How-To: Stealing Production Value
The Alphabet City Psychic
Setting: a sketchy psychic reader's shop in New York City's Alphabet City neighborhood of the East Village
Characters: a sketchy psychic with magic candles!
Cost: $150 for two psychic readings (and the willpower to resist buying "magic candles")
I have an apartment in the neighborhood and have walked past that psychic's shop a hundred times: just past the head shop (with the tattoo parlor in back) and the S&M clothing boutique, near the apartment building that Ginsberg wrote "Howl" in.. Imagine what kind of psychic must live there! The neighborhood has a seedier history than current reality (but if I ever needed a methadone clinic, there's one right around the corner.)
While that might have been part of the origin of B.A. Saint-Feline, the reality was so much more mundane. In fact, when I finally went in and asked to pre-pay for a reading for someone I didn't know and also leave something for them, she countered that I would also have to buy a reading for myself. My reading was exactly identical to the one she'd end up giving Sinyx when she showed up (except that Sinyx's candles were heavily discounted over mine: my evil spirits must be that much worse.)
There was a moment of caution after the final arrangements were made. Would whoever showed up realize where the story ended and someone's sales pitch began? Sure, that was part of the themes of our story, but might they think that our business model was selling $220 magic candles to ARGers through psychic franchises? Or would they see what I saw -- another interactive storyteller spinning a yarn in hopes of making a living? The real question should have been "will that psychic ACTUALLY think she's smart enough to con an ARGer?" Which is a nice way of saying that the psychic turned in a perfect performance without ever having been briefed or coached or rehearsed (and Sinyx did a tremendously good job of sorting fiction from truth from deception.)
The Doraville Storage Facility
Setting: a tiny, cramped, dimly lit storage room down in the maze of a public storage units on the outskirts of Atlanta
Characters: a randomly patrolling security guard and people "living" in some of the other units!
Cost: $28 for the first month
There is something both ubiquitous and disconcerting about storage facilities. What are they storing in there? What kinds of secrets are locked up among the anonymous rows of units? The idea of something horrible lurking in the uncomfortbly maze-like area of a public storage facility seemed wonderfully nightmare inducing, like a good Tom Waits song. In particular, we wanted one that felt just a little bit remote and seedy: "take a right at the strip bars and keep going past the dead end sign" seemed just what we were looking for.
In many ways, the actual 10' x 8' room containing an interrupted ritual was just the last of the series of creepy locales our $28 rental bought us: the neighborhood, the security gate, the maze of buildings, and the creepy hallway so deep inside of the building that cellphones didn't work were sheer bonuses. We were very careful to stick to the rules of the rental, too: look outs near the gate called back to other operative who unlocked the unit but kept an eye on things and then relocked it when appropriate. All of which dragged the poor security guard (who had just returned from lunch) into the story, when Sapagoo asked him if he had locked up any unsecured units (when he should have been worried about the people sleeping in living in some of the units that we could overhear while building the sets.)
Of course, the actual eldritch horror of the live event was the motel we stayed in nearby. Um. Ew. Fffffff.