Pumpkin projection: talking jack-o'-lantern faces on real pumpkins, no carving

Pumpkin projection is the no-carve way to get a jack-o'-lantern that blinks, grins and talks. Instead of cutting a face into the pumpkin, you project one onto it, fitted so exactly to the pumpkin's shape that the light looks like it's coming from inside. In the clips beside this article every face is projected: the pumpkins are whole, uncarved and lit only by a small projector, with the faces placed from an iPhone running EasyMapper Studio.

Here's how it works, which pumpkins to use, and how to set up a row of talking pumpkins in one evening.

Pumpkin projection is projection mapping on a small scale: you tell the app where each pumpkin is, and it bends an animated face to fit that pumpkin and nothing around it. The face only lights the pumpkin, so in the dark you see glowing carved eyes and a mouth, and the rest of the room stays black.

Compared with carving, it's a better deal on almost every count:

• No knife, no mess. Kids can choose the face; nobody handles a blade or scoops seeds.
• No candles. Nothing burns inside the pumpkin, on the porch or on the sofa.
• The pumpkin lasts. Carved pumpkins start softening within days. A whole one keeps for weeks, and a foam craft pumpkin keeps for years.
• The face moves. It blinks, glances, laughs and talks, and you can switch it to a different face any time.

Projected light needs a surface to land on, so the pumpkin matters more than the projector:

• Pale beats orange. White and cream pumpkins show the face brightest. Orange and yellow work too, as the clips show, but the glow looks warmer and slightly dimmer.
• Smooth beats knobbly. Deep ribs and warts bend the face. Pick round, smooth pumpkins and turn the smoothest side toward the projector.
• Uncarved, unpainted, matte. A glossy or varnished skin throws a hot spot back at the viewer.
• Foam craft pumpkins are ideal. They're light, perfectly smooth, survive the porch and come back out next year with the same map.

Group them. A big pumpkin next to a small one, or a stack on a stand, gives each face its own character and makes the display read from across the street.

1. Set up in the light. Place the pumpkins, then put the projector somewhere it can see all of them, and connect your iPhone or iPad over HDMI or AirPlay (connection guide).
2. Map each pumpkin. Add a Circle layer for each pumpkin in EasyMapper Studio and drag its corners until the grid sits exactly on the pumpkin's front. Add corners if a pumpkin is lopsided.
3. Give each one a face, then turn off the lights. Drop a pumpkin face onto each layer and press play. Everything outside the faces stays dark.

Mapping with the lights on is the trick: you can see the real pumpkin edges while you drag. Once the map is saved, the setup is a single tap every night until Halloween.

You don't need to find or buy any face videos. EasyMapper Studio includes:

• Six animated pumpkin faces. Pumpkin Glow, Pumpkin Fang Glow, Pumpkin Goofy Glow, Pumpkin Stitched Glow, Pumpkin Sly Glow and Pumpkin Sly Creepy Glow. Each one plays as a looping animation on its layer, so a row of pumpkins can each have a different personality.
• The Pumpkin Face shader. A carved face drawn as pure light on black, made for warping onto a real pumpkin. You can tune how wide the mouth opens, how fast the candle glow flickers, how bright the eyes and the carved light are, and the colour from yellow-white to deep orange.
• Glowing Eyes. Pairs of slit-pupil eyes that open in the dark, blink, look around and vanish. Put them on a pumpkin with no face, or on the hedge behind the pumpkins.

Your own videos work too: anything in your camera roll can go on a pumpkin layer.

Yes. The Pumpkin Face shader's mouth can be set to react to the music playing in the room, so the louder the song, the wider the mouth opens. Line up three pumpkins with the same face, play a Halloween playlist, and you get a pumpkin choir that moves with the music.

To be clear about what this is: the mouth follows the volume, it doesn't lip-sync to the words like the pre-made "singing pumpkins" videos. Those are animations of a specific song. The upside of reacting live is that it works with any music you play, all night, without a single video to download.

Pumpkins look better with company. EasyMapper Studio's room effects run across the whole projection and treat your mapped pumpkins as solid objects: Bat Swarm flies around them, Ghost Swarm drifts between them, Pumpkin Drop rains small jack-o'-lanterns that bounce off the big ones, and Meteor Shower bursts into sparks when it hits them. The interactive Halloween effects guide covers each one.

Keep the faces as the stars. One effect at a time behind them reads better than three at once.

• A pumpkin family. Big, medium and mini pumpkins, each with a different face from the six built in.
• The pumpkin choir. Three matching pumpkins with mouths that move to the music.
• A pumpkin tower. Stack pumpkins on stands of different heights, faces on the pumpkins, a shader on the stands.
• The watcher. A plain pumpkin that stays dark until Glowing Eyes open on it.
• A doorstep greeter. Two pumpkins either side of the door, ready for trick-or-treaters.
• No-carve pumpkin contests. For work or school contests that allow lit displays, a talking projected pumpkin stands out next to painted ones. Check the contest's rules first.

Already have other Halloween props out? The same method works on tombstones, sheet ghosts and skeletons: see Halloween decorations with projection mapping.

Less than you'd think. Pumpkins are small and the trick only works in the dark, so a 500 to 1,000 lumen projector is plenty for a group of pumpkins a couple of metres away. Any model with HDMI or AirPlay works with an iPhone or iPad. Place it straight in front of the pumpkins and slightly above, so every face sees the projector, and keep it on a stable spot so the map holds all month. For a bigger display, the lumens guide explains how much brightness you need for each size.

Do I need a laptop or special software?

No. EasyMapper Studio maps and plays everything from an iPhone or iPad. It's free to download, and Premium ($7.99 a month or $39.99 a year, with a trial) unlocks the full feature set. The Halloween projection mapping app page covers what's included.

Can I project onto real, carved pumpkins?

You can, but carving fights the projection: the holes don't line up with the projected face. Projection looks best on whole pumpkins.

Does it work outside?

Yes, after dark. Keep the projector dry (inside a window, under a porch roof or in a garage doorway) and weigh down the pumpkins so wind doesn't move them off their map. For a full house display, see the Halloween projection mapping guide.

How long does setup take?

About fifteen minutes the first time for a few pumpkins: connect, map, pick faces. After that it's one tap each night.

Pick the palest pumpkin you can find, point a projector at it, and open EasyMapper Studio. Your jack-o'-lantern will be talking before the trick-or-treaters arrive.