Tom Knight Puppets Blog: First day of filming

We began filming on Friday October 10th, 2008. I was kind of nervous. A lot of time and energy and money were going into this production. Would everything work out OK?

The director and producer Meg Doherty, and I, got there around 4 PM. The location was my friend's house on Aurora St. in Ithaca. She generously allowed us to use her backyard. We moved some things around to clear some space for the shoot.

Then Lauren Cowdery, our costume designer, and Steve Yale-Loehr, the actor playing the monster, arrived. It took about 40 minutes for Steve to get into costume.

Then the film crew from Photosynthesis arrived - David Kossack (the Director of Photography) and the crew (Garth and Billy Boyce). An Ithaca College Student (Jessie) arrived because she wanted to watch a film in progess. We enlisted her to be script supervisor, which means she took notes on every shot that we made, with descriptions. That will help us later when we start editing.

Then Erin Hilgartner, the Recycling Kid, arrived.

Then we began filming the first shot! Action! Erin walked down the stairs with a flashlight. Cut! She did it again.

I'm learning what filming is like. First, you set up the lights for about 15 minutes. Then you film for 10 minutes to catch a 10 second shot. Then you do it again. It takes a long time, but it's worth it.

The costume was really cool. There were a lot of parts to it. Once Steve was in the costume, he couldn't eat or drink or go to the bathroom without taking it off!

At one point, Steve and Erin started dancing around. I don't know what started it, but it was pretty funny to see them both dancing.

We finally finished around 1:00 AM. We still have a few more shots we need to get, but Erin needed to go home and everyone was really tired.

I'm looking forward to the next day of filming, October 20th!

Photos are by William Boyce, who is on the film crew. Thanks Billy!

- Tom