Ghost Image at Dwarf Road

One of the strangest things that happened during production on “Albino Farm” was the appearance of a ghost image during an editing session where two shots were combined to create the illusion that actor Paul Ford (Old Dwarf) is nearly run over by an SUV on a rural road.  During the process of working with digital special effects mattes, a darkened but distinctive image of a face with sunken eyes can be seen hovering over Paul’s back as his character is kneeling down in the road.

To date, there has been no technical explanation as to how this image came about. Whether a coincidental case of shadows and artifacts or a captured image of an actual ghost, the undeniably freaky nature of it is quite unsettling.

What others have said:

The producers showed the image to several friends and crew members.  Two of which are from Missouri, live near the filming site and speculated that it could be a fallen Civil War soldier or a miner from the same era.  Another explanation came from a spiritual leader in Los Angeles who commented that remnants of a person’s soul may not be an anomaly – they are actually represented by the image embedded in the video signal during filming.

Facts regarding the filming of the scene:

The scene was shot with one of two Sony CineAlta F-900 High Definition digital video cameras owned by Los Angeles-based cinematographer Rene Jung.  The camera was placed directly on the road, low to the ground and with the Zeiss DigiZoom lens set on full telephoto, the foreground and background appear compressed and give the illusion that everything in the shot looks much closer in relationship to each other.  In other words, Paul’s body appears much closer to the SUV as it comes roaring over the hill.  Though a simple “in-camera trick” it still required two separate takes of the same shot – one with Paul in the road and a separate one with the SUV coming over the hill.  For safety sake, Paul could not actually be in the road when the SUV passes by at a high rate of speed.

To prepare for Paul’s shot, he was put in position on the road and precision driver Tom Graveman slowly inched the SUV up to the exact point where he needed to swerve and a placement mark was made for Paul.  Paul was then taken out of the road and Tom did a few practice runs at half speed so that Rene` and the directors could further determine the effect of the shot. Because there was no wind blowing through the trees or other movement in the shot, everyone knew the layering of the two shots in post-production would be fairly simple.

Actual shooting commenced when Paul Ford was placed back on the road in full wardrobe and Tom Graveman was standing by up the road ready to make his run.  With the camera fully locked-off (not able to move) Rene turned the camera on and “action” was called for Paul to do his bit-of-business in the road.  After thirty seconds, “cut” was called on Paul and the crew rushed in to take him away from to safety.  The camera was still rolling and a second “action” was called for Tom Gravemen to come barreling over the crest of the hill and hit the mark where Paul was previously placed.  Tom did so, locked the brakes up and swerved away amid plumes of tire smoke.  After that, Rene, along with the directors and producer, rolled the tape back in the camera and viewed both takes so that everyone was satisfied that the two elements would indeed be able to create a composite effect.

Once the project was in post-production back in Los Angeles, an assistant editor digitized the original HDCAM source tapes into Apple’s Final Cut Pro system.  Using various effects tools, the senior editor brought both shots of the SUV and Paul into a position to layer them together for the final effect that shows the near-miss.  It was during this process that the editor discovered the ghost image while using a “difference matte” to clean up some garbage between both shots.  He was perplexed by the image so he checked the original HDCAM source tapes frame by frame and there was no image on any of the shots. Those tapes were brand new so no other image could be on them anyway.  At that point it became technically unexplainable.

The following is an email from the assistant editor to his friends:

“About three nights ago we were working on a compositing shot and we were trying
to remove some garbage with a difference matte.  In the middle of this process 
we saw the image (attached to this email).  I assure you that no Photoshop work 
has been done, and this is with a difference matte between a locked-down shot
 with a dwarf and the same locked-down shot without that person.  What you’re seeing is a degraded image of the original, and I have no idea why this 
happened.
  
We shot with a Sony CineAlta F900 at 1080p 23.98fps on brand new Sony HDCAM
tapes and compressed to DV for an offline edit.  

Let me know what you think, it freaks me out every time I look at it.”

Actual Film Location:

The filming site is located north of Warrensburg, MO east of Hazel Hill Community Lake on NW 575th Rd, just before cresting the hill and coming toward NW 201st Rd heading north.  The camera angle was taken west to east toward the hill.  To the left is an open field and to the right is a wooded area that is fenced with barbed wire.  Visit the following URL for Wikimapia.com to find the aerial view of the location marked by the filmmakers. http://www.wikimapia.org/#lat=38.8431129&lon=-93.7749195&z=18&l=0&m=a&v=2

Further Research and Exploration:

One of the movie’s crewmembers, make-up artist Colleen May, happens to be a partner in a web site called Show Me Ghosts West (www.showmeghostswest.com) and will have her group do further research, explore the actual site and list their findings on their web site.  More inquiries are welcome.