Though it is true that almost every place has its kooky qualities, this film explores LGHS completely fictitiously.  It took me only a few days to write the script, organize the filming order of scenes, and build a model set.  Filming took about twelve hours altogether with my good friend and star of the ficticional documentary, Ethan.

Over the course of pre-production, production and post-production, I learned many things about how to run a small film operation.  I think I wore all the hats of the trade at least once.  Director, cameraman, special effects engineer, sound engineer, actor, editor, producer, and writer; I touched all of these main areas of film making.  Granted, it was a short, student, and non-professional film, but it was a start.  It was a learning experience.  It was great!

Cutting the film was the most time consuming proportion of the whole project.   I used a iMovie2 on a Mac, for at the time, I could not find any other free film editing programs.  A lot of time was spent emailing film and sound clips between a PC and the Mac that needed to be added or adjusted.  I don't need do that anymore, since I now have all the programs I need on my PC.  One reason I stick with PC's is that I'm more proficient in using a Windows-based platform than the Mac O/S platform (for the time being, anyway).  Another is that software is more readily available, which makes my work a whole lot easier.  Technology makes many of my projects more impressive and easier to create.  In almost every project I take on, I integrate some form of technology with it.  This film was one of those projects.

Ethan and I filmed this in August of 2001 (a year before building renovations), I edited for a few weeks, and finally completed it before the start of school in September.  After unsuccessfully fooling with trying to get it burned onto a DVD (when they were the newest additions into the computer world), it was finally exported to a VHS tape, instead.  I played it for two afternoons in the High School auditorium. Once the premiere showings were over, I never thought I would present it again.  Guess how wrong I was.

Nothing but time and scavenged materials were the costs of making Mysterious, Inc.  The camera I used was a Panasonic digital camera, which I borrowed to figure out how to use.  The film quality itself was grainy, but it was fine to start out on.  I have since bought a Cannon ZR-50 with a hot shoe directional microphone.  Anyway, without spending anything, this "documentary" (and even the outtakes at the end) where produced on a budget of $0.

While on the subject of outtakes, when I showed the film in the auditorium, it seemed to me that the audience liked them better than the actual meat of the film.  But, hey, I enjoyed working on it and I learned a lot by making it.  Those are the two most important things.

After having seen Mysterious, Inc., a few people asked me if anything mysterious and strange happened during filming.  There were two instances of true spookiness while filming this spooky "documentary".  In the evening when the light outside finally vanished from the sky, Ethan and I were wrapping up a few scenes while the second floor was as quiet as a tomb.  The elevator door on the second floor suddenly opened up by itself.  You must be thinking that it must have been sent up from a lower floor.  It wasn't.  We were standing right rear it and we did not hear it move.  Believe me, when it moves, you can definitely hear it.  Just as we were leaving, after the completion of filming, another strange and spooky incident occurred.  A classroom door slammed closed somewhere down the hall with a loud BANG!.  There were no lights on in any of the classrooms and no beings moved forth from the shadows.  Mysterious?  Spooky?  Well, that's what this film entailed.

-- Adam Deutschmann

AJD Productions

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