The moon has come loose

Your hands become shadow animals with a moon to steal and a little film to keep.

47 / Hand tracking · canvas theatre

An after-dinner shadow theatre

The moon has
come loose.

Put a hand in the light.
Make something with a mouth.
Steal the moon. Very gently.

Pointer rehearsal is ready. Move on the wall and close the mouth to catch the moon.

Close your fingers round the moon. Open to let it go.
A spread hand makes a bird. Two raised fingers make a rabbit. Other shapes make a dog. Move closer to the camera for a larger, softer shadow. Try stealing it three times.

The camera picture is never shown or recorded. Hand tracking and keepsakes stay on this device. No sound.

Rehearsing without a camera?
Move on the wall, or focus it and use arrow keys. Space opens the mouth. + and - change the distance to the lamp.

pointer mode0 hands seen0 frames drawn0.0s bufferedbufferingcanvas 2D

Remake it

Build a web page called 'The moon has come loose': hand shadow theatre on a lamp-lit plaster wall. Use MediaPipe's hand landmarker (two hands). Thumb-to-index distance opens the mouth of a shadow dog, bird or rabbit; finger spread drives wings or ears; apparent palm size sets scale and how soft the shadow edge is (draw it several times with growing offsets and lower alpha, no filter); wrist angle tilts it. The animal steals a moon that grows a moustache after three catches. Never show the camera picture. Keep a rolling eight-second buffer of canvas frames and replay it through MediaRecorder when the visitor presses 'Keep the last 8 seconds'. Add a pointer and keyboard rehearsal route for people without a camera.

Track both hands from your own copy of the model; mirror the landmarks, discard the video.
Turn five landmark distances into the puppet's controls; smooth them so the shadow does not jitter.
Draw the shadow several times, growing and fading, for a soft edge without a shader.
Record by replaying the compressed frame buffer into a second canvas.

Notes: when it suits, when it does not, how it fails

When it suits: A playful pause, a family ritual, or a small personal performance worth sending to someone.
When it does not: An urgent task, a factual service page, or a camera interaction without a keyboard alternative.
How it fails: Unclear permission, a camera feed in the keepsake, or a dead page when tracking fails. The camera is opt-in, stops on exit, and never reaches the canvas. Pointer and keyboard controls keep the theatre playable.

Made by Codex from Pete's hands brief. An original shadow theatre with local hand landmarks, two performers, a loose moon and downloadable keepsakes.