Manhattan Must-See: Hesser's Holiday House Projections

MANHATTAN, IL —Cars and people of all ages lined up (at a distance) last weekend to take in the opening weekend of the spectacular spooky scenes projected from Michael Hesser's Manhattan home. If you've seen Hesser's home around Halloween and Christmas, it's probably hard to believe such a technological treat was the product of laziness — or at least that's what he told Patch. It all started with frustration over — ironically enough — other holiday decorations.

Three years ago, Hesser was bidding farewell to another Christmas season at his family's Shawnee Lane home. He recalls the moment quite fondly.

“I was taking down Christmas lights, I was on a ladder, in about 20 below weather, thinking, how stupid this is that I’m risking my life for a $5 string of lights?” Hesser said. "I was thinking to myself, I’ve done projections in the windows for Halloween for years. I should just project a picture of lights from the windows.”

Using a picture of lights, a projector and a thumb drive, Hesser said he stood on his sidewalk and projected a string of lights on the front of his house.

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"It looked like Christmas lights," Hesser said.

That was that. Hesser said he was never hanging Christmas lights again.

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Three years later, people and cars line up outside 24361 Shawnee Lane to see Hesser's holiday scenes projected on his home, done entirely with computers. The custom scary movie and Christmas movie montages projected on the house are synced to music broadcast over FM radio, Hesser said, so people can watch from the safety and comfort of their car.

"To keep things fresh I add new scenes throughout the month leading up to Halloween," Hesser told Patch.

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What started as a Halloween theme made its way to Christmas, and in 2020, an Easter egg hunt appeared on the house.

Because of this, Hesser said he, his wife and two daughters (12 and 15) decided to name the display “Holiday House Projections.”

Because Easter egg hunts were cancelled earlier this year amid restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic, Hesser's house became the egg hunt spot.

"I made an Easter Bunny scene and had eggs pop up in the windows so families could drive by and let the kids 'hunt' the eggs as they appeared," Hesser told Patch. "People left notes saying that it made them cry. It was really sweet."

But how exactly does Hesser make the holiday magic larger than life?

Each scene takes weeks or months to plan, edit, and produce, and is done by a technique called video mapping, Hesser told Patch. This creates 3D projections across the entire face of the house.

"They use this on the castle at Disney World. It's all projection mapping," Hesser explained. "The technology has been out there. Disney has been doing this for years. The castle is insane now! I don’t know how many high def cameras they have. It’s gorgeous."

Hesser started looking into what kind of program he'd need to have a projector running outside.

"I knew nothing of video editing or the terminology," Hesser said. "I was up late at night taking online courses, watching online tutorials.

For Halloween 2018, Hesser said he started prepping in August, and spent the summer taking online courses.

He prepares the Halloween scenes and holiday happiness weeks — sometimes months — in advance.

Hesser said because the original plan was to do this for Christmas, so he thought he'd practice the technique around Halloween time.

According to Hesser, his wife and some friends thought what he was planning to do was simply buy a projector and show "some little ghosts" in the window.

Not necessarily.

Instead, Hesser said he sat at a card table outside his house like a lunatic until midnight, tracing every line of his house where he was going to project the scenes from.

"I have a bit of OCD, so it’s gotta be exact," Hesser told Patch. "If I missed the gutter by two inches, I have got to redo it. It’s a nightmare. People would drive by and see me drawing while it’s snowing thinking I’m just insane. The problem with OCD is it’ll look good on the computer, but by the time I put it on the house, it’s usually version 7 or 8, at least. My family thinks I’m insane."

As part of the creative process, Hesser will also hear a song "a thousand times," to sync everything to it perfectly.

Hesser said he would do this late at night in hopes people couldn’t see (or hear) what he was working on.

However, he eventually realized he could use Photoshop to project a house on top of his house.

"I went online and looked at pictures of before and afters of broken, cracked and failed siding, so it would look like my house was falling apart." (See image below).

Today, Hesser has a big collection of files he can use that are copyright cleared.

(Courtesy of Michael Hesser)

It was time to show someone why he was spending so many late nights outside.

"My wife finally came outside because I asked her to come see what I was doing," Hesser said.

Hesser's wife watched the Halloween haunt come to life on their house, in sync with the radio music.

