--- title: "How to add a hologram with Claude (tested prompt and script)" description: "A glowing cyan line sweeps down the frame, sinking the bright backdrop into a dark blue room and leaving the serum bottle as a see-through cyan projection striped with crawling scanlines that flickers now and then. Install one skill and ask Claude Code, or run the Python script we tested yourself." url: https://www.recharm.com/effects/hologram --- # How to add a hologram with Claude A glowing cyan line sweeps down the frame, sinking the bright backdrop into a dark blue room and leaving the serum bottle as a see-through cyan projection striped with crawling scanlines that flickers now and then. Made by the script on this page, from our own test clip. ## Get this effect 1. ### Switch to Code in your [Claude Desktop App](https://claude.com/download) 2. ### Install the skill (once) ``` Install the Recharm video effects skill: download https://recharm-growth-staging.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/website/downloads/recharm-video-effects.zip and unzip it into ~/.claude/skills ``` 3. ### Ask for the effect ``` Add a hologram to input.mp4 Second the scan line starts down the frame: 0.5 Seconds the scan line takes to reach the bottom: 0.6 ``` ## Several videos, several effects, one ask Put your clips in the folder, mention them with @, and ask for everything at once. Claude runs one tested script after another on each clip, then joins them. Add a hologram to **@clip1.mp4**, put a sale badge on **@clip2.mp4**, give **@clip3.mp4** a VHS look, then join all three with crossfades. ## Settings you can change Ask Claude to change any of these, or edit them at the top of the script. | Setting | Default | What it does | | ---------- | -------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | `START` | `0.5` | Second the scan line starts down the frame. | | `SWEEP` | `0.6` | Seconds the scan line takes to reach the bottom. | | `COLOR` | `(60, 210, 255)` | Hologram and scan line color. | | `ROOM` | `(0.07, 0.15, 0.32)` | Red, green and blue multipliers that dim the background into a dark blue room. | | `OPACITY` | `0.75` | How solid the hologram is; 1 hides the room behind it. | | `LINE_GAP` | `4` | Pixels from one scanline to the next. | | `FLICKER` | `0.1` | Chance on each frame of a sharp dip in brightness. | ## Without the skill Don’t want to install the skill? Paste this prompt into Claude Code and Claude writes the script itself. ``` Turn the product in input.mp4 into a hologram with Python (numpy, OpenCV, Pillow, rembg) and ffmpeg. Before 0.5 seconds the video is untouched. Cut the product out with rembg (session "u2net", using session.predict's soft matte, 0-1) on every 2nd frame and reuse each matte for the next frame. For the hologram frame: multiply the whole picture (0-1 values) by (0.07, 0.15, 0.32) per red, green, blue channel so the backdrop becomes a dark blue room around rgb(11, 30, 68). Take the frame's luminance L (0.299, 0.587, 0.114) and its edges E = absolute Laplacian of L after a 3x3 Gaussian blur, and shade = clip(0.35 + 0.75*L + 3*E, 0, 1.2). Scanlines: rows where (y + 30*t) mod 4 < 2 keep full brightness and the others drop to 0.45, so they crawl up 30 pixels a second. A bright band multiplies brightness by 1 + 0.6*exp(-((y - c)/(0.04*height))^2), its center c moving from -15% to 115% of the height every 1.5 seconds. The hologram color is cyan (60, 210, 255) times shade times scanlines times band. Flicker: seed a random generator with the frame number; with 10% chance the hologram drops to 0.45 opacity for that frame, otherwise it's 1 minus up to 12%. Alpha = matte * 0.75 * flicker; mix room*(1-alpha) + hologram*alpha, then add 0.8 times a Gaussian blur (sigma 12) of hologram*alpha as glow. Transition: from 0.5s to 1.1s a horizontal edge moves at a steady speed from the top of the frame to the bottom; above it show the hologram frame, below it the original, with a 6-pixel soft blend and a cyan (60, 210, 255) glowing line on the edge (added, falling off as exp(-(d/5)^2) with d the distance in pixels). After that the whole frame is the hologram to the end. Keep the 540x960 size, 30fps, 6-second length and the audio, and save it as output.mp4. ``` ## Run it without Claude This is the exact script we tested. Save it as `hologram.py` and run: ``` python3 hologram.py input.mp4 output.mp4 ``` ``` #!