Ghostwatch 1992 (Liveness)

In week one of our screenings, we were shown a TV programme called GhostWatch filmed in 1992. GhostWatch is a British reality-horror television programme, broadcasted on BBC1 on the night of Halloween in October 1992 in a news format. Even though Ghost Watch had been filmed 3 months before the actual broadcast date, the show was presented as ‘live’ TV broadcast. This show made a great impact to the horror genre as well as a big impact on the viewer’s lives of how believable it was. After watching this programme, I realized why so many people to thought that this show was broadcasted live and was real. Even though that it was scripted/staged, it had the audience going bad and forth between the show being real and fake. The audience has been easily manipulated to believing the show is real, because of the realism the show reflected with the use of celebrity presenters such as Sarah Greene, Mike Smith and Michael Parkinson.

“Direct address in television – presenters talk of ‘now’, & ‘today’ & say ‘good evening’ & ‘welcome’ as if they were speaking at the same moment of time as their audience was hearing & seeing them. They speak in the present tense. They also employ phrases like ‘stay with us’, ‘coming up later’ & ‘soon’.” – John Ellis on “Liveness” from his book ‘Seeing Things’.

The point where we saw the interview structure changing outside of the house, we could easily understand that they are messing around with the minds of the audience. At most times during the show, the uncertainty of what was going on may have got the audience scared. Every scene within the show is either interrupted by sounds,

glass smashing, sounds from the “pipes”, water running etc. Most elements of mise-en-scene was also used well through the show. The make up used for the scratches on Suzan’s face and the locations, looked real and believable to the audience. The phone calls that the phone calls the studio was receiving throughout the programme also made the show extremely believable to the audience.

However, I think that this show showed how easily the production crew can confuse the audience into thinking that this show is “live”.  I liked how they added the Spectator at the end of the show with the technical issues going on in the studio, which made the audience even more interested to the show making them want to watch more.