Delusion: An Interactive
Horror Experience
Established in 2011, Delusion is one of LA's most acclaimed immersive theater experiences: a walk-through horror production where the audience moves through real environments, interacts with live actors, and triggers effects in real time. Creator Jon Braver set the industry standard for immersive theater nationally. There is nothing quite like it.
Across multiple seasons, I served as technical director with a scope that stretched from writing the narrative to hand-soldering the LEDs. The work demanded equal parts creative vision and technical execution: designing projection-mapped environments, fabricating interactive props, building show control systems, engineering spatial audio, and leading build teams through construction. All in service of making an audience forget they were watching a show.
Built With
There are moments of jaw-dropping magic. The opening scene uses projections in such a beautiful and creative way, that I was left speechless.
horrorbuzz.com, The Harrowing of HellConjuring a Live Ghost
I built a real-time hologram system that put a live actor on set as a ghost. The actor performed on a green screen in a separate location while TouchDesigner handled live compositing and visual effects: keying, color grading, and spectral distortion, all in real time. The composited feed was projected as a hologram onto the set using a scrim, creating a translucent apparition the audience could see but not touch.
The system was fully bidirectional: the ghost actor could see and hear the audience through a live camera and audio feed, allowing for genuine improvised interaction. Their voice was processed with real-time FX and spatialized through the room's speaker system. The actor could also trigger environmental moments on cue: a shaking prop, deep audio rumbles, sudden scares. The ghost didn't just haunt the room. It controlled it.
Projections, Fabrications, and Summoning a Wraith
I designed a pitch-black maze with spatial audio, tactile set design, and haptics that guided guests through total darkness by sound and touch alone. In the same season, I projection mapped the waiting room to warp and distort as if the space itself were cursed and alive, and designed the waiting room set including a converted vintage CRT TV that played haunted imagery on loop.
I designed a projection mapped moment where a carved sigil on the ground came to life with dark magic.
I built a giant 20' x 20' custom projection dome and mapped a massive seeing eye portal that watched guests as they entered. In the opening scene, I designed an effect that tore the ground open into a chasm descending into Hell, and a demon shadow that interacted with a live actor, reaching out and pulling her cape off in real time.
I designed and projection mapped a poison-induced hallucination sequence with shifting walls, dripping ceilings, and melting paintings, and a soul-sucking sequence where projection effects were coordinated with an actor's live movement and accentuated with room lighting. I also used photogrammetry to 3D-scan the exterior of a large historical home, building a detailed digital model of the facade for previs simulations of potential projection effects.
The centerpiece was the Wraith: a spectral creature I designed from the ground up. I handled creature design, 3D modeling, and animation, drove the character with motion capture, ran smoke simulations for the ethereal look, and composited multiple VFX passes into the final render. The finished creature was projection mapped onto a scrim concealed inside a custom furniture prop with a DMX-controlled dowser system, creating a translucent 3D hologram effect that appeared to materialize in the room.
