Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome Gets Behind-The-Scenes and in the Scenes of HBO's TV Series "I Know This Much Is True"

Date Published: May 28, 2020

It’s a beautiful sunny day in Poughkeepsie. The narrow hilly streets of Little Italy are strewn with dirt, store fronts display unheard of prices, and there are people walking around sporting wool caps and wearing garments that seem oddly inappropriate for the heat. Then… “Quiet on the set."

The director yells “Action” then “Cue background." There it is, the rush of adrenaline as he speedily cranks the equipment, nervous the ride might be too slow, too fast, counting on his machine to behave like it’s not a treasured relic from decades ago. He hops in, rides through “town” with as many as two hundred witnesses, and then the loud bullhorn…  “Okay, let’s go again." He resumes his place, shuts off the engine, and waits. 

Filming a TV series under the best of conditions can be tedious, a great deal of waiting around… for final touches to set dressing, the ideal camera angles, the right light, prepping lead actors, background actors; it can seem like a huge waiting game. 

But for Stew Sommerville, Kurt Muller, and Corey St. Pierre, this is exhilarating stuff. They are in their element. They are patient men, after all. You would have to be, when caring for over 100-year old artifacts. Stew, Kurt, and Corey (pictured left to right) can usually be found on-site at the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome during airshow season. But for two months in the summer of 2019, they were the valued team of car handlers helping to create the flashback scenes for "I Know This Much is True," now airing on HBO.

“Yea, we got to hang out for a while with the writer, Wally Lamb.” says Sommerville. “We talked creative process and cars, of course.” Stew added. But their main focus was to manage the safety and operations of their nine vehicles which included a 1913 International Harvester Autobuggy, 1914 Model T Ford Touring Car, and 1920 Buick Roadster on the set of film locations in Beacon, Wappingers Falls, and Poughkeepsie.

The Model T Ford was built dirt road tough, made for crossing rugged farmland and known to handle great in snow. It featured a right brake pedal, a middle reverse pedal, and a left pedal clutch which acted as a throttle to a hand-operated accelerator, and then, there’s the all-important parking brake. More on that later. There’s a reason that old-timers refer to it as the “Model T dance”; a smooth ride is… well, complicated.

The Model T’s inline, four-cylinder engine has only 20 horsepower, but if you’re traveling downhill with the wind at your back, you could reach as much as 45mph. And as Stew Sommerville puts it “The brakes on a Model T are only a suggestion.” 

The engine was designed to cool itself while moving at highway speeds of minimum 30mph so waiting around in the summer heat can be taxing on equipment meant to idle on the very rare occasion. In order for the vehicle to be ready at a moment’s notice for a director’s call, the engines require some rest in between shots. The team carefully monitored their moto meters for temp changes. “It was nailing biting at times”, says Sommerville, “We were confident they would perform well but we were thrilled that we never had an issue starting them or making our mark during the shoot.”

Stew added that HBO brought in a vintage cop car via a rope for one of the scenes. In fact, New York State was the first to have a Model T police car in Albany; it was basically a Model T with the option to slap a badge decal on the side. The joke was, it was tough to pinch a crook in those days, if they could outrun a Model T anyway. 

“The first day in Wappingers Falls was very exciting," says Sommerville. The vehicles were towed to the site the night before and received round the clock security. Getting ready for the scenes could be a bit time-consuming. They once had to move their Baldwin Moving Van (1913) a couple of times for a shot through a window scene. Sommerville explains, “It’s not as easy as jumping in the car and driving to your destination. It takes preparation and patience." Since the team were all drivers during the filming, they were outfitted in period fashion. Stew was instructed by wardrobe “not to shave my mustache." 

There was not any rehearsal for the driving scenes and the car team never knew the specifics of the action unless they asked someone on the crew. He referred to the HBO crew as “consummate professionals”. They communicated on the set via the “AD” (assistant director), and a pair of walkie talkies, but they had to be ready to go at what always seemed like “the last second."

During an outdoor fight scene, Stew recalls the tedious care that the set crew took to repeatedly sift the sandy dirt where the actors had brawled, take after take. And there was that time a baby (child actor) was replaced with another as she/he simply would not stop crying. 

“We ate well," exclaims Sommerville, noting the wealth of offerings from craft services, which is the term used for all things food and beverage for the industry. It’s welcome presence on the set creates quite the social scene. 

The team received high praise from the HBO crew as well, for their expertise and onset operations of the cars. One crew member commented that they had worked with a lot of car clubs and owners whose cars were “show room” quality but HBO preferred the authentic vehicles which are harder to find. They were especially impressed by their reliability to perform “on cue." The team was pleased that all of that vehicle TLC really paid off.

From left: Corey St. Pierre, crew member and Stew Sommerville with Wally Lamb