By David Farrier
Earlier this year the Coachella Music Festival wowed audiences with a so-called hologram of deceased rapper Tupac.
Now the creators have opened up about the creation process, and whether we'll see more.
In 1996 rapper Tupac died after he was shot four times.
But earlier this year, he performed live. For around 60,000 hip-hop fans at Coachella, seeing Tupac come back from the dead was a near religious experience.
Millions more watched the performance online.
“What is up Coachella?” joked television host Jimmy Kimmel. “Is that the first question? It bums me out he's back from dead and in better shape than I am.”
Now, for the first time, the creators of the so-called hologram have talked about creating a life-like Tupac.
“The last thing we wanted to do was offend his family, the people who knew him, and obviously the fans,” said Dylan Brown of special effects company Digital Domain. “The last thing you want to do is put something out there that was a slap in the face to his legacy.”
Sceptics note it's not a real 3D hologram, but rather an old technique of reflecting an image from the floor onto a special screen.
It just happens this is slicker – a CGI Tupac created from old footage and CGI wizardry.
Parody videos galore are available on YouTube, toying with the idea of a tour.
The other question is, will this stop with Tupac? What about Michael Jackson? Elvis? Or maybe Beethoven?
“Coachella was a moment,” said Philip Atwell of Digital Domain. “What happened at Coachella, it lives there and it'll probably only live there. Maybe you'll see him again, maybe you won't.”
So it might happen again. The thing is Coachella was a giant festival full of living performers.
Whether audiences will fork out for a hologram on its own is yet to be seen.
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