Country Fox Goes Hollywood
Recently Country Fox was involved with Bobcat Films and Dutch Run Digital in filming We Are All in This Together: Pandemic-Johnstown, 1918. The cast and crew united with In This Together Cambria, the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown and The Tribune-Democrat to create this project. This is a series of four episodes detailing the life of a wife and mother in 1918 Johnstown.
Conception
Jill Henning and Paul D. Newman together with ten University of Pitt-Johnstown students worked together to come up with a story based in science and history. Jill Henning is an associate professor of biology at UPJ. Paul D Newman is a professor of history at the same university. Five of the students were from the biology department and five came from the history department.
Jill Henning wrote a grant proposal and began planning how to bring her ideas to life. Once she had her plan she started discussing it with friend and co-worker Paul D. Newman. Newman and their students dug through old newspapers to get information about the 1918 “Spanish Flu” pandemic. Working together they were able to gather enough information and start writing. Newman was able to write a story built on historical and scientific facts. Once the decision was made to create a series of films, several pieces of the puzzle had to fall into place.
Paul D Newman rounded up the Bobcat Films group. The group consists of Paul, his wife Bethany, Jason and myself as the founding members. We have since brought Kate Davis and Louis Messina on board with our second project Canfessional. Once the scope of the project was fully realized, Jason invited in Nick Lansberry to assist with production. So now we had a film crew.
When thinking about location, the only place that made sense was JAHA’s Wagner-Ritter House. The Wagner-Ritter House is one of the oldest homes in Cambria city. It was built by the Wagner family in the 1860’s and was eventually gifted to the Johnstown Area Heritage Association in 1990. JAHA created a wonderful museum dedicated to the working class citizen. The Wagner-Ritter House will be the focus of a future blog, so I’m not going to cover it’s history today.
In Production
For three full days Bobcat Films and some associates set up a film set and began rolling on production. Several crew members were on set early to ensure the lighting and props were in place. Once all cast and crew were on set, the plan for the morning’s filming was reviewed. Once we were all prepared it was lights, camera, action.
Filming is a lot more complicated that one may assume. Before the camera can roll, the director of photography has to make sure that the shot is perfect. There can’t be any odd glares on windows, or props out of place. Once filming begins, the actress has to know her lines and all her marks on set. The camera assistant keeps the camera in focus. Lighting and sound are a continuous issue.
On Set Catastrophe
Filming began a little later than desired on our first day. It was also a little rocky on the outset too. After a while though, production got into a groove and things moved smoothly. Eventually, lunch arrived. The entire cast and crew took a break for lunch and everyone was feeling pretty good about things.
That is when disaster struck. Our actress, our only actress lost a tooth! Her tooth just fell out! Shock, stress and panic went through the entire cast and crew. She wasn’t bleeding and she wasn’t in pain. But could and should she continue with the project?
After much discussion and a call to the emergency dentist, Kate decided to carry on. We adapted some of the filming to accommodate the loss of her tooth. We finished the first day late and exhausted.
Day Two
The second day saw the crew a bit exhausted and sore from the previous day. Production seemed to be going rather smoothly on day two. Then disaster struck the set again! During lunch Nick received a phone call. Someone he had been in contact with the previous Sunday had just been notified they had COVID.
While Nick had decided to be tested before joining our production and had tested negative, he still felt it was safest to leave the production. He left shortly after being notified and scheduled himself for another test.
A discussion was carried out amongst the cast and crew. Jill, quite knowledgeable about viruses, listened and felt that we were safe to continue filming. From the evidence presented, Jill felt pretty confident that Nick did not have COVID. So as a group we rest of us decided to carry on and finish the day. We all acknowledged the irony of the situation.
Day two wrapped late in the evening. We still had a long way to go and would have to meet up the following Saturday to finish our project.
The Man Behind the Curtain
There would be five days between the first two days of filming and the the third. While most of the cast and crew could relax or go back to their regular lives for these five days, one man couldn’t. Jason had to take video he had filmed and transfer it from the camera to his computer.
He now organizes all of the files, watches the segments and compiles the first rough cut. This takes a lot of time. He has to find the right “take” or clip. We may have done two takes or 12 takes. Jason will watch to find the best take. Once he has his rough cut he watches and makes notes. He is looking for inconsistencies, flaws and anything that is going to need work.
Many hours of computer work is needed to create a workable cut. Once he has this cut put together he can start to add to it. Sound effects require a tiresome amount of attention. Sounds need to be found online or created by us. Then they need added to the project.
Jason will have to work with Kate to record all of her lines again after the project is finished filming. This will ensure that the sound is the best that it can be in the final cut. Once he records her reading her lines, he will have to take each piece of audio and match it to the video.
All in all, Jason will spend days doing all of the editing. He will have to do all of this around his regular work schedule.
During the week, Nick notified us that his new COVID test was negative and that he would be able to join us on the third day of filming.
Day Three
The cast and crew arrived early on Saturday morning. We knew what we had to do and we got cracking. Day three was not as long as the first two days thankfully. We had a list of the shots we needed and worked hard to get them filmed efficiently.
The only catastrophe we had was the breaking of one Paul and Bethany’s plates. We were all quite thrilled this is all that went wrong. Filming wrapped and we all headed home with a feeling of accomplishment.
Where to Watch
Jason will be spending the next few weeks working behind the scenes to edit the rough footage into four episodes of We Are All in This Together: Pandemic-Johnstown,1918. Once the episodes are completed they will be able to be watched on the In This Together Cambria and Tribune Democrat page. Episodes will air weekly starting April 20th.
Special thanks to Ryan’s Artisan Goods! They were awesome enough to let us use their bathrooms during filming.