Tupac hologram team reveals secrets and tour plans

Yesterday I mentioned that Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre had a holographic Tupac on stage at the Coachella music festival in California. The performance certainly left the audience and many people on the web awestruck at the realistic hologram that bought Tupac back to the stage for the first time since he died in 1996. The holographic performance was so popular that Tupac may go on tour again.

We now have some insight into how the holographic performance was pulled off. The hologram used projection tech from a company called AV Concepts, and the company gives all the credit for coming up with the idea the Dr. Dre. A spokesperson for Dr. Dre said that a special-effects company from Hollywood called Digital Domain created the hologram of Shakur. This is the company that made some of the CG special effects for the big-budget films such as Jeff Bridges in Tron: Legacy.

The company is keeping some secrets back though, Digital Domain wasn't allowed to talk about how the hologram was synchronized to the real performers for the set to pull off a seamless show. The company says that pulling off a similar hologram can cost anywhere between $100,000-$400,000. The Wall Street Journal reports that representatives for Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg plan to discuss the logistics of taking the holographic Tupac on tour. Maybe the coolest thing that can be said of this hologram is that it was not created using found footage, it's a complete and total illusion. The virtual holographic construct was synchronized to music rather than using footage from recorded shows before Shakur died.

[via MTV]