Bradford County, PA

Small Time

By Ellie Pritts

August 19^th, 2018

2 weeks off the grid

I spent the last two weeks Art Directing a feature film called "Small Time" shot almost entirely in rural Pennsylvania. If you want to see amazing photos from set, I highly recommend you check out the work of our stills photographer Lipmann Wong.

The cast and crew were housed at a nearby children's summer camp. As a kid I always dreamed of going to sleep away camp, so I was actually quite excited to have the chance to (sort of) live out that fantasy by staying in camp cabins. Below is where I called home for the duration of our shoot. It was every bit as creepy as I hoped it would be, and would make a fantastic setting for a slasher film. I think I've decided the next movie I work on has to be a horror film and I got a lot of inspiration hanging around this area of Pennsylvania.

Home base

The camp grounds and surrounding area were really beautiful. There were several scenic overlooks that were breathtaking just down the road from us. My favorite times were the early morning hours when dense fog would blanket the landscape. I made a promise to myself to capture the fog on my day off, but it was raining torrentially that day so unfortunately I didn't get a chance to.

I also really enjoyed all the cats around camp, there were dozens of them and many were quite friendly. I even found a litter of kittens at one point and made it a goal to earn their trust. In the end they let me get close enough for a photo and I was pretty happy with that!

Below is the view from the Marie Antoinette lookout in Wyalusing. I discovered that this lookout shows us a view of The French Azilum and settlement. This is where French Royalists attempted to bring the Queen Marie Antoinette to safety during the revolution, but she never made it and was beheaded in 1793.

Wyalusing

Our camp was situated more or less in between Wyalusing and Towanda. Wyalusing is a borough in Bradford County with a population of about 600. There is a main street which we visited, it was so adorable. It felt like we had walked on to an old movie set. There were several beautiful, historic old buildings but by far the most striking was the Wyalusing Hotel, pictured below. This hotel was built in 1894 and by all accounts hasn't changed much.

Downtown Towanda

We had one day off to explore our surroundings during the shoot. The first half of the day was totally rained out, but luckily it cleared up in the afternoon and we headed into town to explore Towanda! Towanda has a populations of about 3,000 people and was the most populous area we spent time in during our production. I really enjoyed exploring it. There was some amazing old architecture; it seemed commonplace for buildings and houses to be from the 1800's.

"Burial Ground"

Fitting into the theme of future horror movie locations, I found out that Towanda means "burial ground" in the Algonquian language. I wish I knew more about this, but I'm going to assume that this town is at least partially over a Native American burial ground...

I asked our location manager and local guide extraordinaire, Christy Lantz to show me some of the creepy old houses I'd spotted when we were shooting around Towanda. Below is one of my favorites, which looks like it might still be inhabited.

on set

I'm somewhat amazed I have as many photos from the last two weeks as I do. I spent the vast majority of my time working insane hours with little free time. Some of the locations we shot in were really incredible and I'm glad I was able to snap a few photos in between takes. Here are some of my favorites.

take me to church

Above is a photo of our set at St. Joachim church in Meshoppen, PA. We spent the better part of two days shooting here, and they were by far the most relaxed and enjoyable. It was a lot of fun shooting in this beautiful little church and the staff were super accommodating and helpful.

this might be my favorite set that Production Designer Kate Rance and I worked on. It was inside of an old trailer in Warren Center, PA

pipher's saloon

The most interesting location we shot at was outside of a bar called Pipher's Saloon. From the outside, there is almost no indication this place is A) a bar and B) not abandoned. But if you walk around the side of the building, there is a door with (odd) hours and one neon sign to alert you that there is indeed life inside. The hand lettered "Oboma Transgender Bathroom" sign should give you a good idea of what sort of establishment this is. Suffice it to say, when we decided to get a drink here on our day off I think we were all a little nervous to push open that door and see who was inside.

reality check

Pipher's has been around for at least 40 years by my count and hasn't changed much over them. There was tons of politically incorrect/straight up sexist and racist signage all over the bar. One wall boasted a blown up blurry cell phone pic of a local patron's selfie with Donald Trump at a rally. Since the majority of our crew were in fact immigrants, and many were women, it was interesting being inside a place like this. To me, it represented a very large part of America that we as liberals would prefer to ignore.

a warm welcome

After our initial trepidation to enter the bar and order a drink, we were actually greeted quite warmly by the bartender. The 1-2 other patrons at the bar were also nice, and everyone knew who we were because our production had made the front page of the local papers. Everyone in the bar was very friendly and seemed happy we were filming in town. It ended up being a nice time, and as a photographer it was like I'd hit a gold mine in this bar.

true Beauty

Until this production, I think I'd spent a total of one day in my life visiting Pennsylvania and that was Pittsburgh. I was really impressed by the natural beauty and incredible history of the local areas I got to visit. I would definitely recommend taking a little road trip through Towanda and spending a night in the probably haunted Wyalusing Hotel if you have a chance!