 |
|
Bethany Rucinski isn’t a professional ghost hunter, but she plays one on DVD.
|
What people do in their hours away from the office is usually not much of a surprise.
Except for the case of Bethany Rucinski, an East Side resident and writer/producer at Zizzo Group Advertising in downtown Milwaukee.
In May, Rucinski headed to Door County for nine days of ghost hunting as part of her new television project, "Ghosts of Door County."
"I, myself, have never seen a ghost, but I’ve heard some very credible stories," she says. "I’m also a bit of a skeptic, but we certainly did experience some interesting things in Door County."
Rucinski isn’t a novice in this particular field. As an undergraduate at UW-Milwaukee, she wrote, produced and co-directed a class project called "Ghost Hunting: Serious Business." The project earned her a Golden Reel Award from Media Communications International in 2005. "That project really introduced me to what paranormal investigators do," she explains. "Initially I thought ‘crystal balls, tarot cards,’ but oh, no. I was blown away by how scientific it was."
This time around, Rucinski re-teamed with the Southern Wisconsin Paranormal Research Group, Green Bay-based director/producer Marc Stevens and Wausau-based photographer Steve Oakley to visit 10 haunted sites on the Door County Peninsula in May.
"Some of the sites we visited were notorious for being haunted, like the restaurant Shipwrecked, which Al Capone used as a hangout," she says. "Some weren’t as well known, but have haunted folklore to them."
One such location is a Moravian cemetery, which turned out to be the hottest site for the group. "We were there at night, and it just happened to be raining, so it was a great setting to begin with," says Rucinski. "But some very odd things also happened; it was pretty creepy."
And though the original intent of the project was to create a DVD to be sold in Door County’s many shops, the creative team behind the project plans to start shopping it around to television outlets. "We’d love to start a series and do ‘Ghosts’ of other locations," says Rucinski. "The project started out small and just continues to grow."
For more information on local premiere dates or to purchase a copy of "Ghosts of Door County," log on to www.ghostsofdoorcounty.com.
|
