How to Make a Halloween Hologram With a Projector and Tulle

The year before this project, I projected animated faces onto real pumpkins in my yard with a budget projector, and the trick-or-treaters loved it. The next year I wanted to step it up with floating ghosts that look like they're hanging in mid-air. I built a hologram screen from gray tulle fabric and scrap wood from my garage, then spent a few nights testing it in the yard. This guide covers the build, where to put the projector so the illusion holds up, and what I learned about projector brightness after the first projector I tried wasn't bright enough.

Here's the finished setup on Halloween night: three projectors running at once, with 3D pumpkins in front, ghosts floating on the tulle screen in the middle of the yard, and creatures of the night projected onto the house behind them.

What You Need for a DIY Halloween Hologram

• Sheer tulle fabric — I used gray tulle fabric. More on why gray below.
• Scrap wood for a frame, plus a staple gun, wood glue, and nails
• A projector with at least ~500 ANSI lumens for outdoor use. I tested two: an Apeman LC350 and a Crenova XPE660 (both discontinued). Current replacements are listed in the projector section.
• Hologram animations — I used AtmosFX digital decorations, which are designed to play on transparent material
• A USB flash drive to play the videos directly from the projector, like this SanDisk USB drive
• A portable power station if there's no outlet near your projector spot. The Oupes power station I used is hard to find now. The BLUETTI Elite 30 V2 is the current small option.
• A Joby GorillaPod or another flexible mount to aim a small projector where there's no flat surface

Why Tulle Works as a Hologram Screen

The floating-hologram effect needs a screen that's nearly invisible in the dark but still catches enough light from the projector to show an image. Very sheer fabric like tulle does both. In a lit room it looks like a giant sheet of netting. Once the lights go off or the sun sets, the fabric disappears and only the projected image is visible.

AtmosFX sells a purpose-made version of this called Hollusion projection material. It's designed for exactly this effect. Tulle is the craft-store alternative. It comes on large rolls, it's cheap, and you can cut it to whatever frame size you build.

White, Gray, or Black Tulle?

I used gray tulle. It was transparent enough to vanish in the dark but still reflected the projected image well. Most online tutorials recommend black tulle, which hides even better but reflects less light, so you need a brighter projector. White reflects the most light but is the easiest to see when nothing is playing. Gray was a good compromise for my yard.

Testing the Tulle Before Building Anything

Before cutting any wood, I hung the tulle loosely in my garage and pointed the projector at it to see if the idea would work at all.

Two things were obvious right away:

1. Wrinkles ruin it. Wherever the fabric sagged, the image smeared. Pulling it taut made a big difference, which is why you need a frame.
2. The wall behind the screen gives the trick away. Light passes through the tulle and lands on whatever is behind it. More on that in the projector placement section.

How to Build a Tulle Hologram Screen Frame

My frame is about 28 inches by 5 feet, made from scrap wood I had in the garage.

1. Cut the tulle roughly to size. Leave extra on every side so you have something to grip while stretching it.
2. Staple one long edge to a wood strip first. With one side fixed, it's much easier to pull the rest of the fabric tight.
3. Set the width before gluing. Lay the cross piece across without fastening it, so the frame doesn't change size while you tension the fabric.
4. Glue and nail the corners, keeping them as square as you can. Use less wood glue than I did.
5. Staple the last side while pulling the tulle tight, then flip the frame and staple the back for extra hold.
6. Trim the excess tulle and let the glue dry.

Once it was stretched on the frame, the image was much sharper than in the loose-fabric test, with no wrinkles. In the dark, the frame mostly faded away. To finish the illusion, paint the frame matte black or dark blue so it disappears completely at night.

For the yard, I staked the frame into the lawn so the wind couldn't tip it over.

Where to Put the Projector: Avoiding Backscatter

This is the part that makes or breaks the effect. I set the projector about 4–5 feet behind the screen (give or take a foot) and projected through the tulle toward the street.

