.then a ghost fader.i went to ripleys believe it or not and they had a peppers ghost with a video of a leprachan talkin to you.thats exactly what it looked like.watchin a video through a reflexion.if the lights are not perfect the illusion is destroyed.our haunt started with just a prop of a ghostly man fading in and out of a rocking chair.then we made a ladys head dissapear by using the morph technique.that turned out nice also.for our glass we baught those old sliding glass doors that were made in the 70s from a scrap yard.the beauty of these are their size and the glass is tempered so no1 cuts themselves if it were to break

[SomeThingInTheIce]

Sliding glass doors, what a great idea wipp. I'm going to start looking for one at yard sales. Thanks.