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February 24, 2005
A Look at the Pepper's Ghost Projection Technique
Pepper's Ghost is a projection technique of sorts as it involves a light source that projects an image on a large piece of glass at a 45 degree angle that "reflects brightly lit objects offstage, superimposing them with the on-stage set and actors."1
The trick is called Pepper's Ghost after John Henry Pepper, a professor at London's Royal Polytechnic Institution, the man who first used it in a stage performance in 1863. Some sources argue that Henry Dircks should receive the credit, since he came up with the idea a year earlier. However, it is noted that Dircks' ghost was only a small-scale prototype, while Pepper's was a full-sized stage show. (As an aside, I think this points to the value of having good content to support a new entertainment technology, rather than just a prototype, because people tend to remember content. It's an important issue to consider as we set out to create our thesis projects).
Pepper's Ghost was, in a sense, a natural evolution of the "magic lantern show," already popular in England at the time, and it went on to be featured in various "ghost shows" (or "bogey shows") at British fairgrounds. Its popularity lasted until the early 1900s, when cinema replaced it as the latest "trick."
Despite its disappearance as a show in itself, the Pepper's Ghost illusion continued to be used in stage productions that required a semi-transparent ghost, including productions of Hamlet, Macbeth and the Christmas Carol. However since the large glass blocked a lot of the sound coming from the stage, the trick was used only sparingly, until the advent of microphone/speaker sound systems.
The effect, and several evolutions of it, is still used today. The Shuftan Process uses an angled, partially mirrored sheet of glass to allow miniatures to be "rear projected" into a scene with an actor. The miniatures appear to be full-size, and reduce the requirements of set-building. The effect is also used in modern haunted houses, including the famous Disney Haunted Mansion, which features the ghostly images of animatronic ghosts dancing in a ballroom. A variation of the Pepper's Ghost technique is also being used in special effects theaters, including the Holavision Theater developed by BRC Imagination Arts.
This theater uses "computer-controlled combination of special effects, theatrical lighting, audio, projection and live performance."
One non-entertainment use of the effect is the heads-up display on modern fighter jets, which allows pilots to see vital information without looking away from the cockpit window.
Sources:
1 http://www.dafe.org/misc/peppers/peppers/htm
2 http://www.brcweb.com/products/special-effects-theaters
3 www.wikipedia.org - "Pepper's Ghost"
4 "Adventures in Cybersound", http://www.acmi.net.au/AIC/PEPPER_BIO.html
5 "Giving Up the Ghost", http://www.thegalloper.com/backstories/0702ghost.html
Posted by msteffen at February 24, 2005 10:46 AM
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