Awesome Halloween Decoration: "Hallowindow" Pro Animation DVD!

As I a Halloween Addict, I see a lot of Halloween decorations. Every year usually brings the same fare but every once in a while you find a diamond in the rough.
Like Hallowindow.

What is Hallowindow?
Only one of the most revolutionary Halloween decorations I've ever seen.


Picture this: You're a trick or treater walking up to a house. It seems pretty dark, with only a flickering jack o' lantern smiling at you from the porch. As you approach the door, the front window blinks awake. A giant eye staring down. Then it bears it's teeth. Your mouth drops open. The house monster is replaced by dungeon doors with sparks and high electricity arcing enough to raise the dead. The doors burst open and the camera zooms through a moonlit spooky graveyard complete with spirits floating skyward. And on and on the imagery comes at you: skeletons rising from the dead Army of Darkness style... giant spiders descending... Nosferatu-like screaming creatures --and you don't come out of your trance until the words "Happy Halloween" come floating up over black. The animation is top notch with all the best elements from a sort of Nickelodeon-meets-Disney style.

The set up and technology is really quite simple having been used in stage and film productions for years. It's simply rear-projection: put up a sheet in your window, hook up a DVD player and projector and off you go. I was so impressed by Hallowindow that I interviewed the inventor, creator and animator: Mark Gervais (no relation to Ricky).

Halloween Addict: How'd you come up with the idea for Hallowindow?

Mark Gervais: "I like to draw and animate and it's basically my job day to day. I thought it might be fun to do something for halloween and it just seemed like the best way to show it off for the kids coming door to door."

Halloween Addict: Were you an elaborate "Yard Haunter" before you came up with Hallowindow?

Mark Gervais: "To tell you the truth, not really. We put up lights and that sorta thing but nothing more than that. I guess we had always been in apartments and rental houses before and the first year we moved into our own house I just decided to get a little more involved. We've been adding a few little props to our set-up but the animation is kinda the centerpiece so I'm happy keeping it simple. Who knows though? I kinda feel like I have to raise the bar a little bit each year. We'll see what I can come up with this time around."

Halloween Addict: When people really do it up for Halloween year after year, they tend to get a following with families setting out to visit the homes they really enjoy. Do you find your place is a "destination house" at Halloween because of your animations/Hallowindow?

Mark Gervais: "Not so far. We actually get a pretty pathetic turn out... maybe 20 kids in all. Last year we invited some friends to come around and check it out but it still wasn't a big turn out. I'd say our house is WAY more popular on the old internet than here in Calgary."

Halloween Addict: Do you give out good candy?

Mark Gervais: "We usually give out pretty average stuff. Mini chocolate bars... that sorta thing. The animation is way better than our candy, haha."

Halloween Addict: I'd love to see an animation where the camera flies up to the front door of the spooky house on the hill. What do you plan for future Hallowindow releases?

Mark Gervais: "I'm not totally sure yet. I've got plans for more single themed animations but I'll keep doing the montages. I'll probably try to explore more ideas that relate directly to the window setting, maybe story based ideas."

Halloween Addict: Your animations are fantastic. As I've mentioned on the Halloween Addict, I tend to like my Halloween a bit more traditional, sticking with ghosts, black cats, jack o' lanterns and skeletons, rather than blood/gore. Have you/Would you consider making custom Hallowindows for people?

Mark Gervais: "I spend a lot of time on the animations so right now custom work wouldn't be worth it for me. I hope that I can provide a wider variety of animations in the future so that there is something for everyone but keep the quality level high."

Halloween Addict: You've got a great sense of horror movie-like pacing in the animations. The shadowy figure who slowly walks up to the curtain before snatching it open with a scream being a prime example. How'd you decide what the animations were going to be for each Hallowindow incarnation?

Mark Gervais: "Thanks! Last year I kinda had a bunch of ideas and just pieced them together with interesting transitions. There wasn't much of a plan from the start. I knew what I liked in terms of subject matter but I kinda just let the different scenes fall into place and flow into the next."

Halloween Addict: Your animation has a unique style. What are your influences?

Mark Gervais: "I remember seeing bleeding walls on one of the Halloween episodes of The Simpsons... I think I had some inspiration from that and it just started snowballing. I think my style is pretty simple and that kinda comes from my complete lack of animation training, I started working mainly as an illustrator.
I just kinda fumble through animation, learning as I go. I've been doing that for years now so I'm getting more confident in what I can pull off. As for influences... man, I have so many. Anime and animated work in general, comic books, famous illustrators... pretty much any cool stuff that's been drawn or animated. I tend to be attracted to more graphic and simplified art work. Some of that shows through in my animation but I'm finding myself getting more into the finer details these days."

Halloween Addict: Do customers write in with excited results?

Mark Gervais: "I guess we'll see. I'm shipping DVDs out now for the first time. I only hope that everyone will be happy with it and I can't wait to see how they apply it. I've had tons of great comments on my work and I think everyone will be really impressed with how it looks in person. YouTube doesn't really do it much justice. I hope some people post up videos of their haunts using Hallowindow. I think seeing what people do with it will push forward and lead to bigger and better things."

Thanks to Mark Gervais for taking the time to do the interview!

Check out Hallowindow.com to buy your own copy and watch videos of the various Hallowindow incarnations. You can also see more vids of the Hallowindow in action on Mark's YouTube page HERE.