Ghostwatch Live (1992)

[beanheadmcginty]

I know Smiffy dying so young must've been hard on her, but why did Greene disappear from our screens? She was a top tier live TV presenter. She could easily be the female Schofe these days.

[DrGreggles]

Sarah Greene was inspired casting. 

It was nearly Yvette Fielding, who was on Blue Peter at the time, but she was advised not to do it.
Which is ironic given her later career.

[studpuppet]

I went to a Ghostwatch screening about 23 years ago when Volk did a short interview, and I've got a feeling this is a bit of a side gig for him every year since then. Don't be upset you missed it, I expect he'll be around doing it again soon.

I have a DVD of the doc from ten years ago - Behind The Curtains - which has apparently been put on the BFI Player (subscribers only).

http://www.ghostwatchbtc.com/

(Love that Smiffy used his helichoppers as the backdrop for the interview - Edmonds-esque!)

Also, the YT channel they set up for the DVD release has loads of interesting clips - reaction at the time, alternate scenes, interviews, Ghostwatch cropping up in other programmes down the years etc.

https://www.youtube.com/user/GhostwatchBtC/videos?view=0&sort=dd&shelf_id=0

[Psybro]

I think the bit where the girl is lip-synching Pipes' voice and all the bits with the cats crying are really really creepy bits of sound design that set something atavistic off in me.  A lot of modern horror expends much energy trying to get that same wrongness going and not quite getting there.

There's also something very scary about distorted screaming mixed in with snatches of white noise which you get in old video of real disasters, and the movie The Fourth Kind also used it effectively.

[studpuppet]

...all the bits with the cats crying are really really creepy bits of sound design...

Funny you should say that:

[Glebe]

Still not seen it but just stumbled on this is you're arsed:

Ghostwatch At 30: The Brilliant BBC Halloween Stunt That Terrified The Nation.

[BlodwynPig]

I know Smiffy dying so young must've been hard on her, but why did Greene disappear from our screens? She was a top tier live TV presenter. She could easily be the female Schofe these days.

In April 2017, Greene guest presented an edition of This Morning alongside Phillip Schofield. She returned to guest-present in July that same year, and again on 4 and 18 August, alongside Rylan Clark-Neal

[Enzo]

I've heard of that one, but not seen it. There was another one from around the same time about a terrorist group with a nuclear device that was done the same way.

Eventually the terrorists are defeated and you watch the experts defusing the bomb on a split screen with a reporter about a hundred yards away. Then you see the experts starting to panic and run and the bomb goes off.

That was called Special Bulletin was very well done it has to be said.

A similar film called Countdown to Looking Glass about the lead up to full nuclear war between US and USSR was made a couple of years before featuring a cameo by Newt Gingrich!

[Glebe]

I know Smiffy dying so young must've been hard on her, but why did Greene disappear from our screens? She was a top tier live TV presenter. She could easily be the female Schofe these days.

She was on Mrs. Charlie Brooker-hosted BBC doco Kids' TV: The Surprising Story the other night.

[buzby]

I suppose all the Pipeheads in the thread already know that Stephen Volk wanted to have dog whistles blow at certain points during the broadcast to get viewers' pets to start acting up? The BBC considered this a step too far and vetoed the idea.

Dog whistles blowing in the street where they were filming, or blowing on the TV broadcast? I suspect the latter wouldn't have worked because TV speakers (or any speakers) don't reproduce frequencies above the threshold of human hearing.

A piezo tweeter can reproduce sounds in the 30kHz range, However, the PAL audio channel was basically an FM radio signal, but clamped to a slightly lower bandwidth (16kHz vs 20kHz - the PAL line frequency is around 15.5KHz, so it wasn't worth trying to put any audio above that range). A dog whistle is around 30-35kHz, so there was no way it would survive the recording and broadcast process, never mind get the telly's speakers to reproduce it.

I know Smiffy dying so young must've been hard on her, but why did Greene disappear from our screens? She was a top tier live TV presenter. She could easily be the female Schofe these days.

Smith and Greene felt that their involvement with Ghostwatch and the controversy following it's broadcast led to them being 'thrown under the bus' by the BBC (something whch she alludes to in the trailer of the Ghostwatch doc posted previously). Smith in particular reckoned his career at the BBC was basically ended by it. It seems to be the source of his beef with the BBC that led to him blocking the TOTP repeats he appeared in.

[SteveDave]

I was 14 when it went out and it scared the shit out of me.

As with every Halloween, my family would nail up the letterbox and then go out for a meal from 6:30 for 3 hours. We got back to watch the show but missed the first 5 minutes (though I had set the timer to record it).

My dad spent a long time saying "This isn't real" but it didn't matter when Dr Pascoe realised that the scene in the living room that they were watching in the studio wasn't live and they switched to a different camera to absolute chaos and the sound of a thousand cats screeching. My sister and I refused to go to bed and each slept with the lights on for a few nights. My dad was also the one to say "Did you see that then?" when the camera panned passed the french windows and Pipes was visible behind the cameraman.

