One hundred shots. No exaggeration. No boasting. Just the truth. And what a wonderful truth that is. Episode 3 is finally a wrap -- or as we say on the "Ghost Sniffers" team: The shots for Episode 3 are secured.
Today finished Episode 3 after all its freezing weather, rain storms, insane wind and sleet. After the hikes in, the hikes around, the hikes out. After the four hours of travel round trip. After twice the length of an average shoot -- what seems like a lifetime spent shooting Episode 3.
We had 99 shots scheduled for today. One of them had to be cancelled when the bloody hand print prop stuck to a plaster wall and crumbled into an unusable mass. Then two more shots were added to the script to tie sequences together that we decided to shoot at different locations for variety, better natural lighting, and shelter of the wind :) Wait, actually, the final count was 102 shots because we (opportunistically) took two extra shots for Episode 12 (yep, we schedule that far ahead!).
There were five hours shooting in total. And today? Eighty percent of the shots were captured in a single take. When you all see Episode 3, pay close attention to Sergeant Adalwulf -- David S. Hogan did the vast majority of his shots with one take; Faith and Brianne must have picked up his mojo because they were better than ever. As a matter of fact, we all nicknamed David our good luck charm -- even when the sky opened up with a persistent drizzle in the last thirty minutes. The script pages wound up wet and limp fabric sheets, highlighter marks bleeding like watercolors across the lines of black text. It was kinda beautiful, really.
Or maybe, watching my family stand out there (David is my brother-in-law), on that old gun battery overlooking the slate blue waves, delivering the last lines that I wrote, acting out the last scene which is funny and touching all rolled into one, maybe that's what was truly beautiful. Yeah, we're just a little homegrown production, but geez to we have our hearts in it.
When disabilities become super abilities, young heroes prove what's real and what's ridiculous. Visit our website at tinyurl.com/ghostsniffers or join us on Facebook at tinyurl.com/ghostsniffersFB
