holes, surrounding the hole where the coat
hanger wire poked through (Figure
D
).
Through these I ran the strands of EL wire.
When I had many loops of EL wire hanging from
the lid at lengths/placements I liked, I then hot-
glued the bottom arc of each wire to the back
of the mask in different places. Tying the cables
together with tape produced a nice, clean look
(Figure
E
).
To make the “metal” covers, I used my laser
cutter to create a wooden structure that would
surround the jar at top and bottom, though you
could do this nearly as easily by hand cutting
foamcore or cardboard. After wood-gluing it
together, I covered both top and bottom with
aluminum tape, using layers to cover all exposed
wood, including any that was visible through the
bottom of the jar (Figure
F
).
HEAD-IN-A-JAR PARTY!
Setting this up at a Halloween party is a blast.
As a final touch (which I didn’t get to), I suggest
finding a box or some cleverer way to hide the
projector in front of the head. Since this effect
works from all angles, placing your head in a jar
on a table or something else guests can walk
around works well. You may also want to hide the
computer screen, or keep it visible so that the
friend whose head is projected can see and hear
whomever is talking with them.
GOING FURTHER
And that’s it! If you’re interested on building on
the idea, the same general framework should
work lots of different use cases. One that
occurred to me would be to go way bigger: with
a strong projector, you could turn your friends
into Zordon from Power Rangers! At the other
extreme, imagine creating shrunken heads in
jars, or projecting a friend’s face onto a creepy
mannequin. On second thought, don’t; a talking
mannequin is entirely too scary.
If you’re interested in the history of this
effect, I went down several rabbit holes on
“Madame Leota” from Disneyland’s Haunted
Mansion (disney.fandom.com/wiki/Madame_
Leota). I suggest checking out the great mini-
documentary about the whole ride in Behind the
Attraction on Disney+.
F
87
make.co
M81_084-87_ZoomOfDoom_F1.indd 87M81_084-87_ZoomOfDoom_F1.indd 87 4/11/22 1:02 PM4/11/22 1:02 PM
..................Content has been hidden....................
You can't read the all page of ebook, please click here login for view all page.