CTVNEWS

Late rapper Tupac resurrected at Coachella music fest

CTVNews.ca Staff Published Tuesday, April 17, 2012 1:56PM EDT

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Since his resurrection at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in California this weekend, murdered rapper Tupac Shakur has set Twitter ablaze.

Shakur has also left people wondering about the technology used to bring him back from the dead to sing again.

Now, the truth is out.

Shakur's spell-binding performance at the annual festival was accomplished thanks to a 19th century magician's trick, not 21st century hologram technology as once thought.

Twitter exploded after the late singer appeared to Coachella&apos;s crowds. The event happened more than 15 years after Shakur was gunned down in Las Vegas in 1996. To the amazement of onlookers, Shakur rose from the stage, his head down, arms outstretched and microphone in hand as he shouted, "What the f— is up, Coachella!" The life-like singer then launched into his classic, "Hail Mary." He performed this number and others alongside Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre. But this "hologram" performance, as it had once been billed, turns out to have been no hologram at all. The startling reimaging was achieved, in part, thanks to a 19th century reflection technique called "Pepper&apos;s Ghost." Named after an optics researcher John Pepper, the trick was first accomplished by placing plates of glass at certain angles to create the effect of images floating in air. The modern adaptation of this trick for Shakur&apos;s performance uses 2D images that have been manipulated on expensive computer screens, not between plates of glass. CGI effects were also used to generate the rapper&apos;s image, according to Rolling Stone magazine. The stunning imagery was created by the Hollywood special effects studio Digital Domain, who have previously worked on films such as The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, TRON: Legacy and X-Men: First Class." These effects have brought Shakur back to life for his fans. They even earned the dead star a Twitter account, @HologramTupac. The account was quickly set up after Shakur&apos;s performance at Coachella and attracted more than 12,200 followers by the Monday morning. Still, the real significance behind this trickery is in what it may mean to the music biz in the years to come. Certainly, singing with late artists is nothing new in the music industry. In the past, singers have resurrected Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole and other musical titans to perform duets. One of the most notable versions came in 1992&apos; "Unforgettable," which featured Natalie Cole singing with breathtaking realism at the time with her late father, Nat King Cole. But Shakur&apos;s thrilling hologram performance could translate into a new bankability in the future for dead artists such as Elvis, Michael Jackson, Amy Winehouse and others. Thanks to this new bit of fakery, fans could soon see the dead rocking stadiums and making millions in the process. Shakur&apos;s "live" performance was completed after a four-month collaboration between Dr. Dre&apos;s production company, James Cameron&apos;s Digital Domain, and the hologram-imaging companies AV Concepts and the U.K.-based Musion Systems. Digital Domain won an Oscar for aging Brad Pitt in the 2008 drama, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." AV Concepts was also behind the 2005 Grammy performance featuring Madonna and the holographic members of the Gorillaz, as well as holograms used in concert by Celine Dion and the Black Eyed Peas. Together, this team created a digital likeness of Shakur that was specifically designed to interact with his co-performers and the crowd. More remarkable still, no archival footage was used to accomplish this feat. Thanks to new technological tools, the rapper walked, talked and sang with precision on Coachella&apos;s stage. Shakur even cussed and swaggered with his usual flare. Some may find these effects disquieting. But as Ed Ulbrich, the chief creative officer at Digital Domain, recently told the press, "Nothing is real and everything is possible."