Shooting Begins

In the spring of 2004, Checkoway called on friends Steve Lickteig and Rob Hilton, both public radio veterans, to help with sound and story, and she hired local Baltimore and Emmy award-winning cinematographer Richard Chisolm to shoot video. She and the crew met in Baltimore for the first time to interview the main characters and to see, at last, the finished portrait.

The first shoot took place in Choptank, Maryland, some miles from Baltimore, at the run-down house in which Pappas had been living for most of the time he had been at work on his project.  The setting was picturesque; the house stood literally just feet from the Choptank River and a wharf where small fishing boats docked.

Since Lickteig, Hilton and Checkoway had no filmmaking experience, they counted on their instincts about storytelling to carry them through. Hilton did the sound recording, carrying around a heavy DAT on his waist and sweating in the Maryland heat as he held up the boom mike all day. Both he and Lickteig were key players:  they knew a good story when they saw one, and though their training was in sound, they encouraged Checkoway to let the story unfold itself visually in front of them. Checkoway had been to Choptank before, and Hilton and Lickteig stood off camera and asked the kinds of questions of Pappas that were fresh to them.

Billy lit up for the camera. He walked them through his process, through the decrepit house in which he lived, and demonstrated the method he used to apply lipstick to his own lips in order to have a constant model for his 'life study drawing'. Ultimately, Pappas gave a compelling sit-down interview in which he bared his soul about the sacrifices he had made during the years he had undertaken the portrait. The crew's ride back to Baltimore that night was anything but silent. The debate was heated. Was Billy Pappas deluded? Were his hopes for his project within the realm of reason? The car was divided, and as Checkoway listened to the others battle it out, she realized that this was precisely that kind of debate she hoped the film itself, once finished, would someday provoke.

Next: Second Day of Shooting And The Portrait Revealed | Previous Page

A Film by Julie Checkoway. A Littlest Birds Films Production.