• Viewers should be on the opposite side from the projector. From the projector side, you see glare from the projector lens shining through the fabric, and it looks bad. From the far side, the image looks like it's floating.
• Make sure nothing behind the screen catches the light. Much of the light passes straight through the tulle. If it lands on a wall, garage door, or bush, you'll see a second copy of the image there and the floating illusion is gone. Angle the projector so the light that passes through hits open sky or empty yard.
• Test from where trick-or-treaters will stand. Walk to the sidewalk and look back at the screen. Fix the angle from there, not from beside the projector.

How Bright Does a Halloween Projector Need to Be?

This is the most important thing I learned, and the reason I'd skip most of the "best Halloween projector" lists.

I started the yard test with the Apeman LC350, the same projector that worked well for the pumpkins. On the tulle screen at about 7:30pm, it was too dim. The Apeman only ever listed its brightness in lux, never in ANSI lumens, so there was no honest way to compare it to anything.

Then I switched to the Crenova XPE660, which is rated at 550 ANSI lumens. The difference was obvious right away. The ghosts were bright enough to see from the street, even with streetlights nearby.

The lesson: compare projectors by ANSI lumens only. Budget projector listings often show lux or inflated "lumen" numbers in the thousands. Those numbers can't be compared to an ANSI rating. Based on my test, 550 ANSI lumens was enough for a hologram on tulle in a suburban yard at night. A projector that only shows a lux rating, or doesn't list ANSI lumens at all, probably isn't bright enough.

Projecting onto solid pumpkins or a house wall needs less brightness than tulle. Most of the light reflects back toward viewers instead of passing through the fabric. That's why the Apeman was fine for pumpkins but too dim for the hologram.

Projecting 3D Singing Pumpkins

The pumpkins are still my favorite part of the display. Instead of carving faces, you project animated faces onto uncarved pumpkins. The rounded surface makes the faces look 3D, and they sing, talk, and make faces at trick-or-treaters.

• Use uncarved pumpkins, real or fake, so the projected face isn't broken up by carved holes
• Group them close together so a single projected image covers all of them. AtmosFX's pumpkin animations are designed for this.
• Aim the projector as straight-on as you can. A steep angle stretches the faces.
• Ideally put a speaker near the pumpkins so the singing sounds like it comes from them, not from the projector across the yard (depending on projector placement)

A budget projector is enough here. My Apeman LC350 handled the pumpkins two years in a row.

Layering Three Projectors for Depth

On Halloween night I ran all three projectors at once, each at a different distance from the street:

1. Foreground: 3D singing pumpkins (Apeman LC350)
2. Middle: ghosts floating on the tulle screen (Crenova XPE660)
3. Background: a full moon and creatures of the night projected onto the house

Putting the effects at different depths made the whole yard feel like a scene instead of a single decoration. The neighbors and trick-or-treaters loved it.

Best Projectors for Halloween Hologram Effects

Both projectors I used are discontinued. Here's what I'd buy today instead:

• Hologram screen (replaces the Crenova XPE660): the Yaber K2s is rated at 800 ANSI lumens with native 1080p. That's brighter than the 550 ANSI lumen Crenova that already worked on my tulle screen, so it's a real upgrade, not a sideways move.
• Pumpkins and walls on a budget (replaces the Apeman LC350): the Happrun projector has autofocus and plays video from a USB drive. Its listing claims 2000 ANSI lumens. I haven't measured it, and that's a high claim for a budget projector, so treat it as a pumpkin and wall projector, not your main hologram projector.

I also reviewed the Crenova in more detail, including daytime and dark-room tests: Crenova XPE660 projector review.

Powering Projectors in the Yard

I ran the hologram projector from a portable power station so I could move it anywhere in the yard without running extension cords. The Yaber K2s draws roughly 130–140 watts, and power stations lose some energy converting battery power to AC (about 15% is a reasonable estimate). That works out to approximately:

The Elite 30 V2 covers a typical trick-or-treat window for one projector. If you want the display running all evening, or want to add a speaker or a second projector, the Elite 100 V2 has the extra capacity.