Pepper's ghost
Pepper's ghost is an illusion technique, used in the theatre, cinema, amusement parks, museums, television, and concerts, in which an image of an object off-stage is projected so that it appears to be in front of the audience.
[1] The technique is named after the English scientist John Henry Pepper, who popularised the effect during an 1862 Christmas Eve theatrical production of the Charles Dickens novella, The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain, which caused a sensation among those in attendance at the Regent Street theatre in London.
[2][3][4] An instant success, the production was moved to a larger theatre and continued to be performed throughout the whole of 1863, with the Prince of Wales (future King Edward VII) bringing his new bride (later Queen Alexandra) to see the illusion, and launched an international vogue for ghost-themed plays which used this novel stage effect during the 1860s and subsequent decades.
These include the Girl-to-Gorilla trick found in old carnival sideshows[5] and the appearance of "ghosts" at the Haunted Mansion and the "Blue Fairy" in Pinocchio's Daring Journey, both at Disneyland in California.
[6] In the 2010s, the technique has been used to make virtual artists appear onstage in apparent "live" concerts, with examples including Elvis Presley, Tupac Shakur, and Michael Jackson.
[citation needed] The type of theatre use of the illusion which John Henry Pepper pioneered and repeatedly staged in the 1860s were short plays featuring a ghostly apparition which interacts with other actors.
[14] Pepper's 1890 book includes such detailed explanation of his stagecraft secrets, disclosed in his 1863 joint application with co-inventor Henry Dircks to patent this ghost illusion technique.
Thus Pepper's Ghost showmen sometimes used an invisible black-clad actor in the hidden area to manipulate brightly lit, light-coloured objects, which can thus appear to float in air.
Pepper's very first public ghost show used a seated skeleton in a white shroud which was being manipulated by an unseen actor in black velvet robes.
[citation needed] From the mid-19th century, the illusion, today known as Pepper's Ghost, became widely developed for money-making stage entertainments, amid bitter argument, patent disputes, and legal action concerning the technique's authorship.
[23] Jean-Eugene Robert-Houdin, contemporary French grand master of stage magic, regarded Robin's performances and other 1863 ghost shows in Paris as "plagiarists" of Pepper's innovation.
[citation needed] In October 1852 Pierre Séguin, an artist, patented in France a portable peepshow-like toy for children, which he named the "polyoscope".
[26] Henry Dircks was an English engineer and practical inventor who from 1858 strove to find theatres which would implement his vision of a sensational new genre of drama featuring apparitions which interacted with actors on stage.
[29] He also outlined a series of plays featuring ghost effects, which his apparatus could enable, and worked out how complex illusions, like image transformations, could be achieved through the technique.
[33] After seeing Dircks' peepshow model in 1862, Pepper quickly devised an ingenious twist whereby, through adding an angled sheet of glass and a screened-off orchestra pit, almost any theatre or hall could make the illusion visible to a large audience.
[41] By late 1863, the illusion's fame had spread extensively with ghost-centred plays performed at multiple London venues, Manchester, Glasgow, Paris, and New York.
In Britain, he was initially successful in suing some unlicensed imitators, deterring others by legal threats, and defeating a September 1863 court action by music-hall proprietors who challenged the patent.
A typical performance would comprise a substantial play where apparitions were central to the plot, like an adaption of Dickens' A Christmas Carol, followed by a short comic piece which also used ghost effects.
However, the specific optics in these modern displays often follow Séguin's or Dircks' earlier designs rather than the modification for theatres which first brought Pepper's name into enduring usage.
[52] The world's largest implementation[citation needed] of this illusion can be found at The Haunted Mansion and Phantom Manor attractions at several Walt Disney Parks and Resorts.
The walk-through attraction Turbidite Manor in Nashville, Tennessee, employs variations of the classic technique, enabling guests to see various spirits that also interact with the physical environment, viewable at a much closer proximity.
An example that combines the Pepper's ghost effect with a live actor and film projection can be seen in the Mystery Lodge exhibit at the Knott's Berry Farm theme park in Buena Park, California, and the Ghosts of the Library exhibit at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois, as well as the depiction of Maori legends called A Millennium Ago at the Museum of Wellington City & Sea in New Zealand.
[citation needed] The Hogwarts Express attraction at Universal Studios Florida uses the Pepper's ghost effect, such that guests entering "Platform 9+3⁄4" seem to disappear into a brick wall when viewed from those further behind in the queue.
These include the ride's preshow, where characters are projected inside an empty doll's house before disappearing as the room is bathed in ultraviolet light, and a scene where Emily Alton, the attraction's central antagonist, appears in a corporeal form before vanishing, in a similar fashion to effects used at the Disney parks.
[citation needed] Another example can be found at the Our Planet Centre in Castries, St Lucia, which opened in May 2011, where a life-size Charles III and Governor-General of the island appear on stage talking about climate change.
[5] Early electro-mechanical arcade machines, such as Midway's "Stunt Pilot" and Bally's "Road Runner," both made in 1971, use the effect to allow player-controlled moving vehicles to appear to share the same space as various obstacles within a diorama.
Electrical contacts, connected to the control linkages, sense the position of the vehicle and obstacles, simulating collisions in the games' logic circuits without the models physically touching each other.
[citation needed] An illusion based on Pepper's ghost involving projected images has been featured at music concerts (often erroneously marketed as "holographic").
[8] At the 2006 Grammy Awards, the Pepper's ghost technique was used to project Madonna with the virtual members of the band Gorillaz onto the stage in a "live" performance.
This type of system consists of a projector (usually DLP) or LED screen, with a resolution of 1280×1024 or higher and brightness of at least 5,000 lumens, a high-definition video player, a stretched film between the audience and the acting area, a 3D set/drawing that encloses three sides, plus lighting, audio, and show control.
