A lot of things can go wrong on a location shoot. The 3rd day filming in Humboldt Park, which doubled as a Tuberculosis Sanitarium, was especially fraught with peril. Besides pedestrians in the background and jet engines overhead, which we were all too familiar with, an hour into rolling a new problem presented itself. Lawn mowers. Slow moving mower driven by city workers who were being paid hourly. At one point we were pretty sure they were mowing concrete. Jenny volunteered to lay down in front of one and scream for assistance to temporarily silence their drone. At one point, as the mowers rumble merged with an airplanes roar, Dave was convinced one mower had eaten another. For the most part we delayed shooting until the mower was on the far stretch of its circle. We were worried about audio, yet the sound turned out alright.
Fast forward a couple weeks and after a back and forth with the Irish American Heritage Center, in which they tried to soak us for $500 to film in their parking lot for a few hours, we finally landed an opportunity to stage the Haymarket Square Riot scene outside the American Postal Worker’s Union Hall for free. Some films are called micro-budget, yeah, well, ours was a microscopic budget film with expenses being paid out of pocket and a handful of individual contributions; thank you August Spies Foundation, James Massarello, Katie Myerholtz, Steve Shoemaker, Bill Coleman, and Joe Vecchio!
The misty weather conditions were eerily similar to that fateful night on May 4th, 1886, except 20 degrees warmer thankfully. Matthew Stanley was spot on in his performance as Samuel Fielden. Wayne Kupferer and Dave McGrath provided incredible coverage. Kwitkowski played Chief Inspector Bonfield and dished out plenty of comic relief. After a scuffle between rally-goers and cops he quipped, “that was nice but can I have my wallet back now?”
James Scalfani did gods work building the props and set dec on the project, made mostly out of foam and cardboard!
And thanks to everyone else who showed up and helped bring these astonishing events to life!!!
