Spoiler alert: watch the above documentary before reading the essay below.
Check out the Aptera Blog for voiceover transcript.
Check out the Aptera Blog for voiceover transcript.
Everyone who works at
Aptera has a few traits in common. If you tell one of us we have to perform
some task, no matter how complicated, no matter how unfamiliar to us, we’ll
immediately start breaking it down and laying out all the steps we need to take, all
the resources we need to procure, and all the experts we need to involve. We
know intuitively that when people proclaim their ignorance or lack of expertise,
it’s seldom because they’re trying to help anyone plan more diligently or set
more realistic expectations; more often, it’s because they’re trying to dodge responsibility.
Complex projects have multiple moving parts, and no one can be an expert in
every aspect of them. So, if you’re not confident in a particular skill set,
you reach out to someone who is.
Another trait nearly
every Aptera employee shares, one that I saw demonstrated several times over
the course of filming our documentary, is an ability to give impromptu
presentations that sound perfectly clear and professional. This could be something
we develop in the myriad routine meetings we participate in where we take turns
filling everyone in on what projects we’re working on, how much progress we’ve
made, what obstacles we’re facing, and what the plan is for overcoming them. Alternatively,
it may be a skill each of us had to possess before making it through the
recruitment process.
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| Ron "Whitey" Leeuw |
Indeed, I was impressed
again and again when I showed up in my coworkers’ offices pointing a camera at
them to find that it wasn’t just project-related topics they could speak to
with such polished cogency. You can just as easily get articulate and
compelling answers by posing questions like, “What all have you heard about the
history of this building?” or “Has anything strange ever happened to you when
you were here after hours?”
So
nearly everyone here is process-oriented, team-minded, and impressively
eloquent. None of these traits precludes belief in, or enthusiasm for, the
paranormal, but it takes more than a decent ghost story or two to impress most
of us. Present us with a mystery, and we start laying out a plan for a
systematic investigation. Like every plan, though, the ones we Aptera people
come up with almost invariably run into a snag or two—or ten. The trouble we
run into stems not just from our readiness to take on unfamiliar kinds of
projects, no matter how formidably complex, but also from what I’d argue is an
excess of faith in the powers of technology.
The
Aptera Ghost Project began as a melding of two earlier project ideas. Back in
August, Raul Perez and I discussed collaborating on a Halloween story. Raul is
one of Aptera’s graphic designers, and he showed me an earlier ghost story he’d
lain out as a series of photographs posted online. The plan was for us to come
up with another story together; I’d provide the text and help with ideas for
staging the photos, and he would do the photography and edit the images.
Not
long after agreeing to the project with Raul, I had a conversation with James
Swihart, a recently hired project manager, about our favorite Twilight Zone episodes. James had
formerly been a DJ for 98.9 The Bear, and he told me he’d originally become
interested in radio because he loved Rod Serling’s voice. Shortly after the
conversation, he stopped by my office to propose we work together on a short
video homage to a classic Twilight Zone
episode. I loved the idea.
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| Raul, James, and Howdy looking for William White's grave |
I
try to write a scary story myself for Halloween every year, so now I was left
wondering how I could possibly find the time to work on three separate
projects. The idea I had, after a few further discussions with Raul and James,
was that we’d scrap the photo series and the Twilight Zone projects, along with my annual literary ghost story,
and instead collaborate on a documentary about all the ghost sightings we’d
heard about in the building where we work. Just like that, we were off and
running.
Originally,
we envisioned two basic parts to the video. First, we’d conduct a series of
interviews with all of our coworkers who’d experienced something strange in the
building. Next, we’d do some research on the building’s history to see who, if
anyone, might be haunting the place. James assured me he had plenty of
experience with video editing, and Raul showed me a brief documentary he’d put
together for a film editing class. I figured I would help with an outline and
maybe some phrasing for lines in individual scenes, but since I had no film
editing experience myself—and little skill with technology in general—I was
relying on my partners to make something of all the footage we ended up with.
