To spark interest in North Norwegian food culture and reindeer meat, director I Saw John First looked back to an old stage illusion: the Pepper’s Ghost technique. Working with the agency Anorak, we used this method to project animations directly into a highly detailed, hand-crafted physical set, which was then captured in-camera.

The process transformed what is typically an introverted, solitary animation phase into a collaborative event. Because the "ghost" was visible on set, the client, the agency, and the crew could see the magic happen live rather than waiting for a post-production render. It was a beautiful intersection of traditional craftsmanship and digital animation, where the final film became a shared experience between the set designers, the animators, and the team behind Matprat.