/usr/bin/env python3 """Hologram: a scan line sweeps down the frame and turns the product into a see-through cyan hologram with flickering scanlines over a dark blue room. Usage: python3 hologram.py input.mp4 output.mp4 Needs ffmpeg, numpy, OpenCV, Pillow and rembg to cut the product out of every other frame (pip install pillow numpy opencv-python-headless "rembg[cpu]"; rembg downloads its u2net model on first use). """ import json import subprocess import sys import cv2 import numpy as np from PIL import Image from rembg import new_session START = 0.5 # second the scan line starts down the frame SWEEP = 0.6 # seconds the scan line takes to reach the bottom COLOR = (60, 210, 255) # hologram cyan ROOM = (0.07, 0.15, 0.32) # the background is multiplied by this (red, green, blue): a dark blue room OPACITY = 0.75 # how solid the hologram is (1 hides the room behind it) LINE_GAP = 4 # pixels from one scanline to the next SCROLL = 30 # pixels a second the scanlines crawl up BAND = 1.5 # seconds between bright bands rolling down the hologram FLICKER = 0.1 # chance on each frame of a sharp dip in brightness MASK_EVERY = 2 # cut the product out on every 2nd frame and reuse it for the next def hologram(rgb, subject, i): """The frame as a dark blue room with a cyan, scanlined, flickering see-through copy of the subject.""" t = i / fps img = rgb.astype(np.float32) / 255 room = img * np.array(ROOM, np.float32) lum = img @ np.array([0.299, 0.587, 0.114], np.float32) edges = cv2.Laplacian(cv2.GaussianBlur(lum, (3, 3), 0), cv2.CV_32F) shade = np.clip(0.35 + 0.75 * lum + 3 * np.abs(edges), 0, 1.2) rows = np.arange(h, dtype=np.float32)[:, None] lines = np.where((rows + t * SCROLL) % LINE_GAP < LINE_GAP / 2, 1.0, 0.45) band = 1 + 0.6 * np.exp(-((rows - ((t % BAND) / BAND * 1.3 - 0.15) * h) / (0.04 * h)) ** 2) rng = np.random.default_rng(i) flicker = 0.45 if rng.random() < FLICKER else 1 - 0.12 * rng.random() holo = np.array(COLOR, np.float32) / 255 * (shade * lines * band)[:, :, None] alpha = (subject * OPACITY * flicker)[:, :, None] glow = cv2.GaussianBlur(holo * alpha, (0, 0), 12) out = room * (1 - alpha) + holo * alpha + 0.8 * glow return np.clip(out * 255, 0, 255) def cut_out(rgb, i): """The product's matte (0-1) from rembg, worked out on every MASK_EVERY-th frame and reused in between.""" if i % MASK_EVERY == 0 or not matte: matte[:] = [np.asarray(session.predict(Image.fromarray(rgb))[0], np.float32) / 255] return matte[0] def composite(rgb, i): """Untouched before START, then the hologram above a cyan scan line moving down, and all of it after.""" t = i / fps if t < START: return rgb holo = hologram(rgb, cut_out(rgb, i), i) edge = (t - START) / SWEEP * h if edge >= h + 20: return holo.astype(np.uint8) rows = np.arange(h, dtype=np.float32)[:, None, None] mix = np.clip((edge - rows) / 6, 0, 1) line = np.exp(-((rows - edge) / 5) ** 2) * np.array(COLOR, np.float32) return np.clip(holo * mix + rgb * (1 - mix) + line, 0, 255).astype(np.uint8) def probe(path): info = json.loads(subprocess.check_output(["ffprobe", "-v", "error", "-select_streams", "v:0", "-show_entries", "stream=width,height,r_frame_rate", "-of", "json", path])) s = info["streams"][0] num, den = s["r_frame_rate"].split("/") return s["width"], s["height"], s["r_frame_rate"], float(num) / float(den) def render(src, out): """Read src frame by frame, composite each one and save to out, keeping the audio.""" reader = subprocess.Popen(["ffmpeg", "-v", "error", "-i", src, "-f", "rawvideo", "-pix_fmt", "rgb24", "-"], stdout=subprocess.PIPE) writer = subprocess.Popen(["ffmpeg", "-y", "-v", "error", "-f", "rawvideo", "-pix_fmt", "rgb24", "-s", f"{w}x{h}", "-r", rate, "-i", "-", "-i", src, "-map", "0:v", "-map", "1:a?", "-c:v", "libx264", "-crf", "18", "-pix_fmt", "yuv420p", "-c:a", "copy", "-shortest", out], stdin=subprocess.PIPE) i = 0 while raw := reader.stdout.read(w * h * 3): rgb = np.frombuffer(raw, np.uint8).reshape(h, w, 3) writer.stdin.write(composite(rgb, i).tobytes()) i += 1 writer.stdin.close() if reader.wait() or writer.wait(): sys.exit("ffmpeg failed") src, out = sys.argv[1:3] w, h, rate, fps = probe(src) session = new_session("u2net") matte = [] render(src, out) ``` ## More overlays and light - [Anamorphic streak **Anamorphic streak**](https://www.recharm.com/effects/anamorphic-streak) - [Aurora **Aurora**](https://www.recharm.com/effects/aurora) - [Blood splatter **Blood splatter**](https://www.recharm.com/effects/blood-splatter) - [Bokeh lights **Bokeh lights**](https://www.recharm.com/effects/bokeh-lights) - [Camera flash **Camera flash**](https://www.recharm.com/effects/camera-flash) ## Find 3x _winning ads_ Recharm cuts your ad footage into tagged, searchable clips: hooks, testimonials, product shots. Find the shots that win, add the effect with Claude, and ship 3x more ad edits. [Start 14-day free trial](https://www.recharm.com/get-started)