None
of us realized what we were getting into. James had the idea of publishing
trailers on social media, complete with dates for the documentary’s release—giving
us a hard deadline. Our excitement kept being piqued all the while by new
discoveries about the building’s history. We were getting great material, and
we all looked forward to the final product of our efforts. Then, with the
deadline just two weeks away, we had a series of setbacks.
The
first disappoint was the ghost hunt we set up on October 16th. We
can’t really blame the team of amateur ghost hunters who volunteered their time
and energy to the undertaking. But the fact is we were less than impressed with
the tools the team had to work with. The cameras we already had on hand were
far better than the ones they brought. They had no night vision. Instead, they
relied mostly on flashlights and hand-held recording devices. Of course, Aptera
is a tech company, so they would’ve had to show up with some pretty cool gear
to impress us. But we also quickly grew impatient with the highly casual nature
of their approach, which consisted mainly of sitting around and calling out to
the dark.
After
an eventless night in the building, our enthusiasm waned significantly. Things
looked even bleaker after the ghost hunters informed us that their review of
the video and audio footage had turned up nothing. We still had all the history
we’d learned, but I’m pretty sure I wasn’t alone in thinking at this point that
we needed to come up with some ideas for rescuing the project. It was on the
weekend following the ghost hunt that I came up with what would become, after a
few discussions with James and Raul, the end sequence of the video which culminates
in me getting scared and running out of the building.
Our
excitement returned when we started editing our own footage from that night and
discovered the mysterious sounds we cover in the documentary. But we soon ran
into another major issue. Originally, we wanted the video to consist of
interviews and conversations, developing naturally and informally in a style
harking to The Blair Witch Project.
The historical material we’d amassed, however, was too complicated and too
copious to convey in this manner—at least in a video less than a couple of
hours long.
We
were already in our last week before the deadline when it became clear we
needed to overhaul our entire outline. Instead of relying on discussions and
interviews to relay all the important information, we would have to convey it
all through voiceovers. When I first signed on to the project, I imagined that,
given my areas of expertise, I’d play my part early on, in the research and
outlining stages. At some point, I expected to turn things over to the guys who
could use the editing technology.
As it turned out, though,
we were all three up to our elbows right to the last—and beyond. Though we were
able to show our coworkers the documentary on Friday the 30th as we’d
promised, we missed our deadline for going live online. I wrote most of the
voiceover copy on Wednesday and Thursday. And I was still providing lines as
late as Friday morning, while we all sat in Raul’s office until 3:30 am, sleep
being the main casualty of poor planning. We even had to shoot more footage
Thursday night.
I don’t think I was alone
in being both relieved and delighted after the company viewing in Aptera’s
basement. But our struggles weren’t quite over. There were still some issues we
needed to address before we broadcasted it online. And we still had to export
the file so it could be uploaded to YouTube. This ended up taking until late
Saturday night, by which point we were all at the end of our patience and just
happy to be done with the thing.
Personally,
I think we overestimated what the technology could do. I’d watched James whip
together one of the trailers in about half an hour—and it looked really good.
That was using iMovie. With a wizard like Raul sitting at the helm of Premier,
I was sure we could turn what at first looked like boring footage into a
fascinating documentary. Don’t get me wrong—the technology is amazing. We
couldn’t have done much of anything without it. But, at least for now, technology
can’t tell much of a story.
By
far the most difficult part of the project was arranging all the facts and
information into a logical sequence, one that didn’t just get the historical
details across but also told a story. That’s why even though I had no idea how
to use the software I still needed to be in the room with the other guys, all
of us pitching and evaluating each other’s ideas, right up till the end.
Raul,
James, and I were definitely getting on each other’s nerves by the time we were
finished. But, looking back, it’s amazing to realize that there’s very little in
the finished product that any of us can attribute to any one person involved.
It was a true collaboration—every member of the team was indispensable. However
worn out, and however loath we are to ever do anything like this again, I bet three
days or three weeks from now, we’re going to look back on this project with
pride and chuckle at our own hubris.
I
for one, though I’m painfully aware of every tripping line and every jagged
transition, think the damn thing turned out pretty good. Was it worth all the
late nights, frustration, tedium, and stress? Ask me again sometime next week.
Halloween stories from earlier years:
