The Haunted Mansion's "Endless Hall" Model

I've been playing around with the idea of building a scale model of the Haunted Mansions famous endless hall effect. After some experimentation, I've become a little discouraged (and bored). But here is what I have so far. I really didn't want to spend the money for a "real" two-way mirror, so I opted for trying out the idea of using a clear glass pane, from a 5x7 picture frame, and applying "Secret Zone" adhesive car window tint (mirrored), which can usually be found in an automotive store. On the other end, is a 5x7 mirror. It "sort of" works. The problem seems to be scale. If the effect was going to be nearly life sized, it might work pretty well, but at a small scale, the reflective surface doesn't create a very crisp reflection. Here is a photo taken from just over the top edge of the "faked" 2-way. As you can probably see, I do get several generations of reflection, but by about the fourth reflection, it blurs out. Of course, the results might be better if the mirrors were in a controlled lighting situation (like in the real hall). If the mirrors were positioned within a "hall" and the lighting was brighter between the mirrors, and darker from the viewer's position, it might just work. But this project may get put on hold indefinitely. But if I do get interested in it again, I'll update it here.

Here are a couple of rough graphics I created. My plan was to just use color printouts of the wallpapers and doorways. Here is a scaled down, side view of the hall. I found very cool, working, dollhouse chandeliers, which looked enough like the originals, to use. But at $40 a piece, I passed! But working lights would be a key to the models success.

And here is a door I created from a photo. I used the same technique for correcting perspective distortion, as I describe in the "Creation" chapter of this site. It is a composite of three different photos of doors.

If you have any questions or comments, email me at haunted3d@raykeim.com