I let John McMahon borrow the tape and his machine chewed up the tape. Cunt.

[Mr_Simnock]

Scared me too when it came out

[Uncle TechTip]

A piezo tweeter can reproduce sounds in the 30kHz range, However, the PAL audio channel was basically an FM radio signal, but clamped to a slightly lower bandwidth (16kHz vs 20kHz - the PAL line frequency is around 15.5KHz, so it wasn't worth trying to put any audio above that range). A dog whistle is around 30-35kHz, so there was no way it would survive the recording and broadcast process, never mind get the telly's speakers to reproduce it.
Smith and Greene felt that their involvement with Ghostwatch and the controversy following it's broadcast led to them being 'thrown under the bus' by the BBC (something whch she alludes to in the trailer of the Ghostwatch doc posted previously). Smith in particular reckoned his career at the BBC was basically ended by it. It seems to be the source of his beef with the BBC that led to him blocking the TOTP repeats he appeared in.

How did that work? "That controversial drama we commissioned? Nothing to do with us! Go and talk to Mike Smith, he was in it". Hugely inflated ego, that man. I think his career stalled because of "That's Entertainment"

[buzby]

How did that work? "That controversial drama we commissioned? Nothing to do with us! Go and talk to Mike Smith, he was in it". Hugely inflated ego, that man. I think his career stalled because of "That's Entertainment"

From the TOTP thread on Digitalspy:

When its broadcast prompted thousands of complaints, it distanced itself totally from the programme and everyone involved in it. And when a 25th anniversary feature on the show was planned for The One Show - with Greene invited on as a guest - someone in senior management intervened and blocked it.

I believe Smith and Greene were BBC employees at the time, unlike Parkinson and Charles, which may have made a difference. A year after Ghostwatch, Smith applied for the role of BBC1 controller of programmes, only to be told that the corporation was looking for someone with management experience and then giving the job to Alan Yentob, which presumably added further grist to the mill. He also quit his co-presenting role on Hearts Of Gold, publicly slating Esther Rantzen in the process.

The gameshow he was on with The Ev and Gloria Hunniford was 'That's Showbusiness'

[McDead]

From the TOTP thread on Digitalspy:I believe Smith and Greene were BBC employees at the time, unlike Parkinson and Charles, which may have made a difference. A year after Ghostwatch, Smith applied for the role of BBC1 controller of programmes, only to be told that the corporation was looking for someone with management experience and then giving the job to Alan Yentob, which presumably added further grist to the mill. He also quit his co-presenting role on Hearts Of Gold, publicly slating Esther Rantzen in the process.

The gameshow he was on with The Ev and Gloria Hunniford was 'That's Showbusiness'

Yet they gave Mr Pipes the lucrative Question Time gig the following year. Rank BBC hypocrisy.

[JamesTC]

Yet they gave Mr Pipes the lucrative Question Time gig the following year. Rank BBC hypocrisy.

Surprising that Operation Yewtree never got him.

[McDead]

He slipped into Parky and hasn't been seen since. Clever old Pipes!

[lauraxsynthesis]

If you missed James 1030's Ghostwatch broadcast last Halloween, he's repeating it live on his Twitch now. I won't spoil it, but a lot more happens than just the screening of the programme from 1992.

https://www.twitch.tv/1030

[Magnum Valentino]

Naw. I'd a dream about Pipes recently, I'll not, thanks though.

[neveragain]

If you missed James 1030's Ghostwatch broadcast last Halloween, he's repeating it live on his Twitch now. I won't spoil it, but a lot more happens than just the screening of the programme from 1992.

https://www.twitch.tv/1030

I could guess what happens... is it more imaginative than a mere retread of Ghostwatch?

Incidentally, I love Ghostwatch so would enjoy anything related to it. Does anyone know of a way of getting that Behind The Curtains documentary? As far as I know, the original website doesn't sell it anymore.

[Icehaven]

Not much to add except that count me as another who had the absolute daylights scared out of me at the time, and I only realised it wasn't real when the credits rolled and it showed the cast names, however I still couldn't settle on whether or not what I'd just seen either did or didn't happen. It was a live BBC show like Comic Relief but there were actual ghosts and Michael Parkinson got possessed! The family were actors but Craig Charles is real, so what the fuck just happened here?! Apparently I didn't talk about anything else for days afterwards, which must have been fun for my family. Nothing has frightened me that much since, not even Candyman.   

It's really interesting to me as well that a few other posters have said how they thought they must have been younger than they actually were when it was broadcast, very much the same here, I was 13, but if I'd had to guess I'd have said 9 or 10. It does feel a bit silly now to think I was a teenager and I completely fell for it, but then enough grown adults also did for there to be that talk show about it a few days later (in my head it was Kilroy but it probably wasn't) with angry viewers saying the BBC had played a horrible trick and upset people etc. It really was far more effective than it seems 30 years later.
I watched it again about 15-20 years ago with some friends in broad daylight and it still scared the crap out of me, I won't be putting myself through it again.