Last year’s scarecrow, the giant Death Star that wrapped around a light pole, was fun because it was really big. I thought about doing something big again this year, but I decided to do something more technical instead.
At some point during the year, I was reading about the Pepper’s Ghost illusion, where a pane of glass set at a 45 degree angle to the viewer can reflect a ghostly image into a room. I figured that, with a little creativity, I could probably manage to make a box that used that principle to project a ghost onto the sidewalk on Central Avenue. It would be small and definitely wouldn’t be a scarecrow, but it would be fun!
The journey of a thousand scarecrows starts with cutting a single 2x4. For this particular one, I wanted to build a sturdy 2x4 frame that would house the components (lights, plexiglass, and ghosts) that I could then cover in a nice looking skin.
The design is built in thirds: the central part will be the viewing area, with two wings to the sides for putting ghosts into. I’ll put a pane of plexiglass diagonally across the central section, which will provide a different view depending on whether you look through the front or back of the box.
With the frame built, it was time to start enclosing it. I painted the inside of the box flat black, which will keep it invisible when I put the lights inside. That way whatever ghostly items I put inside will look like they’re floating in mid-air when looking through the front or back windows. Spooooooky! I also cut a whole bunch of trim pieces to cover the edges and corners and make it look nice.
I wanted a color scheme that brought “circus” or “theatre” or “elegant but creepy side show” to mind, and then I started putting it all together. The angled roof is needed to house the lights that will light up the ghosts, and the white blocks on the sides will eventually become old timey advertisements for the box.
A quick test with a halloween candy bucket that I had laying around proved it worked nicely. If you look closely, you can just see where the plexiglass angles across the bottom of the box. Time to finish it up!
Sadly, it was really hard to take a picture of the effect: in the day, the ghost didn’t show up, and at night the rest of the box didn’t show up. But human eyes have a much wider dynamic range than phone cameras, and it looked really good in person. Lots of people stopped by and took pictures of friends interacting with the ghosts, which was great fun.