I recently ran across a HauntForum post about The Singing Pumpkin, which sells animations that can be projected on uncarved pumpkins to make them appear to be singing Jack-o’-lanterns. It’s a neat idea, but since all they’re selling is the animation (they don’t license the song, so you have to supply that yourself), it made me wonder if there were any DIY versions out there.

Indeed there are! There’s a fantastic Instructable by David Andora which goes into detail about the materials and equipment you’ll need. Halloween Underworld also has some tips on setup and some specific information on connecting the projector.

Both of those tutorials use commercial animations by AtmosFEAR or Window Creeps, but if you’d rather do the animation yourself check out Karlfalcon’s video on DIY pumpkin animation; briefly, you film yourself in Jack-o’-lantern makeup and then do some video processing. There seems to be some free downloadable animations as well, like these at MP3li. (They may be ripped copies of commercial products, in which case, don’t pirate, kids!)

It’d be expensive to buy the projector and other equipment needed for this illusion, but if you’ve already got that stuff (or have been looking for an excuse to buy it) this would be a really arresting addition to a Halloween yard display.