You know how I’ve been writing about Ghost TV shows lately? (Ghost TV Shows: Good for Paranormal Tourism, Bad for Paranormal Research, A Few More Thoughts About Ghost TV Shows, and The NY Times Takes on Ghost TV Shows)
Well, Loyd Auerbach, who I actually consulted regarding my “Haunted or Hype?” series, gave a couple of them a read and sent me his thoughts. Specifically, this comment sparked my muse’s fire:
I’ve been doing TV since the early ’80s, and while there never seem to be the resources for the single segments I’ve done that have aired to pay for several days shooting, we have often had phenomena happen. But the unfortunate reality of even that is that so much happens off camera and even to the production crew on camera that is never even referenced (let alone shown). There are reasons for the former that sort of make sense (depends totally on the credibility of the witnesses) and for the latter, the stupid reason given is usually that the producers don’t want the crew on air, “it will look like we’re faking things” or “we’re trying to be objective.” Then they moan that they got nothing they can show, and “fix” the show in editing (so it often looks like they’re faking things!?!)
I got to thinking that this was a very interesting take –not to mention one I hadn’t covered. I had referenced sources bagging on the ghost TV shows, but there is another side to it all. The technical part of the equation. The “making of” factor, if you will.
And, inspired by Javier Ortega’s blogging over at Ghost Theory (he’s very good about, not to mention a huge proponent of, fair coverage), I realized I wasn’t doing that. I was only presenting one side. And being pretty critical of it in the process. I don’t know anything about making a TV show. Perhaps there are factors I’m missing.
So I set out on a quest to find sources to help set me straight and present the issues the other side faces, from the point of view of the producers and crew.
Over the next several days I’ll be talking with:
- Loyd Auerbach (Again for sure! He’s a wealth of info and is just so generous answering any and all of my questions.)
- Chris Hambright, producer of Believers, in Chris’s words, a relatively new TV show. (You can check out video of the Birdcage Theater investigation on their YouTube channel here.)
- A lady who worked on Most Haunted crew’s for a week when they did the live seven hour shoot at Eastern State Penitentiary.
- Michael Dione, founder of Full Spectrum Ghost Hunters and producer of the Celebrity Paranormal Experience
- Brooke Haramija, case manager for SCARED!, one of the original groups to launch the Paranormal Television Network.
Not only do they all have some really amazing perspectives they’ve already shared with me, they’re all passionate about the paranormal first and foremost! I think it’s going to turn out to be an excellent set of articles once I get my research done. I hope you’ll enjoy reading them as much as I’m going to enjoy working on them!
Courtney Mroch is a globe-trotting restless spirit who’s both possessed by wanderlust and the spirit of adventure, and obsessed with true crime, horror, the paranormal, and weird days. Perhaps it has something to do with her genes? She is related to occult royalty, after all. Marie Laveau, the famous Voodoo practitioner of New Orleans, is one of her ancestors. (Yes, really! As explained here.) That could also explain her infatuation with skeletons.
Speaking of mystical, to learn how Courtney channeled her battle with cancer to conjure up this site, check out HJ’s Origin Story.
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Great resources-thanks for sharing them. When I was a little kid, the NBC crew came to do a 2-hour special on the ghosts at Aspen Grove where I grew up. Their truck battery died at the creek and they had to walk the equipment up to the house. When the crew was in the kitchen, the mirror on the wall started swinging back and forth. One guy’s tea cup broke for from the handle and fell to the floor. The wallpaper peeled on the walls as they walked up the stairs. It was quite a time for the poor crew. None of it was documented but the crew sure was shaken up. Decades later, the lady living there had the crew from “If Walls Could Talk” there and one of the crew was holding a tea cup and–it broke off from the handle and dropped to the ground. That’s something that often happened to guests in our home. Very weird phenomenon. Can’t explain that one. It’s true that a lot goes on no one ever documents and a lot is on the editing room floor. When I was a kid and taping the footsteps on the stairs one night to prove my home’s ghosts to school friends, the sounds came out, but without the context of feeling the step I was sitting on bow, the hairs standing on end and chill, the musty smell, and the feeling of being watched, it’s not very scary. That’s why ghost hunting shows have a hard time of it. We like to see people scream and jump but the actual evidence isn’t that scary when we’re in our living room squinting at a nightvision view of their world.
What an AWESOME comment! You give so much in your comments, you know that? It’s like reading an apendage to my blogs have the time. I love it. I love all the details you share. And insights. That’s really wise of you. (Esp referring to the last part of your comment.) It’s like when I tell people about some of the experiences I’ve had…at the time they were weird to me. (The weirdest was the Shilo Inn experience. I had no idea children had died there beforehand, and to wake up thinking children were giggling in the drawers…then to find out what happened there…CRAZY! In my case it makes for a GREAT story…but I have no evidence to back it up!)