The Ghosts of Wallum Lake

We’ve had so many great shoots that it’s difficult to rank them, but today’s surely ranks at or near the top. Two sisters who grew up at Zam some half century ago – two women with incredible memories and a great eye for detail, and both were wonderful on camera. We interviewed them individually (we find that group ints can be counter-productive) in the medical library, a quiet and well-lit spot with a view of the lake, then walked with them narrating through the infamous steam tunnels to the building where their father, a long-time superintendent and doctor who assisted with surgery. Into the long-abandoned OR we went to hear their reminiscences. And along the way, we happened on a treasure trove: some 40- or 50-year-old super-8 film that we will have to review, but we think it could be rare slice-of-life footage from the periods covered in OTL’s second and third acts. We would like to thank the ghosts of the now-closed Danford Building for coming through for us again, so many patients from so long ago, passing the lonely weeks and months in their beds, surely something would come of it, especially for those who didn't survive but went to their graves doomed by a microbe spread by a cough or a kiss (you think we’re kidding? We know what ghosts want, which is to be immortalized.) Supplemented by the sisters’ photo archive – hundreds and hundreds of shots of a large, growing family – and their brother, who we will soon put on camera, we could not ask for more.

-- Wayne