My ride-along with the Ghost Hunters

Keith McDuffee/CliqueClack

Other thoughts and tidbits

There are more than a few things I learned from the ride-along that didn’t really fit into what I wrote above, but I definitely didn’t want to miss out on mentioning them.

At one point in the night I asked Steve if he kept in touch with ex-Ghost Hunter, Brian Harnois. Steve looked me dead in the eyes and said something that rhymes with “ate his butts.” I promised I wouldn’t go into details behind it, but his frankness took me by surprise.

Regarding what I said earlier about “playing games:” I asked one of the GH team about “looking natural” on TV and how, in earlier seasons, the whole “drama” aspect threw me off and almost made me not want to watch anymore. Steve told me that was pretty much all Brian’s doing, but yeah, there’s really none of that these days. Now, I could be way off base here, but what happened within the next 15 minutes or so made me skeptical.

Here’s what happened. To tune the filming and investigation to present itself better for TV, the scenes with Jason and Grant talking to the crew as they stand around the van are mostly staged and arranged. At one point Jason very audibly took issue with some of this, with me clearly within earshot, saying, “This is supposed to be a serious investigation,” (or something to that effect) and that there’s only so much of the setup he could take that wasn’t authentic.

It appeared, to me, that Jason put on a little show for me. I seriously didn’t think they were going overboard with their staged setups and can only imagine they do this for every single show. So why would Jason voice his displeasure now, in front of me? Hey, if he really feels that way, good for him. But I didn’t quite buy it.

Here’s something I didn’t know about the Ghost Hunters we see on TV: they don’t do any investigations outside of what makes it to air. They do have an offshoot team who help families in need, those who don’t want to be on television. But Jason, Grant and the others don’t do anything other than those on the show.

Also, Jason and Grant have the final say in what destinations they’ll head to. They get a list of potential spots, and then they’ll pick where they’ll be spending the next trip (or, at least, one of the next trips). Jason and Grant also both say they still really do plumbing for Roto-Rooter and that it’s not just a put-on for the show (though them sitting there fixing pipes while a call comes in … well, you know.)

I think most of the GH team was in agreement, that Steve Gonsalves is probably the most dedicated and professional in the team. The investigations sometimes wrap early, like we did in the second night, though if it were up to Steve, it’d go through until the sun rose.

Speaking of the sun rising, I did ask why they find they have to do these investigations at night, sometimes in the pitch dark. I mean, many of these reports came from people who witnessed the happenings in the daytime, right? Their answer was just that activity seems to go up at night, plus it’s easier to get into buildings without people and extraneous sounds to distract them. Makes sense to me.

I finally asked Jason and Grant something I’d wanted to know for a while. When doing recordings, why not use a device that plays back what’s recorded with, say, one second of delay, therefore getting the same effect as recording and playing back later. They told me that they had such a device and I believe it was going to be used for the first time during this investigation. They also use nearly every piece of equipment in every investigation, but we don’t necessarily see them all in use when the show airs. I mean, think about it — this is something like 10-12 hours of footage condensed into one hour!

Remember when we see Steve and Tango (and sometimes others) going over all of the footage and recordings during “The Analysis?” Well, they really do go over all of the footage in real-time, not fast-forwarding or speeding up any of it. It takes them several days to go over it all. And, no surprise, what you see on TV isn’t necessarily how it really goes down.

Regarding the Ghost Hunters name: Jason hated it. I believe he said he fought to have it changed, but lost out in the end. Think about it — this team isn’t out to seek out or “hunt” ghosts; they’re there to ease the minds of those being affected by getting to the bottom of what’s really going on in these buildings. What names Jason had in mind, I wish I asked.

Lastly, I had to ask Jason about the Moss Beach Distillery episode. I told Jason that I thought he must have retrained himself quite a bit, and he told me he definitely did. He mentioned to Grant that he wasn’t sure he could do any of the reveal portion of the show, as he wanted to wring the guy’s neck. He also told me that the guy who gave them the tour in the episode told them that the owner specifically told him not to tell the Ghost Hunters about the gags rigged in the restaurant and bar.

Finally….

All in all, it was a blast to see this all go down. The only thing better would have been to be right with one of the teams during the investigation. Without being a credited member of the cast or some sort of guest star, I’m not sure how that would’ve been possible. Hey, maybe next time, right?

I really want to thank the entire Ghost Hunters crew for allowing me to intrude upon their setup for two nights. Everyone was incredibly accommodating, professional and just downright nice to me. I especially want to thank Maureen of Sci Fi for putting up with my requests for this ride-along for over a year now, then traveling out from New York to spend two nights in the bitter cold with us.

As for when this episode airs on Sci Fi, I’m told it’s the season four finale episode and won’t air until December 10. Maybe I’ll do a liveblog here during the episode and pop up more tidbits as they come to mind.

Make sure you tune into Ghost Hunters during their live Halloween special this Friday night starting at 7 PM ET, where they’ll be heading out to Fort Delaware again. Maureen says she’ll be there, so I only hope she takes a coat this time.

Clacked by Keith McDuffee
on Oct 29, 2008 @ 12:00 EST5EDT