After creating a call to action on the DStv Facebook page, 3 real horror fans were chosen to spend Halloween in the abandoned Selby Hospital in Joburg. They were each placed in different areas of the hospital, watching horror movies and basically waiting to be terrified. ‘Where do we sign up?’- said no sane person ever. It was up to AK to orchestrate the scares, execute the pranks and terrify the bejesus out of the willing victims. He knew it was going to be complicated; a live outside broadcast, controlling and cutting between 12 hidden cameras from an OB van, cueing pranks and playing mechanical scare effects from 20 different concealed speakers, directing 4 improvisers tasked to frighten, and an entire crew…in short, this wasn’t going to be some washing powder ad.

‘I think everyone is fascinated by watching people get scared. I can’t tell you how many YouTube clips I’ve watched of people getting frights. I think we’re all inherently fascinated by the macabre world of horror.’

AK: ‘We cast 4 people to play the roles of psychologist, caretaker, nurse and ghost and they had to enter and exit scenes at different points to scare the victims. We had to time all of this to the duration of the movies they were watching, which was The Visit, The Conjuring 2 and Boy.’ But for some, it was all too much. One of the willing victims ended up calling it quits in the middle of the night and requested to leave the hospital and opt out of the challenge. After spending most of his time hiding in the toilet of the morgue, he said he just couldn’t stomach the terror any longer. No shame in that brother!

Another victim was asked to fill out a registration form just underneath a mirror in the interview room. Hiding behind the mirror and ready to terrify was the pale ghost girl dressed in a creepy old nightgown…all our fears wrapped up in one reflection!

AK: ‘In order to scare her victims, the ghost girl had to crawl through a trap door in the ward, close it behind her, then there was a person waiting for her inside. It was completely pitch black, no light sneaking in. Then she had to know that the door was going to be opened, take four steps forward, stop and wait and when the lights come on, scream. Then the lights go off again, then she retreats four steps behind the closed door and then gets out of there. So it was pretty stressful.’ This kind of precise rehearsed choreography was continuously happening throughout the evening, creating a well-oiled machine of fear.

After hours of scaring, the ghost girl threw in the blood-drenched towel, after almost being attacked by a victim in the morgue, who literally charged her with two pillows.

AK controlled the whole operation from an outside OB van. Following the floorplan and the outside feed he had to not only direct the pranks, the actors, the movement of the technical team but also the art department who had to run and reset all the pranks while the actors swapped position. There were four locations including an interview room, while the makeup, art department and agency could watch the VT in a central hub where the sound operator was stationed to play sound effects through all the 20 something speakers that were hidden around the hospital.

The beds which the victims clung to for dear life were positioned to make the whole experience even more uncomfortable. AK passionately explains one of the setups: ‘In the morgue there were two rooms. The back room had all the fridges, and the one fridge was still working, even though there were no actual dead bodies in there anymore (good to know guys). And it led into another room. In this room, instead of having the victim face the fridges, we turned his back to the fridges, which our actors could access, and the TV in front of him. Thus creating a constant feeling that something was behind him. And it was the same with the passage. We positioned the victim with an open dark ward behind them and then to their right there was this long dark passage.’

If you’re still not sure how crazy this night was, listen to this snippet of AK demonstrating what directing from the OB van was like.

Executive Producer and founder of Spitfire Films, Liesl Karpinski, explains why AK was the best director for the job: ‘AK is a true creative and he’s very versatile without having to sacrifice the creative and I think that’s his gift. He problem-solves and can see through all the bullshit. He’s got a bit of a producer mind really and is technically savvy but is also able to get performances and go with the flow. And well, we like shitting ourselves…’

Although this kind of activation is a first for DStv, AK has dipped his toes in similar choppy waters before, bringing the audience into the activation and breaking the fourth wall. KFC Shakin Shakin picked up tons of metal. The interactive mobile app had users shaking their phones to add more flavour to the video.

AK: ‘I love this kind of project because it’s not as explored as the regular TVC. When you’re participating in an activation or anything where you break the fourth wall – there’s always a way of doing it a little differently because it’s slightly uncharted territory. And although hardly anything is unique anymore, this kind of content work has so much more original potential than regular 2D, TV work.

‘The hard part was convincingly shaking a whole scene. To do this we had to build a special stage that we could drop over and over. Additionally, we had to use a combination of dummies and those kung fu wires to give the illusion of people being shaken around.’ – Agency Ogilvy and Mather

Produced by the iDidTht Content Studio
Credits: Writer – Anne Hirsch / Art Director – Julie Maunder

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