The Specter Files ep.1 (pt1): An Adventure in Mammoth Cave Begins
Alright Lucy, since you are too scared to watch their show. (Which doesn’t make any sense. I mean, you were there for all of this. how can you be scared of a ghost show after you lived it?)
Anyway.
Since you are too scared to watch their show, I’ll do my best to transcribe it for you once again. (This is good reporter practice anyway.)
The first scene of the new show opens on a wide camera angle. The Specter Mobile is parked on the side of the road. The entire team, including the newcomer Samantha, is spread out around the custom van. Cody and Clancy are standing next to the side door, sorting through audio and ghost hunting equipment. Over the low tones of the spooky Specter Detector theme song, (now with a filled out instrumental accompaniment,) you can hear them calling back and forth.
“Mics?”
“Check. Spirit box?”
“Check. If the mics are in that bag, then how about we put the Spook Detector in this one?” The two passed various pieces of equipment back and forth. While the camera zoomed out to catch Samantha approaching.
“Is it common practice to stuff your gear into bags like that?” She asked. “Have you ever considered sorting it by order of importance? Audio gear first, detection tools second, protective tools in a separate emergency pocket?”
“Protective tools?” The voice behind the camera speaks.
“Holy water, blessed mirrors, banishing crystals?” Samantha shrugs. She is the only one who isn’t wearing a Specter Detector T-shirt. “There’s a world of possibilities, and as my old team used to say: ‘the key to a good charm is that you believe it’s going to work.” She smiles directly into the camera, but then frowns. “You’re not filming already, are you?”
“He is. And we didn’t bring any protective charms. We’re not trying to banish the ghosts.” A husky voice calls. And the Camera pans over to Klaus, who is wearing his signature shiny gray trench coat over his tee. “We’re trying to detect them.” He, too, looks directly into the camera, winking. “Keep all of this he tells the person behind the camera. It will add to our establishing shot. And what better for an establishing shot than this?” He asks while holding up a newspaper, trying to show off the image on front, but the shot is too blurry to make out. “You can’t start a good show without the with the headline.”
“Technically, I think that’s how all newspapers start.” Samantha replies, but the camera has already panned away, past the four near the vehicle, so that it could focus on another figure in the distance. Sheryl, her red hair dangling down her back, is also wearing a trench coat.
She was standing next to the van in the earlier wide shot, but now she has left it behind, and is walking across a small strip of pavement. She passes an old brown pickup pulled up so close to the narrow sidewalk that it was practically parked off-road. An empty bike rack sits in the bed of the truck. Next to it is a flashy red sports car. (I think it’s a Corvette, but I don’t pay attention to cars.)
Sheryl steps up to the large brown sign. The cameraman, Mark, takes several steps so that he can film her approach without the pickup blocking his line of sight. She reaches out, her hand gently brushing the top of the large wooden sign. Welcome to Mammoth Cave: a World Heritage Site. The music swells, and then suddenly, there is a cut.
I had to get my own picture to share, since the Specter Detectors are selling their best shot as merch in their shop. (I don’t know who that guy is. I kept him in for scale. Klaus, Cody, Clancy and Mark are taller. Sheryl and Sam would be shorter than him.)
The shot switches to a front shot, from behind the sign facing Carol. We can see her face as she flinches back from the sign, like it’s given her a static shock. “I feel something. This whole place is solemn, sad, like the land is asleep, but—” she winces “—there’s something deeper here, like someone is watching us, but not from the woods.” She holds out her hand gesturing to the hill behind her. “From beneath!”
The shot changes again, and the whole team, minus Mark, is arranged around the park sign. “I wish we could get a shot with more fall foliage.” Clancy remarks.
“There’s a better shot if we head to the other entrance, near Sand Cave.” Cody offers.
“No!” Klaus protests. “We’re leaving that entrance for later. If we need to shoot the opening again, we can do it again then.”
“Anyway,” Clancy rolls his eyes, leaning against the sign. “Sheryl, you want to read the intro?”
“Of course, babe.” Sheryl takes a brief break from her husky on camera voice to wink at her husband, but then she starts to narrate, “Hello Spectators. This is the moment you’ve been waiting for. Word on the winds is that strange, and spooky things have been happening in Mammoth Cave National Park, and we’ve come here to investigate. Already, I can feel the chill in the air.” As she speaks, a breeze picks up, tossing her hair. “Cut!” She calls. Then she begins to fix her hair. “Want to do that again?” She asks.
“No way!” Klaus replies. “Keep filming, Mark. That was perfect.” He chuckles. “It’s almost like a message.” He stares dead into the camera. “The walls of Mammoth Cave are bleeding. There are stories of shadows in the cave, and strange sounds on the wind at night. This park has a long history, full of danger and tragedy. Certainly, there have been spirits left behind. Come with us, Spectators, on our biggest investigation yet. Follow us into the depths of the caves, and watch as we record the haunted marvels of these now abandoned lands.”
The crew loads into the Spector Mobile. And the van, now the last car in the parking lot, pulls away. I guess they must have left Mark behind to film the Spector Mobile as it drives past the sign, because I don’t know how else they got the shot of the Specter Mobile headed into the park.
The Audio must have been recorded separately, or maybe it was recorded in post. (I doubt that though, because it doesn’t sound like the Specter Detectors at the end of our adventure of Mammoth Cave. Instead, they sound happy, excited, as thought they are still anticipating the mystery in front of them.)
“I can’t believe we got permission to film in the actual park. And we get our own, private ranger guide.” Klaus remarks. “At some point you’re going to have to share your connections Sam.”
“No.” Samantha replies calmly.
“Do you think that this will be the one?” Cody asks. “I have a good feeling about this. It seems like our biggest specter investigation yet. Even bigger than the hospital in New Orleans! The perfect way to launch our show.” (I can’t believe they left this all in, but Cody told me that they were going for a raw editing style.)
“Hopefully.” Klaus says. “I don’t have Sheryl’s intuition for this stuff, but I have a good feeling about this one. Something is happening in Mammoth Cave, and we are definitely going to figure it out!”
At this point the Spector Mobile has vanished down the hill which passes by Diamond Caverns. Their music, which I think was on repeat, (Unless there’s a 6 minute version that I don’t know about) dies out, and the camera fades to black, followed by their old internet intro, complete with the scream that I use to scare you sometimes.
And that is the start of the very first episode of their show! I can’t wait to see what happens. How are they going to talk about everything that happened? The blood? The ghost in Sand Cave? Melissa?” I cant wait to find out.
Anyway, I can only assume that they turned around then and came back to pick Mark up. What’s crazy is that I’ve checked the footage of this intro, and compared it against against the pictures Justin took of all of us. (not the costume pick from Halloween, the early one he doesn’t like to show off because he didn’t notice the coffee stain on his shirt.) It looks like they filmed it the same day we arrived in Mammoth Cave, just a few hours before we got there. What a crazy coincidence, right? We almost bumped into them even earlier!
I wonder if that would have changed anything. . .
Oh well.
That wasn’t scary right, Lucy?
You’ll watch the rest of the episode with me, won’t you?