The surprising Tupac hologram that made an appearance at Coachella this weekend has been buzzed about since its debut, and the masterminds behind the display probably couldn’t have picked a better inaugural dead icon than Shakur.
It has long been rumored that Tupac faked his death, starting right away when the rapper passed away after lingering for six days in a coma following a Vegas strip shooting back in 1996. But the Tupac hologram was impressive even outside everyone half-expecting a Pac return, and holographic Tupac even has a Twitter account … with more than 20,000 followers and tweets including:
“I wrote this tweet a long time ago. #94”
Alas, Tupac still hasn’t come back after 15 years, but we may see him again as Tupac hologram. In fact, the performance may just be the start of a larger vision of Dr. Dre’s- according to the techs that brought Pac back to life, the rapper had a “vision.”
The cost of the Tupac hologram was thought to be more than $100,000, but more impressively, it was not generated from archival footage- the performance was actually generated from scratch. Digital Domain’s chief creative officer Ed Ulbrich explained:
“To create a completely synthetic human being is the most complicated thing that can be done… This is not archival footage. This is an illusion. This is the beginning. Dre has a massive vision for this.”
It is widely rumored that the Tupac hologram could tour, and the agency responsible for Tupac’s hologram resurrection has won several Oscars- so their efforts are likely to be similarly impressive.
