Last night for Halloween we set up a Hallowindow display. Hallowindow is a series of videos by Mark Gervais (available on DVD or via direct download), designed to be projected on to a window in your home. Do do this, you’ll need a sheet to project on (it hangs over the window), a projector, and a video source — either a DVD player or a computer. We used my laptop.

Here is a video of Hallowindow I, running at Mark’s house.

The videos I downloaded from Mark’s site (Hallowindow I-IV) contain both “normal” and “flipped” versions, so that regardless of where you put your projector (front or rear), any text that appears will be readable. We used a striped table cloth that only covered part of Mason’s window. We then cracked Mason’s windows open and placed a cheap pair of computer speakers next to the open screen. By 6pm, it wasn’t very dark and I was pretty disappointed with the results.

What it looked like before dark.

Mason and cousin Griffin, checking out the display.

A little bummed, we all set off to go trick-or-treating. At one point I went back to check on the display and found the words TOSHIBA (the brand of my projector) written in reverse. Apparently the screen saver on my laptop kicked in, which stopped the video. I had one other computer related problem later in the night. Because I forgot to plug my laptop in to the wall, an error popped up stating that my laptop was low on battery life. Stupid technology.

The good (no, GREAT) news is, once it got dark, the display lit up like it was supposed to and looked fantastic!

The “fake neon sign” portion of the program.

When we got back from trick-or-treating we found 20 neighborhood kids and adults standing in my front yard and out in the street just watching the show. That, my friends, is success!

Jeff and Dad look on at the onlookers.

The videos are just scary enough that they have a Halloween feel to them, but shouldn’t offend or scare off anyone. The only part of the videos that even remotely scares my five-year-old is the scene of lumbering zombies. I ended up with four videos and set them to play in random order (and repeat) using VLC Media Player.

I’m not sure what all we will do for Halloween next year, but I am sure of one thing — Hallowindow will definitely be back!!