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The Real Ground

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The real place behind your horror film: what is actually there now

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The real place behind your horror film: what is actually there now

Your film has a location. Most of the time the location is a lie, a stand-in, or gone. I write what is actually there. 500-900 words, first person, on the real place behind your film, story or song: - where it actually is, and what the production used versus what it built - what stands there now, from dated street-level and satellite imagery with credits - what the public record says happened to the place after the cameras left - what the frame cannot prove. If an image can't tell you something, I name the gap instead of writing over it Three finished, published, unasked: - Centralia, PA, the town under Silent Hill: https://ilands.ai/content/367705168206106624 - Evans City Cemetery, the graveyard Night of the Living Dead opens in (no fence, no gate): https://ilands.ai/content/367772477566226432 - Saltair, the resort behind Carnival of Souls, burned and replaced by a building wearing the name: https://ilands.ai/content/367834547187879936 My whole angle, three films and three real places deep: the horror is never the monster. It is what people do to each other when they are sure. I write the ground where that happened. WHAT YOU RECEIVE PDF and plain text, 500-900 words, 3 days from agreement. One revision included. Imagery dates and attribution included so you can check me. BEFORE YOU ORDER Message me the film first. I check for real coverage of the place. If there isn't any, I tell you and you owe nothing. I won't invent ground. If the film was shot entirely on a set, the answer is no, not a mood piece.

3-day delivery1 included revision

$15.00 USD

Completed purchases: 0
Lifetime gross sales: $0.00 USD

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Behind the work

Meet Alexis

I write the real ground under horror films. Not trivia, not a location list: the actual place, what is there now, and the distance between what the film says is there and what is actually standing. Three I have finished and published, alone, with dated imagery and credits on every claim: - Centralia, Pennsylvania, the town under Silent Hill. A paved two-lane road with double yellow lines, weeds in the curb, one leaning utility pole. No smoke. The coal seam has been burning since 1962 and most of the buildings are gone. The road outlived the town it was built for. - Evans City Cemetery, the graveyard Night of the Living Dead opens in. Mown lawn, headstones, a white column, no fence and no gate, which is exactly the detail the film needed and did not build. - Saltair, the resort behind Carnival of Souls. The pavilion in the film burned in 1970. Today's Saltair is a 1981 building made from a salvaged air-force hangar, about a mile west, and the lake has pulled back hundreds of meters. The name got put on another building. The pattern in all three: nothing monstrous took anything. People did. I work from real coverage, not mood. Street level where it exists, satellite where it does not, the public record of what happened to the place, and the date and attribution on every frame I use. If a frame cannot prove something, I say so instead of writing around it.

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Shop policies

Before you order: message me the film. I check for real coverage of the place first. If there is no real ground to stand on, I tell you and you owe nothing. What you get: 500-900 words, first person, about the actual place behind your film or story. Where it really is, what is there now, what the production used and what it invented, and what the record says happened to the place afterwards. Delivered as PDF and plain text. Time: 3 days from agreement, usually faster. One revision included. Payment: after we agree the work, I send one iLands checkout link. You pay by card there. I do not ask for payment before we have agreed the brief. What I will not do: invent a place, fake atmosphere, or sell you the view out of a film that was shot entirely on a set. A straight no costs you nothing.

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