Please Help: Haunted Mansion Singing Bust Projection Footage Ask The Disney Experts Discuss Please Help: Haunted Mansion Singing Bust Projection Footage in the Ask The Experts forums; I have been working on a project that recreates the "Singing Bust" scene from the graveyard of the Haunted Mansion. I sculpted 5 blank heads in Plaster of Paris which ...

[tylerdjm]

I have been working on a project that recreates the "Singing Bust" scene from the graveyard of the Haunted Mansion. I sculpted 5 blank heads in Plaster of Paris which I project the original footage onto. Each head matches one of the actors that play the parts. With some strategic editing, I got the positioning adjusted and created a smooth loop for the busts to sing in my own front yard!

My only problem is... I am currently only able to bring 4 of the 5 singing busts to life. I have been unable to find the footage they use to project "Cousin Al".

I already have a copy of each of following original projection tapes: Uncle Theodore (Thurl Ravenscroft), Rollo Rumkin (Verne Rowe), Phineas Pock (Bob Ebright), and Ned Nub (Jay Meyer). I found these by searching on YouTube.

Here's my question to any HM fans out there: Does anybody know where to find the projection tape of Cousin Al? (He's the one that wears the hat.) I have sent several emails and spent a great amount of time searching, but so far no luck finding it.

Attached is a jpeg that I found on Doombuggies.com that shows the one I am looking for.

I would really appreciate any help you can give me or if you can point me in the right direction.

[disneyfanatic101]

I wish I could help! BUT I just wanted to say that this is a really cool idea!!!

Can you maybe most a vid once your project is complete?

[tylerdjm]

I sure can. I'll need to get some good shots of it. It's practically finished, except I only have 4 busts. Would love to get the last one to have the entire Phantom 5.

I also made my own Leota.

Anyone else have any ideas?

[hmfan72]

Sorry, cant help you. Could you send me the source footage you do have? I to am also trying to recreate the singing bust for my yard hunt this year and I cant find any of the source footage online. Please help!

[tylerdjm]

hmfan72: Do you have any editing software? This has been a very particular project and I found that I needed to modify the size of the faces slightly to properly fit my molds.

I accomplished this through Adobe After Effects. I am able to move each bust around on my computer screen so they match up perfectly with my plaster busts. I also used after effects to play with brightness and shadowing, and to greatly enhance the projections.

[hmfan72]

I do. I also use after effects. I already the wax head sculptures and a projector, i have everything i need except, the source footage. Did you have to stabilize the footage tho? Im asking cuz ive seen some videos of others doing the effect, but the projection looks shakey. I dont know if this the projectors fault, of the source footage.

[tylerdjm]

I did not need to stabilize them very much, but I did spend a lot of time modifying them to make them look better- such as adding masked images over the dark areas of the faces to give them much more detail. I also made them loop more smoothly.

File number one, the MP4, I split it into thirds, so I could move each face around and modify each one as needed.

The second file is an SWF (flash) file I took off of Doombuggies.com and modified it for import.
It was the best version of Phineas Pock I could find. I was greatly able to improve it though.

You should be able to import it into After Effects if you have a standalone flash player installed.

One tip I have for you is this: Don't re size the clips too much. If you need more space in your project, try changing the size of your composition instead of shrinking the heads. This will result is a higher quality projection.

I would upload my final rendered video, but it is larger than a gig in size.

Good luck. Let me know if you need anything else.

[hmfan72]

Thank You so Much. If I ever find the source footage for Cousin Al, Ill let you know. If you need the footage for Madame Leota, i can get that for ya if you want it. Altho i cant Little Leota, but i could get the SWF from Doombuggies. Anyway, Thanks again. Your a big help!

[tylerdjm]

Thanks man. Enjoy

[BamaJenn]

What an awesome idea! My hubby and I decided that this year we were going to possibly recreate the tombstones from the HM graveyard for our front lawn (instead of using our boring RIP ones etc.). This could be an awesome condiment to that! I will have to pitch it to him.