"She flipped out," Hesser said. "She said, 'Oh my God I had no idea this is what you were doing!'"

A few weeks before Halloween, Hesser put the scene on their house without telling anyone, using his projector and tripod.

“I'm in a little subdivision and I got lights on my house,” Hesser recalled. “Someone drove by, then someone put it on Facebook, then eventually there were a line of cars. It was playing on a loop. It really just took off.”

Then the Christmas season came, and Hesser's home turned into a gingerbread house. Hesser said one of his fondest memories thus far is from this season.

“I made the whole house in photoshop (as a gingerbread house)," Hesser said. "It was a video of the garage door opening up, and it was Santa’s workshop in the garage.

Outside his home, Hesser said he saw a little boy knocking on the garage door, asking Santa to please open his workshop.

"That made every night working until 2 a.m. worth it," Hesser said.

However, Hesser added that one of his greatest compliments was when a woman who lived nearby brought him a tray of cookies.

"I’m bought easily” Hesser laughed. "The neighbors have been fantastic."

Describing this passion project as "just a silly little hobby," Hesser told Patch the fact that anybody likes it is unbelievable to him, and the reward he gets isn’t accolades, Facebook likes, or the cookies, "although those were fantastic."

"The payback I get is sitting inside my garage working on the Christmas videos, while the Halloween show is playing on the other side of the door, and I hear a car full of kids singing along," Hesser said. "For me, I imagine that must be what hitting a home run in the bottom of the 9th inning to win the game feels like. "

Hesser said they get many families among those who come by to see the festive scenes.

"One year there was a grandmother there who was with, what it looked like, her kids and grandkids, and the house had a movie montage (Halloween one)," Hesser said. "She actually came up and put her arm around mine, and said 'Thank you for putting some (older movies) in there for us. She sat there probably three times in the driveway watching it while her family was in the car."

Hesser and his family have gotten cards from people as far as Indiana, and from families across Illinois, who said coming and seeing the house has become a family tradition.

"Neighborhood families will come by in their pajamas," Hesser said. "Some people nearby have said they can see the lights from afar."

Hesser thinks his house scenes will probably be more popular this year bc of the lack of haunted houses being open due to the coronavirus and social distancing. This is why he wanted to do something special for Halloween this year.

“Every year it feels like I have to learn new tricks, I have to out do it,” Hesser said. "I'll hear kids in a car saying they like the spiders (during Halloween), so I go and add more spiders to the scenes."

Hesser assures families his projections are appropriate for all ages, as he does want to scare children or have parents mad at him.

Hesser also wants to make sure his family likes every scene.

"My family always says they lose me around Halloween, and I apologize," Hesser said. "But they give me feedback and contribute."

Hesser has made a scene resembling one from Disney's 1993 classic "The Nightmare Before Christmas" because his daughter voiced how she liked one of the scenes when they were watching the movie. He used Photoshop to make a flip-book (a still picture for every frame) and animated that.

"She just loved it," Hesser said.

However, Hesser said making something like this is nerve-wracking, and he does worry about making something that "nobody likes."

Though, that's most likely not the case, considering Hesser has people on YouTube who ask him to make a scene for their home(s).

“I’m not a professional, you know, I'm doing a caveman version of this," Hesser said, adding that a professional video editor would probably be in tears seeing him do it this way.

To see Hesser's house haunt, come by between dark until 10 p.m. on weekdays, and between dark and 11 p.m. on weekends.

"We will be running every night weather permitting," Hesser said.“I built a box around the projector and weather-proofed it, and I have it pretty well rigged up to where I can keep it out of the weather mostly."

If you aren't in the area, check out the Holiday House Projections Facebook page and YouTube channel. (Patch will let you do the clicking, so we don't spoil any holiday fun).

“By the time I put it on the house, I can't stand the song anymore,” Hesser said with a laugh. “But it’s so much easier than hanging Christmas lights."

Hesser will take a break after Christmas until the spring, but he said he has an app on his phone in which he writes down ideas that pop in his head throughout the year.

On Thursday, Hesser was already thinking ahead to the winter holidays.

"Did I mention I was driving in traffic for an hour this morning listen to Christmas music, trying to pick a theme? I may need an intervention," he said.