Supernatural at Comic Con: The Ghostfacers!

Less than a year ago, AJ Buckley, Travis Wester and Brittany Ishibashi were three actors trying to eek out a living in this business we call show, but now they’re something more, something huge — now, they are Ghostfacers and they may never live it down.

The three of them were more than a little excited, or maybe stunned is a better word, when they stopped by the pressroom at Comic Con. We weren’t expecting them so it was a pleasant surprise when they popped through the blue curtains and took a seat — well, three seats, which had to be snitched from other tables and arranged and organized. They haven’t been together long but they think like the team they play on Supernatural, each looking out for the other.

And like the characters they play on TV, AJ (Ed Zeddmore) took the lead while Travis (Harry Spangler) completed his sentences for him. It was fun and a little weird.

“The filming of this it was such a unique experience for all of us because there was nothing conventional about how we shot it,” says AJ facing a table full of mini-recorders. (Do we think he’s ever done this before?) “It was shot as a reality show, our POV was our cameras, every take that we did was a ‘one-er’, one fluid take, nine cameras running at all times, so it was a live set–”

“360 degrees,” says Travis.

“Yeah, 360 degrees,” says AJ. “And we were the ones filming. Everyone stepped back, the director, the DP and the cameraman took a break. As far as the acting side of things, it’s like being on stage, it was kind of like a dream—”

“It’s almost best of both worlds,” Travis agrees.

“’Cause you have the structure of the script, but then they would just give us scenarios and stuff and we would just riff,” AJ continues.

“You know the thing with the rat?” asks Travis. “Phil [Sgriccia] the director, he basically snuck that in there. None of us knew that rat was going to be there, he just snuck that in and I saw it and I reacted to it and this whole moment became like a key part of the episode. ”

“And because an episode had never been filmed like this before,” AJ explains. “The network and everyone was like kind of nervous going into it at first.”

Travis. “At first.”

“At first, and then when they first started seeing the dailies, and on top of that our days! Usually you’re on set at six in the morning until ten o clock at night, it’s a long day. We were finishing our days by the afternoon.”

“Once before lunch,” says Brittany, finally getting a word in.

“Because there were no set ups,” says AJ. “It was just rolling cameras all the time so everyone was just, ‘we’re done?’ Then that opened up to the confessionals and writing more things and ideas and really there was so much freedom and growth.”

All well and good except for one problem. . .

“We could not stop laughing,” says AJ. “We’d go home and, I’m not even kidding, our stomachs, our face muscles would be sore ‘cause you’d try to keep your face stiff trying not to laugh during a take and it just … you know. Especially Jared. Jared can’t… once he starts laughing, forget about it—”

Travis. “He’s gone.”

“Every take, he’s gone,” says AJ. “There were so many takes during the filming he actually walked off the set and laid on the ground outside and started laughing. His laugh is like–”

He imitates a deep, rumbling laugher in his chest and suddenly they’re all talking at once describing how Jared’s body is bouncing off the ground with the laughter and how everyone can hear it.

AJ. “He’s so big. He literally picked me and Travis up one day. He was like, ‘come on little buddies’.”

“Walking around with us like bears – teddy bears,” says Travis then he gets us back on track. “So at the end of the day we’d be piling in the van and getting driven off by transpo and we’d just be chatting like, ‘I’ve never had this experience on a set before. That was so awesome!’”

AJ agrees with a, “yeah yeah”

“You know, usually at the end of the day you’re just (tired sigh.) But we were just chatting like we were in 5^th grade.” Travis.

“It was always a great honor to come back on the show. [We weren't] anticipating anything but when it came out and the response. . . we were like, ‘wow!’” AJ.

Travis. “Eric Kripke [said], before the episode even came out, one of two things is going to happen. People are either going to love it or they are going to hate it.”

AJ. “And some people hated it. ‘Give me Sam and Dean’!”

Travis. “Oh yeah, but we just had so much fun shooting it and the fan response was so wonderful—”

AJ. “Great.”

Travis. “So tremendous. We’re just happy that it clicked, Cause it was kind of a roll of the dice, but I think how much fun we had making it–”

AJ. “And the guys, too. This is their show and to have reoccurring characters come on that have such a presence on an episode and then be so gracious and be down and–”

Travis. “They were awesome.”

AJ. “.– and open to it, was really cool too, because we were acting like ‘ahh you just never know’ but they’re such great guys.”

Travis. ”An incredibly rewarding experience, it was a completely new way to approach the craft a completely new way to approach the means of production and I loved it and I would absolutely be interested in doing that again.”

AJ. “It was a great between the four of us and with the guys as well, it was really like a dream, they’re so much fun.”

Travis. “They were a dream. So yeah, it was really gratifying to have gotten that feedback, we like that.”

AJ. “The Facer Movement.”

Travis. ” Yeah, the Facer Movement. Team Facer.”

Go team.

I’m exhausted.

You go visit the official Ghostfacers website where you can meet the gang, listen to the cool theme song and learn the basic steps to a proper ghost investigation.

Photo Credit:

Comic Con Photo: A.J. Buckley and Travis Wester courtesy of Warner Brothers

Ghostfacers photos courtesy of The CW

Pictured (l-r) Travis Wester as Harry Spengler, A.J. Buckley as Ed Zeddmore.

Pictured (L-R) Travis Wester as Harry Spengler and Brittany Ishibashi as Maggie Zeddmore.

Photo: Sergei Bachlakov /The CW ©2007The CW Network LLC. All Rights Reserved.