It’s been a wild and wonderful summer in the world of TV and film productions around here.

Here’s a look at some of the recent happenings with local indie film and some national TV productions.

A ghost of a chance

So Marshall senior Chase Bowman, who is majoring in painting in the College of Fine Arts, had a brush, literally, with fame this summer.

The Discovery Channel show, “Ghost Lab,” which is in production for its second season that begins in October, hired Bowman, a Princeton native, to be the sketch artist for an upcoming show that was shot over two days this summer in Mingo County near the town of Dingess.

Bowman, who had lived for the past decade in San Francisco before moving back last year to go to school, said he jumped at the chance to work with the show since he was able to do his art, and because he definitely digs the paranormal.

“It’s kind of like Halloween all year round for me,” Bowman said. “I like the creepy stuff and ghost stories and watch all the paranormal stuff. It’s fun, I don’t necessarily take it seriously. I believe in some of it but I am still skeptical.”

Bowman said it was really interesting seeing the inner workings of a show since he had never been on a TV set before.

“The whole process was interesting,” Bowman said. “From watching the show on TV you don’t get a clear idea of how they do things. It is edited down so much and it has to fit into an hour.”

The show, which follows Brad and Barry Klinge, founders of Everyday Paranormal, and their crew, are back on the air in October. There’s no word yet on when the show will run. Go online at http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/ghost-lab/ to find out more about the show.

A few new shorts

If you like sharply written video starring puppets, you’ll be in for a treat by watching the latest work by the local production team Brainwrap Productions. “Seth Martin and Friends,” a puppet TV show, now has two new shorts called “Gone Campin’” and “Gone Fishin’ “ starring the mullet-wearing, country-singing puppet, Trace Cherokee, Seth Martin (as himself) and a bevy of odd puppet friends such as Chappy, and the Ghost of Yuri Gagarin (the Russian cosmonaut and first human to enter outer space).

The shows are put together by Michael Valentine (director/composer/writer), Kyle Quinn (puppet-master/producer), Ian Nolte (writer/director), Glen Brogan (graphics/co-writer) and Max Nolte (audio/co-writer).

That’s the award-winning team that made “Johnny Boy,” which won first place audience choice award, at the 2008 West Virginia Filmmaker’s Film Festival, and the group won first place at the 2009 Appalachian Film Festival for the best micro film, “A Bad Case of Lycanthropy.”

You can the humor-filled homegrown shorts at www.facebook.com/SMAFshow.

Also, just out, and also filmed locally is a new book trailer for Mary Calhoun Brown’s award-winning debut novel, “There are No Words.”

Filmed in July at Heritage Farm, the Collis P. Huntington Railway Museum on 14th Street West, and other places in the city, the book trailer is now up on YouTube and her website at www.marycalhounbrown.com.

‘Rocky’ .... It’s back

David Driskell and the DownHome Decadence crew had a heck of a run showing and acting out the “Rocky Horror Picture Show” at the Cinema Theatre, 1025 4th Ave., in downtown Huntington.

The movie will be back at 11:30 p.m. Oct. 29 through Oct. 31 for a special 35th anniversary celebration screening.

DownHome Decadence will be performing along with the movie live. There will also be a live pre-show before each of the movie screenings featuring costume contests, virgin games and many other surprises. Audiences will be encouraged to dress up as there will be a costume contest. Audiences are also encouraged to bring rice, toilet paper, and pretty much everything else in the grocery store to participate along with the film. Mylar (metallic) confetti and lighters are pretty much the only thing patrons are asked to leave at home. Tickets will be $6 and will be available at The Downtown Discount Cinema Box Office.

Fifty Works/Fifty States/One documentary

The Huntington Museum of Art was recent recipients of 50 amazing works of art from the New York-based couple, Dorothy and Herbert Vogel.

In fact, their gracious gifts are now on display in the Daywood Gallery through Nov. 28.

At 2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 24, the couple’s story of the couple’s extraordinary life will be shown in the documentary film, “Herb and Dorothy” will be shown in the museum’s Grace Rardin Doherty Auditorium.

Made by first time filmmaker Megumi Sasaki in 2008, the film tells the story of these “collecting visionaries” who were able to build an art collection with very modest means, which is today worth millions of dollars.

Many of the artists they supported and befriended went on to become world-renowned, including Sol Lewitt, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Richard Tuttle, Chuck Close, Robert and Sylvia Mangold, Lynda Benglis, Pat Steir, Robert Barry, Lucio Pozzi and Lawrence Weiner.

In 2008, the Huntington Museum of Art was selected to receive a gift of 50 works of art from New York collectors with the help of the National Gallery of Art, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

The gifts are part of a national gifts program titled The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States, which has distributed 2,500 works from the Vogels’ collection of contemporary art throughout the nation, with 50 works going to a selected art institution in each of the 50 states.

Mystery novel headed for TV

Local native, but nationally acclaimed mystery writer, Craig Johnson, who lives out in Wyoming, has built a big following blending mysteries in a western setting.

Johnson, who was last in Huntington in April for the Ohio River Festival of Books, has received both critical and popular praise for his novels “The Cold Dish,” “Death Without Company,” “Kindness Goes Unpunished,” “Another Man’s Moccasins” and “The Dark Horse.”

Johnson just sent word that a television series based on his character, Wyoming sheriff Walt Longmire from the Viking/Penguin novels is in development with Warner Horizon Television and TNT.

Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning Greer Shephard and Michael M. Robin (The Shephard/Robin Company) are executive producing alongside Hunt Baldwin and John Coveny, who are adapting the novel for the screen. Greg Yaitanes is attached to direct. Shephard and Robin are currently executive producers on “The Closer” (TNT). Among other projects, they executive produced “Nip/Tuck” (FX) and “Trust Me” (TNT), the latter created and produced by Baldwin and Coveny. Yaitanes is an executive producer and Emmy-winning director on “House” (Fox).

Johnson is currently on tour with “Junkyard Dogs,” the sixth novel in the award-winning series.