When we starting telling people we were filming in St. Lawrence Cemetery, a few of them gave us funny looks before hesitantly delivering variations of “You know that’s not a safe part of town, right?” We could tell they didn’t want to be the ones to burst our location-happy bubbles, but they also didn’t want us to get mugged or murdered in the middle of the night. We kind of shrugged it off the first few times, since we knew there would be so many of us out there; but the repetition made us nervous, and we decided we couldn’t count on safety in numbers.
We contacted the City of Charleston Police Department and arranged to hire two off-duty cops to take turns with security. The department recommended Roger and Steve, two friendly officers willing to spend the night in a cold graveyard to keep us safe. The peace of mind they’ll provide is definitely worth the unexpected addition to our budget. And besides, if our faux hoodoo ceremony actually coaxes something out of one of the graves, we’ll be more than happy to have someone there with a gun.