The lines between truth and
representation of character and
storytelling aspects were constantly
wrestled throughout the film.
So my name is Ben Lawrence
I'm the director of the documentary Ghosthunter
and the film deals with adult survivors
of childhood trauma.
It also deals with the paranormal and
spiritual investigators out there within
our community and it's all seen through
one character. It's an investigation to
really uncover what happened during his childhood.
This is one of the cameras I use to take photos.
K2 Meter, when you want to communicate to the spirits.
'It made a noise'. Anywhere that people
think that might be haunted me and Tim
will go and check it out. The first ghost I
ever saw was my brother's.
He was killed in a car accident.
I never knew I had a brother until I was 18.
The role of a filmmaker in
documentaries can often be seen as
a journalistic role and I was always very
clear that I wanted to be a storyteller
and not a journalist. I knew that it
would be a challenging material to watch
so I wanted at the forefront [for it] to be a
really rich story, so we took from the
mystery genre, we took aspects from the
thriller genre and we framed the story
within that structure and within those
techniques and that gave the audience an
opportunity to experience something they
might not otherwise engage with.
So in making Ghosthunter I used a variety of
styles. The two predominant ones were a
very cinematic locked-off wide shot of
the main character at work as a security
guard, so they allowed the audience I
guess to create some intrigue, a lot of
tension. There was a lot of screen time
in one single camera set up, which was
great for a documentary that had to move
pretty quickly. And then the other style
was observational documentary, which is
really the time that I'd spent with
Jason by myself, which was about five
years. So that was just me doing camera
and sound on an a7 and we would go ghost
hunting, I would go and spend time at his house
and I guess they were the more
emotional parts of the film, they were
the times when Jason was responding in
real time to events
as they unfolded. So those two styles
then, when put together, I think it
creates a journey that seems
unpredictable but also I guess cinematic
and intriguing. When you're filming and
something is unfolding it's quite an
amazing experience in that you've spent
years or months or weeks leading up to
that moment, where you're capturing
something that's either being scheduled
or is happening in front of you that you
may have anticipated and from a
filmmaking point of view, particularly in
my situation where it was just me with
a camera and you're doing sound and
picture and you're trying to keep all those
technical aspects going seamlessly while
you're still present with the person
because they're going through something
either emotional or challenging.
I can only equate it to playing an
instrument when you're trying to put all
your training into a moment, keep the
technical things going while remaining
present for another person. The way in
which that I tried to keep up with the
story was just trying to record
everything so every time something would
happen we'd record either a pre or
post interview. We try and film as much
as we could. I was recording telephone
conversations all along the way, trying
to document everything. That just put me
in the best possible position to then
have as many choices in the edit. And
that was partly due to just the best
procedure for me but also the
unpredictability of the story. I didn't
know where it was gonna go.
And what do you remember about coming in here?
Mum and Dad cooking in here, running the restaurant.
And yeah, wasn't allowed up here much.
I was, I was never allowed to go anywhere.
Just come in, get and go back out.
They said you can't go upstairs you can't do nothing.
So the decision for me to be actually on
camera came very late in the process.
It was during the edit because the story
was still unfolding and what was
happening in the background was
I was getting a lot of telephone calls about
Jason and other elements of the story
from people who were unwilling or unable
or uncomfortable with appearing on
camera themselves so to reflect that
information it became a practical
storytelling aspect that I step in and
become part of the film. So when that
decision was made, we really needed to sew
in my journey through the film. It was
part respecting the subjects and the
characters within the film, their journey
and what they were disclosing because it
was stories and secrets they'd kept in
themselves for over twenty, thirty years.
So do you remember when we first met?
It was 2010.
That person you presented to me, who was that?
A fake person because I was just, I was trying
to fight myself. I wanted to be that Jason.
My hope is that audiences firstly go and see it
and that they see it for a great story and as the
best documentaries can be, that nothing
is what it seems and that was certainly
my experience of making the film, that
everything I imagined the film was going
to be, it was something else entirely.
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