Season 2 Planning: A Team Effort

It all begins this week! The characters, plots, twists, and themes for "Ghost Sniffers" Season 2 are being planned at last. I feel a great joy that the students of the Forge It! Workshop are helping me chart out the new season. The task seems much less overwhelming and the knowledge that there may be other writers for Season 2? Wow! What fresh ideas and voices will they bring to the series? I can barely wait to find out.

At first, I was sad that the larger attendance for the workshop meant that we couldn't host it in the office space at 7419. Shifting to an online version (for about half the price) is more work for me... but is turning out to be incredible. I've been previewing the classes with two of our adult students and the feedback has been amazing. This week the classes will be accessible to all the students and then, to end the week, we have a live, online chat session where everyone gets to meet, share ideas and bounce around crazy concepts.

"Ghost Sniffers" will benefit from all this incredible creativity... thank you, students! The fate of Forge, Spark, Maxo, Maximilian, and all the of the other characters roughed out for Season 2 are in the hands of the wild, silly, smart and creative creatures in the workshop.

Let's shake things up! (And it's never too late to join, ladies and gents -- read more here!)

Mirror Sound Studio Donates Space!

Our sincere and amazed thanks to the incredible team at Mirror Sound Studio who just tonight donated time for us to shoot a make-believe recording session in their incredible studios for the "Ghost Sniffers" music video. We know how valuable recording space is and it means so much to the cast and crew to be able to make the music video the best "episode" we've ever shot.

Thank you, Mirror Sound. You're helping to make dreams come true.

Rock On, Sniffers!

The fireworks are still flashing behind my eye lids but I had to share this amazing news with all you sniffers :D

Christopher Harris, who gamely played GI Handsome, Jack Chickadee, the Lord of Light, AND Dean Earnest in Season 1, has stepped in to be the First-Look Producer for the "Ghost Sniffers" music video!!

The music video will serve as the trailer for Season 2 and will feature the original song, "Wish Maker," that will become the theme music that runs during the start of each episode in Season 2.

Do you sing? Do you rap? Can you bust a move? Email blueforgeproductions@gmail.com (NOT ghostsniffers@gmail.com!) to join the cast for the music video!

100 Likes = $$$ ?!

Happy Fourth, everyone ;) Episode 7 is posted and free to everyone... because this is, after all, a free country :D

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I got a text today from a friend who is always issuing me challenges. Most of them are silly but I always take them :-} Today, she wrote:

"When you get 100 Likes on the GS website, 100 Likes on GS FB page, and 100 Likes on BFP FB  page, I'll donate $100 to ep of your choice. Go!"

Hm... 100 people to click the little "Like" button at www.GhostSniffers.com? We already have 94!

100 people to click the little "Like" at the "Ghost Sniffers" page on Facebook? We already have 60!

100 people to click the little "Like" at the Blue Forge Productions page on Facebook? We already have 23 in just the first few days of the site being up!

So... my text back to my buddy?

"You're on!"

And Then... Something Happened

As the students taking the Forge It! workshop know, good stories aren't made by good writers. Or good actors. Or even a good director and crew. As a matter of fact, not a million dollars in equipment in or a whole army of friends willing to help out will guarantee "good story, well told." 

It takes all of those things.

You need passionate actors. You need a dedicated writer. You need crew willing to stay in post production when they should be in bed. You need a vision. You need images that speak where words don't. You need clarity. You need friendship.

And you also need music.

When Brianne showed me the first cut of Episode 7, I thought (very quietly) to myself, "Oh... I'm not very good at writing these investigation-style episodes. This didn't turn out very well. Darn it." But I found the little things that made me smile about the episode and I approved the cut. Brianne finished up the couple of changes I requested and we all turn in at about 4:30 in the morning.

Then today (well, Tuesday), the second cut of the episode came to me. Note how I don't call this the final cut. It never is. Because I tweak. Brianne has taught me just enough about how to edit in the program we use for me to know what we can and can't accomplish... even if it's difficult. It was my job to take the episode by myself today and watch it very slowly, composing or securing the music that would create the soundtrack.

And that's when the episode finally came together for me.

Suddenly, the little eyes watching the camera worked. Suddenly, the quirky characters and ominous angles were perfect. The pieces were there all along... they just needed a little glue to bind them all together and the music was the glue. It was such a wonder to watch the scenes come together. To bolster the emotional moments. To set the tone for every section. Beat became triumphant. Wiz became punk. Captain became goth and All-Star and Twink became epic. Harley, Cosmo and Reeve coalesced as a group, as friend. And Eve? Well, Eve became exactly what I needed her to become -- new little hero in the "Ghost Sniffers" world.

