The Scary Pumpkin Video

Make your own Scary Pumpkin video for Halloween, whether its to show in the window to greet trick-or-treaters, or project on a wall during your Halloween party.

Here's a short example of a video that I made. Read below to learn how I did it, and how you can make your own.

Click To Play

The steps for the Scary Pumpkin Video:

1. Planning: The more the scarier
2. Lighting and Setup: Candles and flash
3. Editing:
   The big smile
   Fire light, fire bright
   All together now
   Sounds creepy
4. Showing: It's the Great Pumpkin!

1. Planning Your Scary Pumpkin Video

Your starting place is a genuine pumpkin, carved in the traditional way. As you can see from my scary pumpkin video, there's nothing very original about this pumpkin -- the scariness comes from the effects (and the fact that any sort of face on a vegetable is a little frightening). But, you can research scary faces of pumpkins and get scary pumpkin ideas wherever you can find them.

For the video, use digital photos of your pumpkin rather than video footage. This is all you need, and it makes some of the editing easier.

The scary pumpkin has essentially two parts: the pumpkin face itself, and a video of fire. In your planning, you have to figure out how to get a good fire video. A campfire in the dark works very well. A fireplace fire wouldn't really work, since there would be too much light on the back wall of the fireplace. You want just fire and darkness; nothing else.

For my Scary Pumpkin video: For the pumpkin face, I took the easy way out and just showed up with my digital camera at a Halloween party where they were carving pumpkins. For the fire, I took a video of a campfire during a family campout, using the video function of my digital camera. Because it was late at night, all you get is the fire.

2. Scary Pumpkin Lighting and Setup

For your Halloween pumpkin pictures, put in a candle, and shoot the pumpkin outside at night. For each pumpkin you photograph, take at least two pictures from the same location: one with flash, one without.

A tripod can be helpful, first to make sure the pictures are from the same place, and second because it will be dark: one picture will be without flash, so the shutter will be open a long time. If you try holding the camera, it will probably be blurry.

You don't have to have a tripod, though: just put the camera on the same surface as the pumpkin (table, sidewalk, or whatever). This will give you a good, straight-on perspective, and it will eliminate jiggle, if you're careful. Get close enough that the pumpkin almost fills the frame, as long as you aren't too close for the minimum distance for your camera. Avoid using zoom, since that reduces the shutter aperture, which isn't as good in low lighting.

In my video: I didn't have a tripod with me, so when the pumpkins from the pumpkin carving party were moved outside to see how they would look, I just put my digital camera on the sidewalk in front of the pumpkins and started taking pictures.

All of my shots were of pumpkins with lit candles inside, and I took at least two pictures of each: one with flash, and one without.

3. Editing Your Scary Pumpkin Video:

It all comes together in the editing step. In this case, there is very little video footage, and a few photos, so editing starts with photo editing software, then goes to video and audio editing.

The Big Smile
Load all of your pumpkin photos onto your computer, then open them with your photo editing software. I use Paint Shop Pro X -- a lot of power for not a huge price (unlike Photoshop, the big fish of photo editing software). Any editing program will work that allows you to work with transparency, layers, and feathered edges when erasing.

With your pumpkin photos open, pick a matched set (one with flash and one without), based on photo quality and your own preferences. Select one photo, copy it, then switch to the other photo and paste the first photo onto the other one as a new layer. Make the top layer semi-transparent so you can make sure the pumpkins are lined up exactly; if not, move the top layer until it does line up.

Next, working with one layer at a time, erase everything but the pumpkin. (Paint Shop Pro has a background eraser that makes the job easy if you have a clearly defined edge.) Then, erase inside the eyes, nose and mouth of the dark pumpkin. Once you're satisfied with the results, save the pumpkin photo twice (with different names): once with the light pumpkin layer showing and the dark one invisible, and once the other way around. Save them as PNG files, so you get both high quality and transparency. (The other common options are JPG -- high quality but no transparency -- or GIF -- transparency but only 256 colors.) Fire Light, Fire Bright
For the fire behind the pumpkin, open up your video editing software (I use Sony Vegas Movie Studio), and load in your fire videos as well as your transparent pumpkin heads. Put the dark pumpkin on the top layer, and position the fire video(s) so it is behind the face openings. If your fire video is the right shape, you might just have to use one big copy behind the pumpkin to show through all the openings; otherwise, use many smaller versions, positioned where they need to be to show through the Halloween pumpkin.

For my video: I had one short video of fire that I liked, but it was tall and skinny, so I used it multiple times. I staggered the start times so each copy would look like a different fire, instead of a bunch of flames burning in perfect unison.

I resized the flame videos and repositioned them so one fire was behind each of the eyes, and four covered the area behind the mouth. I couldn't do it all in one editing session, because that would require seven layers (one for the pumpkin and six for the flames), and Sony Vegas Movie Study only allows four layers. (The full version of Sony Vegas, which is many hundreds of dollars more, lets you have as many layers as you want.) So, I made the four-layered video for just the flames behind the mouth, saved it as a movie (.wmv) file, then used that movie, along with two other fire movies (one for each eye), for the final assembly.

All Together Now
In the video editing software, layer the pumpkin head on top and the flame or flames beneath. The pumpkin head doesn't move, so show it as long as you want the video to show. If you want an occasional flash of the bright pumpkin, switch from the dark to the bright pumpkin face briefly, then return to the dark pumpkin.

For my video: I used my four layers in Sony Vegas Movie Studio, with the Halloween pumpkin on top, followed by one flame each for the eyes and the wider flame movie for the mouth. I also flashed the bright pumpkin a couple of times for about 5 frames (1/6 of a second).

Sounds Creepy
You could just show your pumpkin head and play a recording of spooky Halloween sounds along with it. However, you can also add creepy sounds or music to the movie itself.

If you have a good recording of the crackling of the fire, you can leave that in. You can also look for creepy Halloween sounds on the Internet, or from a CD of creepy sounds -- or you could record your own.

For my video: I searched on the Internet for "free Halloween sounds", and found some sites with .wav files of screeches, moans and groans. I ended up using a couple of different layers: one of random scary sounds in a haunted house, and another with thunder bursts. I timed the bursts so they would match the flashing of the light pumpkin, so it would seem like the pumpkin was being illuminated by lightning flashes.

4. Showing Your Scary Pumpkin Video

To use this Halloween idea, you would probably show it on a computer monitor, on a TV hooked up to a DVD player, or with a video projector. If you also recorded a sound track, you would want some good speakers, too. Where you use it depends on what you are planning.

Haunted House or Halloween Party
The Scary Pumpkin isn't jump-out-of-your-skin scary, but it can add a nice atmosphere to a place that's supposed to be creepy. It could be showing on a monitor or projected on a wall at the entrance of your haunted house, or somewhere along the way to add some atmosphere. It would look really good projected large on a blank wall: a 10-foot-high pumpkin!

Trick-or-Treaters
If you're looking for something a little different than the usual candle-in-pumpkin on the porch, and you have a window next to your front door, you could show the pumpkin through the window, especially through some gauze curtains -- and get some speakers going as well. If you have a house with a large blank wall facing the street, and a safe place to set up a video projector, a huge projection of the Scary Pumpkin is sure to draw the kiddies your way.

* * *

The Scary Pumpkin Video will add a nice spooky atmosphere to your Halloween party, haunted mansion, or house to greet trick-or-treaters. Try it!

Like the Scary Pumpkin? Check out the Screaming Head Video!

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