Hometown Ghost Story
The ghost of a traveling Shakespearean actor supposedly slain at a local theater (and by theater, I mean stage and curtains, not projection screen) has been a long-standing local legend for over a century, but when 2002’s November sweeps month began the night before Halloween, old legends suddenly become viable series pieces! If you have footage. Which I didn’t. For various reasons, some good and some not, not a single frame of video was shot for this story until the night before it aired. I was too busy working on sweeps promos to go shoot anything myself - go figure! - so it became a bizarre exercise in doing the whole spot with graphics. I grabbed shots of a stage with curtains, a dagger, stage lights, a Greek drama mask and a skull, and with a little bit of finessing in Paint Shop Pro, somehow made it all work. I was particularly happy with the bits of actual Shakespeare text - which were relevant to the proceedings, no less! - scrolling by in the background. We hired out the voice work on this one, and I found a somewhat creepy music bed that helped to sell the whole mess - helped it a lot. It’s possible to promote a story with no video…it just isn’t easy.
