Make a floating head hologram

1

Intro

This is an illusion called Pepper’s Ghost, you use plastic to reflect an image from your phone so that it looks like it is floating above. You can use any subject matter you like, but it needs to be bright and on a dark background. In this tutorial we’re doing it using a torch to light up a person’s face. You can do this illusion with the phone in portrait or landscape orientation. This tutorial uses portrait orientation since it works better for a face. At the end of this tutorial there are a couple of links to other tutorials that use the same illusion.

2

Make your video

Set up a black backdrop in a room that you can make dark. I used a piece of black fabric hung over a door. If you don’t have anything black use another dark colour. If you’re having trouble finding something you could try a jacket or hoodie over the back of a chair and crouch down in front of it. Or even try outside at night if you are really stuck.

I am planning to use mine for a Halloween treasure hunt so used face paint.

You subject goes in front of the black backdrop, get them to light up their face with a torch. Film with your phone in portrait orientation (not the traditional way to film) and keep as steady as you can. If you are having trouble keeping the phone steady you can try placing a piece of furniture in front of you and resting against it.

Black backdrop, torch and scary makeup

Try to make the video quite long, you will need to have time to start it and walk away to view it.

After I shot my video I opened it up in iMovie (on my phone) and added 10 seconds of black at the start then faded it into the video. This gave me time to be able to set it up before having the video start. I also had one where I repeated the clip multiple times in iMovie so it would keep playing. One thing I found was that when I used iMovie it automatically put my video into landscape instead of portrait. I had to rotate it (see “rotate clip” if you need to do this too) to get it how I wanted. You don’t have to do any post production if you don’t want to or if your phone doesn’t have it.

3

Make your display

The plastic needs to be reflective, transparent and reasonably sturdy. I had a large piece that came from the packaging of a toy box. You might be able to find suitable packaging on something at the supermarket (the plastic croissant box in countdown looks good). You could use a piece of plastic from the front of a document. I even tried the small flat piece on the top of a sushi box to see it if would work. It was thinner than I would like but still worked.

Plastic document cover and cut up sushi container

Click the button above for the template to cut the plastic. There are a couple of options:

1. “Trapezoid version, portrait orientation, small phone”: The trapezoid shape is a little better for the display.
2. “Rectangle version, portrait orientation, small – medium phone”: The rectangle one is easier and uses less plastic so I was able to make it out of a sushi container. You have to be looking at it directly onwards, the trapezoid shape lets you move around a little more and still see it.

So far I have only done template versions for smaller smartphones (I have an iPhone 8 so based it off this). You can scale it up if you want it larger. You can also scale it up even more and use it for a tablet if you want.

Choose which template you want to use and either copy it with a ruler and pen onto your plastic or print it out (at 100%) and cut it out. Cut it out in plastic and put it together with clear sellotape.

Extra step if you have a light coloured phone or case

My phone has white around it which reflects along with my video and ruins the illusion. If you phone is black you won’t have this problem. I got a piece of black cardboard (you can use paper or cardboard and paint or colour it black), I cut out a rectangle in cardboard that is a bit larger than my phone. Then I cut a rectangle hole into it that is slightly smaller than the screen. I put this over the top of my phone to cover all the white.

Paper frame to cover the white parts on the phone

4

Set it up

Lay your phone down somewhere in a room you can make dark. You do also need to view this illusion from the correct angle so it will need to be reasonably high up, try it out and see what works for you.

Make it so the video is playing upside down for how you are looking at it with the plastic piece set up as shown below. If you are finding your plastic is falling down you could tape it to the black frame if you made one. Or use some more tape along the bottom to hold it into shape.

Trapezoid version shown flat then set up on the phone using the black frame (optional)

Rectangle version shown flat then set up on the phone

Turn off the lights and enjoy your illusion!

5

More to try

There’s more of this you can do if you’re hooked.

• You could try doing this “live” – you will need two phones. Set up a video call and talk to the person who will view you through the display. You might need to cover over all the icons at the bottom of the display if the app you are using doesn’t let you hide them.
• “Pepper’s ghost on a smartphone” – This is the same sort as in the tutorial above but done in landscape with an animation.
• The first of the ‘holograms’ I tried I posted on our facebook– read the post to see how to make it.
• This tutorial shows you how to make a ‘holoquad’ style video like in the link above. You need to have the editing software to do this, I haven’t tried it with the one shown. I used photoshop which I already had and weirdly has video editing. The tutorial shows stock videos but you can make your own, I had a quick go at that.