Most Haunted

Most Haunted is a British paranormal television programme based on investigating purported paranormal activity. It is shown on the satellite and cable channels Living, Living2 and Virgin 1 (Formerly Ftn), primarily for the UK market. It is also shown in the United States on the Travel Channel and on the W Channel in Australia. It is produced by Antix Productions, led by Yvette Fielding and her husband Karl Beattie. The show started its tenth series on 19th February 2008. The team travel around the UK, and also Ireland, the Netherlands and the United States investigating alleged paranormal activity for 24 hours at a time.

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The photographic style of the series has changed considerably since series 1. In the first series many elaborate shots were set up with an almost 'theatrical' style, with illuminated windows and dry ice. Locations were often illuminated outside at night time, with blue and green colours. From series 1 - 3 there was extensive use of the steadicam, which provided gliding shots during Yvette's ghostly tales or for general views. In series 8 the team introduced a camera crane or 'jib' system for elaborate aerial shots of both Yvette and the locations. Most of the photography in Most Haunted focuses on 'general views' of a location and its surroundings. Most Haunted is filmed with both broadcast Sony DVcams and Sony PC120 miniDV cameras with night vision facility.

The original editor, Neil Haggerty, is said by many fans to be responsible for the creation of the original Most Haunted look. Neil created intricate edits, using a wide range of visual effects such as dust and scratchings and luminescent transitions. He also used many other devices such as slow or sped-up images from the steadicam to create gliding shots, imposing and superimposing and many other effects resulting in the show looking sophisticated edit wise. The show was edited at 422 in Manchester from series 1 - 5 and from series 6 has been edited on Antix' own edit suites. Neil left after series 4 and was replaced by an 'edit team'. This resulted in a different editor for almost every episode. The style of editing has changed considerably with less visual effects used now and more 'edit' effects, such as lens darkening and light play used. Most Haunted's music score has been composed by Alan Clark; however much of the score is composed of straight copies of loops and samples from the Spectrasonics sample libraries Distorted Reality, Metamorphosis and Biazzare Guitar, which are mixed together to form the overall flowing soundtrack.

Controversy

On several occasions the former "psychic medium" Derek Acorah was purportedly possessed by an entity, sometimes evil or sometimes "lost and confused". One such case which exposed Acorah was at Bodmin Gaol, Cornwall. Before the filming, Acorah had been fed misinformation about a non-existent ghost of Kreed Kafer by the show parapsychologist Dr. Ciaran O' Keeffe. During the investigation, which was later broadcast, he presented the information as fact and even behaved as though being possessed by the fictional ghost. O'Keeffe later revealed Kreed Kafer is an anagram of 'Derek Faker' in a national newspaper. Even though O' Keeffe exposed Acorah, the paper also claimed that O' Keeffe had exposed the rest of the Most Haunted team. O'Keeffe later reported that he had been grossly misquoted and misrepresented in the article, and produced a response outlining his version of the show based on his observations and findings, saying he had exposed Derek Acorah and not the entirety of Most Haunted. The show's presenter and executive producer, Yvette Fielding said in an interview that she believes it was a fake possession.

Although not mentioned by O'Keeffe, the Mirror article also brought into question unedited footage which appeared to show Fielding and Karl Beattie faking 'paranormal' occurrences such as ghostly bumps and knocks. Fielding denied the claims. Thus far none of this footage has come to light. Further controversy centred on Derek Acorah again in the West Country, this time in Devon. On the first night filming "Terror in Torbay", Acorah mentioned a woman incarcerated by her jealous sister in the cellar of Lupton House, even coming up with the names Margaret and Eleanor. In this case, the facts were right, but the location was wrong. This is the well-known legend of Berry Pomeroy Castle which was to be the last night's location. On the final night, at Berry Pomeroy, Fielding reminded Acorah that he had mentioned the incarcerated sister two nights prior. Acorah glossed over his mistake and changed the subject. An investigation was ordered by the Television Regulator in the UK, Ofcom, in which Most Haunted was cleared of any deception of its viewers, in which it stated that "Most Haunted is an entertainment show, not a legitimate investigation into the paranormal, and should not be taken seriously."


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