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Author Topic: Haunted or Hoax? John Hegel Expert Film Handler Posts: 166 From: Lake Mills, Iowa Registered: Sep 2000 posted 05-22-2004 02:43 AM                        The Mills Theater is Lake Mills Iowa was haunted. My office was in the old crying room. One night after close I was doing the weekly books and listening to MP3's through the sound system/booth monitor that ran the crying room speaker. After I was done with the books I was taking the office garbage out to the dumpster through the auditorium. When I was about half-way to the stage the song ended and the next on the playlist didn't start; so I was thinking... great the computer locked up and I didn't save, I wish that was the case. When I went back to the crying room the playlist was still going, but the 4 breakers to the auditorium amps were off. That bothered me since I was the only person locked in the building. The next problem we had was when I friend went into the lobby to grab a play bill for the upcoming weeks, but was startled by the foyer, lobby, and auditorium lights "flickering/flashing" as she put it. Since I or no one else was in the theater at the time she called me on my cell phone and explained the situation, so I asked her to go in the office and kill the leads to the auditorium (3 poll knife switch), which we normally killed at night anyway. The problem with that idea is the knife switch was off. So when I got there an hour or so later I check the ups software on the computers, and none of them have any errors to report, so that was weird. The last night the theater was open I was taking the trash out again and this time when I was about the reach the exit I heard the loud thud of the boiler room door slamming closed. I didn't go in the basement to check it out, but it was odd since the door has a weight and pulley system that kept it closed.  |  IP: Logged Rachel Craven Madam Moderator Posts: 2190 From: Pensacola, FL Registered: Dec 2000 posted 05-22-2004 09:01 AM                     Good story Gracia.  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-22-2004 10:45 AM                     I have three venues where I work. The largest is an 800 seat concert hall. The oldest is a small, 200 seat "Black Box" theater in the basement of the school's library. The third is a new 250 seat recital hall in the newest building on campus. All three stages have solid state dimming systems. (Strand CD-80 rack systems.) There is a quirk in the way these systems work. If the control console is turned off while the dimmer rack is still powered up, spurious signals can find their way down the control lines and cause "ghosting" of the lights. (Yes I know. It has to do with ground/shield issues in the wiring but there is little I can do about it at this point.) My solution is to leave the console(s) on at all times or else shut the entire system down from the service disconnect. However, there is the occasional person who will shut the console down and walk away. It's a really rare occurrence but when the lights "ghost" it's pretty spooky if you don't know what's happening. The stage lights will flicker randomly. Some will come on full blast. Some will flash on and off. Others will come on to about 50% and stay there. It really seems like the stage is possesed! If I'm there with somebody when the lights start flashing they will usually get pretty creeped out. I'll just look at them and say, "Oh, it's just a ghost in the system." At this point they are usually heading for the exit! There are no real ghosts in any of my venues but there are a few good ghost stories floating around here. There's one good one about a nun who committed suicide. It's fun to fuck with peoples' minds. The truth about ghosts, whether there really IS such a thing or not, is that they have no power over you unless YOU let them!  |  IP: Logged Rob Butler Film Handler Posts: 91 From: Westford, MA, USA Registered: Mar 2004 posted 05-22-2004 04:10 PM                     quote: It's fun to fuck with peoples' minds. The truth about ghosts, whether there really IS such a thing or not, is that they have no power over you unless YOU let them! AMEN to that! I've worked in venues with the same kind of "ghosting" problems with the lighting system, and it freaked me out until i figured out what it was. Of course, once when I was doing lighting for a show at a real old theater at a school, this place had a nice sound system, and a good selection of lighting. Once I overheard the director saying that he was going to stay late to look over the set one night, I was also planning to go over the lighting and the script that night. So about 11pm, I'm in the lighting booth with the console and the director's on the stage thinking he's the only person in the building. As soon as I realized this, that's where the fun started. I shut off the reading lamp in the booth so he wouldn't detect my presence, then while he was on the stage, I