Man Is Electrocuted at Student Movie Shoot
One young man was killed and another seriously injured when a freak accident brought filming in Georgia to an end last week for a college student filmmaking group from New York University.
John Hunt Lamensdorf, 22, of Sarasota, Fla. was electrocuted and pronounced dead at Jasper Memorial Hospital last Thursday night. The injured man, who has not been identified to the press, was airlifted to Grady Memorial Hospital where he was being treated Friday. His condition was not known at press time.
The group was filming a movie at a vacant home on Clay Road in Monticello. A boom was being used to lift a spotlight with a screen attached to diffuse the light (photo at right) into the air to light up the house and filming area. The screen (right corner) hit the overhead electrical line.
The spotlight was powered by a generator.
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Lt. Jerry Robinson with the Jasper County Sheriff’s Office said that the contact sent a charge through the wires the crew was working with. Mr. Lamensdorrf was apparently setting up lights about 100 yards away from the truck in the rear of the house. The other student who was injured was in a different location.
John Beckman, an spokesman for NYU, released a statement saying Mr. Lamensdorf was a recent film school graduate, according to a report on Fox news.
“This is the first time that anyone can recall a student being seriously injured, let alone killed, on the set of a student film, and it comes as a great and grievous blow to our community,” the statement said.
Faculty members for the Tisch School of the Arts and a counselor from the university’s counseling service were sent to Georgia to support the other students involved in the production, the statement said.
Most of the cast and crew was staying at the Monticello Motel where some were outside Friday morning. They said that Stephen Simon was directing the movie. One of the young men said he auditioned in Alpharetta for his part in the movie. A young lady who did not mention her role in the project said she had just completed studies at South Forsyth High School from which Mr. Simon had graduated.
They were planning to film at the Clay Road location for three nights, then move to locations in midtown Atlanta and possibly elsewhere in Atlanta, and in Forsyth County.
Another lady at the motel said that the professor was coming in that afternoon, and she declined comment saying the professor would make any comments. He did not contact this reporter, and I was unable to meet up with him.
Mr. Simon chose the location on Clay Road after contacting the local Chamber of Commerce. Nancy Wood, president, set up a meeting with Mr. Simon and Benny Hawthorne, Jasper County’s unofficial historian and former UPS driver who knows the the county well. Mr. Hawthorne said he had shown Mr. Simon several locations in the county and that he had chosen the abandoned house on Clay Road.
Mr. Hawthorne said that was quite some time ago, and that it took a while to contact the owners and get permission to use the home in the photo shoot. Mr. Hawthorne said the movie was based on the book, Lovely Lying Lips, but that information could not be confirmed.
The group did not get any permits locally, as they are not required, and it was not widely known a movie was being filmed here.
Lt. Robinson said the film crew was working with Pen Pals Productions from Gainesville. He said they arrived Wednesday at the shooting locatioan. Pen Pals Productions was formed in the summer of 2006 by Mr. Simon and Patrick Murphy, both aspiring filmmakers at New York University, according to the Fox news report.