Because all of the kids and adults who acted in Episode 7 had given me their best performances. They trusted me and laid their offerings on the table. Sometimes, those gifts are enough for me to see the final vision of the episode but with Episode 7 -- a complex and challenging episode that played with new conventions and a dual timeline -- we had to live up to the trust placed in us and take all the raw materials that final big step. Brianne did cuts and fades and tweaks in timing -- more than ever before. Remember, we didn't have our new fancy equipment until AFTER we shot Episode 12! And I poured my heart and soul into crafting a soundtrack that spotlighted each of the actors to the very best of my ability.

Is the episode silly? Yes. Is it serious? Yes. Is it... epic? You know what... I think it is :)

Quietly, in my mind, I thought this episode wouldn't be my favorite. But now? We all worked together and made something incredible. Something sincere. And Bridget? You might want to have that box of Kleenex near by... because I lost it for the whole last ten minutes :}

Christopher, Jocelyn, Emma, Emerson, Tressa, Sierra, Caitlin, Sarah, Kyra, Coleman, Hannah... and Maxwell and Faith... thank you for giving me your all for Episode 7. I promise you, I have done the same.

Episode 7... Countdown!

Brianne, who has been the quiet (and often unsung) hero behind the editing of every episode in the series, completed the editing of Episode 7 at 4:30am last night (this morning?). On of the hard parts for an editor (I can only imagine) is that you work very, very long hours on a project and then, before anyone else gets to see it, you have to show it to the director.

And the director tells you to change everything.

Well, actually, I never tell Brianne to change everything... but there are certain things that I look for that have to be changed and the changes are never, ever easy ones. In Episode 7, I was working with several actors who had never been in front of a camera before and we had two premium locations (South Kitsap High School and ArtsWest) but for very limited amounts of time. Though most of our shots for the episode wound up taking three to six takes, sometimes the final take still wasn't perfect. Tricky takes went like this:

Recorded speaking from behind the camera, Jennifer says: "Okay everyone! Speak slowly. Stay in character until I say 'cut.' And never, ever look at the camera." Lots of nods.

And then we have six takes of little eyes looking directly at the camera :D

I find humor in this because also recorded before and after these takes is laughter and chitchat and everyone having a lot of fun. "Ghost Sniffers" doesn't pretend to be a glossy, serious show with an entire cast of professional actors. Yes, we have some amazing actors who have done years of school and many films and shows. And yes, we have some individuals who have never acted before but who clearly have a natural talent and poise. But we also have kids cast because they have a passion for empowering other kids and that passion is something that CAN'T be faked and DOES look great on camera.

The episode is a stand-alone episode in many ways -- a classic investigation cut with scenes of Forge hanging out with her friends at CPAC, an acting club she founded and belongs to. The episode has some of my favorite vignettes (vignettes are little scenes that stand alone) of the entire series. Without spoiling anything, I'll just name a few keywords that you'll all understand once you see the episode -- spork, limo, hair blowing, and creepy.

The other incredibly cool thing about Episode 7 is that there's one timeline (the acting club) and there's Forge remembering an investigation in the past. The investigation is shot in selective color so the whole thing is black and white except for shades of red (which is the episode's special color). It was strange and wonderful to shoot that way and it made from some strange and wonderful shots :)

You know, I'm so proud of what we've all accomplished. I wouldn't recast a single person or redo a single episode (even all these episodes before we got our boom mic) because the REALNESS of what we're doing, and who we all are, just shines brighter than everything else. When I work on other Blue Forge Productions projects -- projects where I get a million takes to secure the perfect shot and where I'm working only with fancy actors who demand perfection in everything they do and from everyone around them -- I will miss the silliness and the laughter and the gentle hearts that have made, and continue to make, "Ghost Sniffers" the sincere show that it is.

The cast of "Ghost Sniffers" -- all of you -- have made me fall in love with film. Thank you :)

Now... I better hurry off to score the episode before Brianne comes home from her (real, paying) job and yells at me for not having the episode ready to post! Okay, she never really yells... but she looks at me with squinty-mean eyes and that's even worse ;)

Season 2 and the Music Video

Hey! It's Season 2! How cool is that? :)

The casting for Season 2 has began but won't be complete until late in July. So far, called back for the season are:

Faith Aoibhinn DiMarco as Faith Forge
Maxwell Kier DiMarco as Maxo and Maximilian Forge
Kristie Gronberg as Sirius Spark
Kyra Boatwright-frost as Xrya

Remember that Season 2 is a very different format than Season 1. Faith wants less to do and that means that everyone else will have way more to do! The show will no longer be the "Forge Show" but a true ensemble. With that in mind, I'll be casting four to six more ensemble members who will each appear in four of the twelve episodes. These are epic quest episodes and the silly dream episodes, so there's lots of room to stretch as an actor.

Though I originally wanted to cast only Season 2 actors in the music video, I have decided to open that door wider because Season 2 simply doesn't need as many actors as Season 1 did. I think more actors in the music video would be a lot of fun and I think viewers of Season 1 will enjoy seeing faces that they know. So... Season 1 and Season 2 actors can join the fun when we shoot the music video! Remember, if you're interested, email blueforgeproductions@gmail.com