Exclusive Behind The Scenes Interview With The Producers of Ghostfacers

It’s a Winchester Family Business exclusive! Since we’ve been honoring Ghostfacers recently and their bid for an Emmy nomination, Ardeospina was able to get a list of her burning questions answered about this innovative web series. We are most honored to present some great answers from the core members of the production and creative team. The following questions have been answered by these members involved in Ghostfacers:
 


They are:
 
AJ Buckley (“Ed”, co-writer, co-director)
Travis Wester (“Harry”, co-writer, co-director)
Patrick J. Doody (producer, co-writer, co-director, editor)
Chris Valenziano (producer, co-writer, co-director)
Todd Aronauer (co-director, producer on Supernatural)
Drew Thomas (director of photography)
Niki Azevedo (production designer)
 
Question #1 
 
Were there any specific challenges you faced writing for the webisode format since you only had three or four minutes at a time to tell the story?
 
(Travis Wester & AJ Buckley)
 
At first we had no idea how we were going to be able to communicate a viable beginning, middle and end to the episodes but as we began breaking down the story we began to see how we could arc each individual component.  The challenge was in rethinking everything we knew about television and inventing a new pace and act structure.  Ultimately I think we turned the limitations into a solid foundation of up-tempo storytelling… without that challenge we might’ve spent more time on certain moments than was necessary.
 
(Patrick J. Doody)
 
One of the mandates from our executive at Wonderland, Jeff Grosvenor, was that each episode had to end with either a joke, a scare or a dramatic shift in the story – a cliffhanger.  So we had to work within those rules.
 
(Chris Valenziano)
 
There were MANY challenges facing writing for the webisode format.  I believe the most challenging was learning to edit ourselves.  We were tasked with scripting 3-minute webisodes, each with its own setup and payoff.  Three pages is a tiny amount of space to convey that much story, so we really had to be sure to cut anything that we didn’t absolutely need, while maintaining enough breathing room to allow the characters to develop.    
 
 
Question #2
 
Was all the dialogue scripted or was there room for a lot of improv?
                                         
(Todd Aronauer)
 
Being that Travis and AJ were two of the writers, often what I thought was improv they were pulling from bits that were in rough drafts of the scripts, but those guys are at their best when they improv.  There was some of that in the original Supernatural episode too.  All the Facers, even Mircea who was new to the group, worked great together and played off each other really well.  There’s a lot of great material that we had to cut because we often just kept the cameras rolling so they could go off script and go with the moment.
 
(Travis Wester)
 
The dialog was mostly scripted… there was some room for improv but our schedule prevented us from getting too loose or crazy.  Also, the format dictated we nail down certain plot elements so even if we had all the time in the world we would still be trimming it down to more or less the beats we designed in the writing room.  I had a whole bit walking up the stairs that I thought was quite amusing, for example, but we had to cut it for time.

 
 

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