Halloweenifying Media Checkout

I work in the check out room of UCSD’s Media Center (students come by and I give them cameras or projectors or whatnot). On Monday at work I became stricken with a deadly combination of Halloween spirit and general boredom, so I decided to throw together a spooky Halloween display worthy of a room with 7 kabillion dollars with of AV equipment.

The first component of the display are the ghosts, intricately fashioned from inflated rubber gloves and Kleenex. For kids interested in assembling something like this at home, here are the steps: 1) inflate rubber gloves, 2) tape on Kleenex, 3) repeat until dehydrated. The ghosts occupied me for about 3 hours, and then I started looking for something more.

At about this time Mark Elder came in with the Jack o’ Lantern that his team had carved for the Media Center Pumpkin Carving contest (a team building exercise or something). He put it on the check out counter, but I thought it looked kind of sad, so I connected one of our 200 watt Sun Gun lights to the thing to make it look more fearsome. Then I remembered that we have a fairly destitute video projector in the room, and decided that something had to be done with it as well.

To make an already long story less long than it might have been, I set up a camera pointed at Mark’s pumpkin, and then ran that signal back to the projector, pointed at the wall. At first it didn’t work, but when I jiggled the video cable a bit, there was a slight scent of ozone and then the wall became showered with spookiness. When I turned out the light, I nearly had a coronary the thing was so frightening. Ahem.

Unfortunately, this solution is less than ideal as an actual, working Halloween display. Namely the entire room has to be dark in order for it to work, and so when it’s working, we can’t. Maybe I could have strategically set up some more lights somewhere or something. Anyway, I haven’t been to work since Monday, so the entire thing may have been scrapped by now. Oh well.

I’ve already got some ideas for Thanksgiving though… it’s gonna be kickass.

(Thanks to Adriene for the pictures)

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