flickered the stage lights to get his attention, when he seemed freaked out enough, that's when I shut off the houselights, and the work lights making it completely dark in the auditorium, that's when I turned on the fog machines. He kept lighting his cigarette lighter so I knew where he was the whole time, then I flickered a blue down light that cast an eerie glow in the fog. He started running around looking for an exit, so I hit one of the exits with the followspot and watched him run like hell. The next day, he didn't want to go anywhere near the stage. I asked him what was wrong and he said that some weird stuff happened last night. That's when I told him the story of Lewie (making it up as I went along and trying hard not to laugh), the lighting director in the late 70's, he was being stressed too much by the director, and hung himself from the lighting grid. Many claim to see his blue ghost haunting the stage area directly over where he hung himself. Oddly enough, the director put a lot less pressure on me throughout the rest of the production. Later that week I was telling a bunch of other people on the crew what I did to the director that night, within a day of telling them, there was a noose hanging above the downlight i used as a ghost, and a director who wouldn't go any closer to the stage than the middle row of seating.  |  IP: Logged Rachel Craven Madam Moderator Posts: 2190 From: Pensacola, FL Registered: Dec 2000 posted 05-22-2004 04:16 PM                     That what????  |  IP: Logged Rob Butler Film Handler Posts: 91 From: Westford, MA, USA Registered: Mar 2004 posted 05-24-2004 06:57 PM                     Huh???  |  IP: Logged Rachel Craven Madam Moderator Posts: 2190 From: Pensacola, FL Registered: Dec 2000 posted 05-24-2004 09:17 PM                     Did you add more because it was cut off at the word "that" when I was reading it the other day?  |  IP: Logged Nicole Halper Film Handler Posts: 47 From: Plano, Texas, USA Registered: Mar 2004 posted 05-24-2004 11:02 PM                        Ok- so we have the ghost that generally haunts the north side of our theatre- but here's a story from yesterday on the floor. So I'm in concession, and we have those TVs that play trailers on a low volume. All of the sudden there is a loud noise- which turns out to be the speakers, with a whole lot of feedback. A couple managers go over to the control for the volume to check it out. Mind you this is locked up. It turns out that the volume somehow got turned to the max- yet no one was near it. A bit odd I would say. And then there was that strange light last week: So I came downstairs, and there was a weird glare on one of the doors to a theatre. So I'm trying to figure it out. I pick up this broom- and try to block out the light. It looked like it was coming from the mylar. Apparently it wasn't because the broom wouldn't block any of it. A number of ushers were walking by- and I asked them what they thought. One said that maybe it was from the restroom sign- but no luck there either. By now there are about six of us looking at it - when all of the sudden it vanishes. Honestly nothing moved anywhere around us! Rather odd- I must say!  |  IP: Logged John Hegel Expert Film Handler Posts: 166 From: Lake Mills, Iowa Registered: Sep 2000 posted 05-25-2004 04:53 AM                        I have seen modern lighting systems with DMX controllers do weird things before, but the Mills had no such system. The houselights controls were 8 wall switches that ran different colored bulbs.  |  IP: Logged Peter Hall Master Film Handler Posts: 314 From: London, UK Registered: Dec 2000 posted 05-25-2004 10:25 AM                        The Astor in Auckland New Zealand was romoured to be haunted. One night I arrived to find the manageress in her car outside the theatre, refusing to go inside. It turned out she had opened up the cinema, and for some reason unlocked the doors to the stalls to "check" them ??. (We seldom used the stalls except for late shows - the place seated 1300). She saw an old man, walking around the stage area and across the front stalls area. Then he literally walked into a wall and disappeared. I took the manager in, walked through the stalls and semi convinced her that there was nobody there. We proceeded to screen our Mad Max trilogy to 150 of Auckland's finest and went home, but the thoughts of what the manager had seen and the terrified look on her face stuck in my mind. In the Astor, very occasionally you'd be looking out for a cue dot you'd think you'd see someone in the reflection of the port glass behind you. You'd turn around, miss the cue and nobody would be there. Ho hum, too many late nights we thought. Still it was a fantastic place to work - in summer you'd open all the booth windows and a rich glow from the cinema neons would fill the booth. Hand winch top masking, Westrex sound, Ernemann 10s with carbons....  |  IP: Logged

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