Skepticblog

I’m going to depart from our regularly scheduled behind the scenes story of the making of The Skeptologists to tell you about a recent job that I took.

I received a call from my office manager, Chad when I was downtown running errands last Monday. He told me that a producer from New York called and they were looking for an audio tech to help them on a shoot in nearby Lompoc on Wednesday and Thursday. “It sounded pretty urgent” he said.

Our company, New Rule Productions provides all types of production support for other productions companies when they come to the area shooting movies, commercials, photo-shoots and TV shows.

Once I got her on the phone, the New York producer told me that their audio technician could not make the trip and that they needed someone last-minute to fill-in for the show “Ghost Hunters”.

“Wow, the Irony” I thought to myself! More out of curiosity than money, I took the job and Carl (one of my crew) and I decided to split the two days on location.

Once the call sheets started coming in and the details got a bit more fleshed out, we determined that the show was NOT Ghost Hunters, but a knock-off show on the Travel Channel which I’ll keep anonymous. I hadn’t heard of it, but, oh well. It turns out that the NY producer was really know and I guess that she didn’t even know what show she was working on.

Carl took the first day. Poor Carl. A few hours into the production I got first word about the show from a text message: “This show is retarded” which was followed up with: “We just had a lunch meting: Consensus: get dog food to lure the ghost greyhounds because raw meat is too gross.”

Now I admit, I’m not a big fan of ghost shows, but I had a feeling at this point that I was in for a long and boring day. Carl called at the conclusion of his day and told me of the ridiculous events that transpired. My experience wouldn’t be far off the mark.

Thursday, morning 8:30 AM. I arrived on time to the hotel where the cast and crew of the show were assembled. The crew consisted of three cast/investigators, (All dressed in black of course) a coordinating producer, a local production assistant and I. There was another three person crew that was tasked with shooting b-roll (Shooting scenes of the area, objects, etc, with no dialogue or on-camera talent) I didn’t really see them much.

The main host/director showed up, a bit late, blazing onto the scene with his iPod blasting. He made a big show of telling everyone to get going, and to hurry to the location which was La Purisima Mission, a centuries-old mission that was part of 21 missions that were built along a popular route along California’s El Camino Real.
We waited in the vans until the park ranger arrived to allow us onto the State Park. I was in the back seat of the van, preparing the audio gear, the others were carrying on talking about past locations and how dreadfully pedestrian their humble lives as TV celebrities had gotten. I felt like it was all a show for the new guy. They were crass, foul and quite disrespectful.

My first duty once we got to the set was to “hide behind the van, so that we don’t see you in this still picture” Hmm. OK, got it. His is going to be a long day.

I was tasked with placing microphones on the lead guy and a local mission worker who was to be interviewed. But before that, they decided to take some more personal pictures for their website. I was quickly relegated to the set still photographer. “Eighteen years owning a production company, and I’m taking brag pictures for three narcissists” I thought to myself.

Once they decided to finally start shooting they asked me to leave the immediate set, just in case I accidentally got into the shot, because apparently they like the swing the camera’s around all crazy, and I might not be able to duck in time. OK. Strange, but fine.

I stood over by the van, which luckily had a bag of junk food and snacks. I prepped the gear more, and re-wrapped some cables, and got things in order, so that I’d be ready to go when thing’s got going. Little did I know that things were going, and that was to be my day. I basically stood there most the day waiting for a mic battery to die. I was called on to move a bench, and keep the public out of a shot.

I learned through observation and complete lack of activity on my part, that the three basically made the show up as they went along. A basic script was written in advance by someone (I don’t’ know who) and then during the day they would interview people that had apparently witnessed unusual anomalies at the mission and then at night they would do some sort of “lock-down” where they would tempt the ghosts to come and make their presence known.

I never did determine whether or not the three really thought that there were real ghosts, or if they were all just playing the part to create a compelling show. I suspect they were true believers.

The level of un-organization was insane. The poor coordinating producer worked very hard to fulfill the fleeting whims of the director, who frequently changed his mind, and was clearly inexperienced with directing.

My name on set was “Hey Audio Guy” a name that I apparently shared with Carl from the day before. It’s not like it was a huge crew, maybe they could have remembered my name, too much to ask, probably.

Now before I continue to bag on these guys I have to give them credit, they have a show on a decent cable network, they managed to deliver a full season and were working on episodes of their second season. They had traveled around the country and even out of the US to shoot their show.

I know what it takes to keep a TV series going. I don’t however, know how to fabricate stories in order to make a TV show. I have always worked at uncovering the real life stories in our shows.

In the interest of professional courtesy, I won’t go into the details of the content or the subjects. But the whole show, from my narrow experience, had a very contrived and fake feel to it. They pretty much made things up on the spot that loosely had some connection to stories that were recounted to them.

Their lack of professional experience was evident, but they seemed competent enough to at least get enough footage to get a show put together. I guessed the B-roll crew earned their weight many times over providing much needed footage that would help the story editors tell an interesting story.

I have yet to watch an episode of this show, and I’m interested to see how their personalities come across on camera. They were not all that likable on the set, and certainly didn’t have the desire to befriend a new crew-person for a day, which is understandable, but a bit disheartening.

Thankfully I had my IiPhone and I could follow the heroic events of the US airways flight while I sat and ate snacks by the van. I made a few phone calls and managed to get some emails done. I prepared a bit for my Skeptologist meetings in Beverly Hills Friday.

I absolutely hate being underutilized, and I HATE sitting and not being able to do anything. I still had to drive to LA that night as well.

When the crew decided to hike up a 1.5 mile hill to take a shot of the mission from the top, I decided that was my cue to talk to the director and ask to be dismissed. After 8 hours, I had replaced exactly five 9-volt batteries, put a microphone on three people, cut a piece of velcro and taken some pictures.

They decided that they wouldn’t need me anymore, so I grabbed my gear and got out of there.

From my perspective there was nothing that could have been considered a paranormal sighting of any kind experienced by the team. I’m willing to bet money that when the show airs, there is going to be all kinds of strange things happening.

It was a long and boring day. But I made a few bucks and got to enjoy the grounds of La Purisima Mission and relax a bit. Something that I don’t have much of a chance to do these days.

All in all, the show was assembled by three very young guys that were on some personal adventure to find things where nothing existed, supported by other crew who were tasked with making sure that the delivery requirements of the network were fulfilled.

Best of luck guys. Its’ a good thing the the vast viewing public likes to be hoodwinked and placated by badly contrived fake ghost stories, cause it’s a hell of a lot easier to produce those kinds of shows then it is real, intelligent and honest TV programming like the The Skeptologists are. I could make one of those ghost shows in my sleep. I just couldn’t live with myself during the day.

Next time someone asks if I can provide production support for a paranormal show, I’ll consider whether to take the job solely on the cash and not the curiosity!