/Film’s BJ Colangelo attended an early screening of “We Have a Ghost” after which Christopher Landon participated in a Q&A. And it seems that filming the scenes with Ernest were a lot trickier than you might imagine, mainly due to Landon’s insistence on having David Harbour physically present in every one of them.
As the “Freaky” director said during the Q&A, “I didn’t want the actors acting to nothing, or David in some kind of crazy mo-cap suit. I wanted him there and in his wardrobe, hairpiece and all.” That meant the crew had to make some special accommodations, which slowed down production significantly. To be specific, every scene with Harbour’s ghost had to be shot four separate times. As Landon explained:
“We would shoot all the actors together in the scene, in the shot, and then we’d pull David out and just shoot whoever else was in the shot with him. Then we’d pull them out, put David back in, and shoot just him, pull him out, shoot a plate. Four times. Every time. So it just felt like you were making four movies instead of one.”
Unsurprisingly, this time-consuming approach extended production time, as Landon watched his capacious shooting schedule disappear, much like Ernest himself, before his eyes. “We had a really good schedule at the start of pre-production,” he said. “I was like, ‘Oh my god, I have so many days!’ And then it just vanished.”