With Halloween now behind us, it is time to take a deep breath and, uh, start thinking about what awesome digital creations we’re going to make this time, next year. Never too early to start planning!
With that in mind, we are currently wading through the deluge of AtmosFAN of the Week submissions that have been sent to us in the past few days. (Frankly, we couldn’t think of anything more satisfying.) As we review all of the submissions, we’ll be posting AtmosFAN of the Week for the next several weeks – all in the name of creating an even cooler Halloween 2018!
This week we start with Shawn Beuscher of Olathe, Kansas. Shawn sent us links to two captivating videos, each of which have their own outstanding merits. The first highlights a technique that we are seeing more and more of this year – projection mapping.
Essentially, this is the technique of projecting onto something other than a flat, white screen to create a three-dimensional effect. Using software – some free, some for purchase – you can create multiple effects on one large, unusual “canvas,” like Shawn’s house. Using Photoshop, After Effects and final editing with music/sound effects in Premiere, Shawn was able to make it appear that his house is melting – and he uses the Phantasms Digital Decoration to great effect, too!
Shawn is a video producer by profession, so this type of thing is right up his alley. Still, he says even non-professionals can take advantage of this technique, and he says there are plenty of great “3D Projection Mapping” how-to videos on YouTube. We also wrote a blog post last year on the subject. You can expect more posts on the subject in the future, too.
We’d be remiss not to also praise Shawn for another video he provided us. This is a more “traditional” haunted house he crafted, amazingly, in his two-car garage, called “Zombie Research Facility.” We put “traditional” quotes because, while it is a home haunt that many people create, there’s nothing traditional about it — he uses 9-12 actors, numerous strobe lights, tons of splattered blood – and five video projections showing AtmosFX’s Zombie Invasion! Digital Decoration.
In fact, Shawn says that when he was shopping on AtmosFX.com site and came across the then-new Zombie Invasion! Collection, he was inspired to change his Haunted House dramatically. “I literally built my Haunted House around their collection,” he says. “AtmosFX and my twisted imagination were a match made in Halloween Heaven!”
His neighbors seem to agree. He says he’s had as many as 1,500 visitors in a single night. Shawn’s video of his haunted house is a pretty intense presentation with plenty of graphic horror so be prepared! But, as Shawn warns in the video, “it is Halloween, after all!” You can find Shawn’s video here.
Shawn, for your willingness to go all-out for Halloween in two totally different ways, we are crowning you AtmosFAN of the Week! Great work!
If you haven’t yet sent us your photos or YouTube links for this season’s Halloween display, make sure to do so! Send them to community@atmosfx.com. We want to see how you haunt!
