Help me make a video visual for a kids halloween party

October 21, 2009 9:50 AM

Help me find a Halloween "video mash-up" for a kids party

I am hosting a halloween party for a group of kids, ages 4-17. I have a great playlist of Halloween songs, Thriller, Monster Mash, Purple People Eater, etc. The room we are in has a large pull down screen and a projector. I would love to have a video playing on the screen that is a compilation of famous scenes from Halloween-ish kids movies. No audio needed, the music for the dance will be playing. I just would like to have something going on on the screen (Disney Halloween, ET, Ghostbusters, etc.) to add to the ambiance. I don't have the time to do this myself. OR do I? Does anyone have any ideas on where I could find this or easily (and legally) make one myself?

posted by pearlybob to Society & Culture (3 answers total)

Best answer: If you have own the movies, you're going to have several technical loopholes to jump through to get around DVD copy protection. Even then, ripping movies (or downloading from YouTube) and editing chunks together can be a timely process, especially if you've never done it before.

Can you hook up a computer to the projector? A live photobooth might be fun, where the kids can step in front of a webcam (that is being broadcasted on the screen) and add silly/scary webcam effects.
posted by nitsuj at 9:59 AM on October 21, 2009

Best answer: How about good old rave-tool Cthugha? It does visuals in response to audio input and you can load it with halloween clip-arty stuff as starting images, so every minute or so it would show a jack-o-lantern or a ghost or something that would then dissolve as the music eats it. Guaranteed to hypnotize and should be pretty quick to set up.
posted by ulotrichous at 1:14 PM on October 21, 2009

Response by poster: Thanks so much!! Both ideas are great and I'm aiming to do them both. I really appreciate the help!
posted by pearlybob at 12:52 PM on October 22, 2009