‘Mindhunter’ Filming Redirects Church Traffic for this Weekend

by Jonathan Weaver

It may be more difficult traveling downtown Kittanning streets this weekend, but Em Ache Productions staffers filming the Netflix drama “Mindhunter” have arranged a way for local residents to get around – especially to church services Sunday morning.

The Kittanning Citizens Bridge will be closed in both directions from approximately 6AM to 6PM Saturday and Sunday. Market Street will be posted “No Parking” from the courthouse to the bridge to accomodate driving and placement of period 1978 vehicles.

MH Productions Associate Producer Bill Doyle has gone through similar street closings – such as when on the set of “Man of Steel” recently when producers shut down Plano, Illinois for three full weeks and even re-paved streets after action scenes.

“I’m not doing anything to (Market Street) but I’ve been there – I know how to do it right,” Doyle said.

Doyle and location managers also sat with local police – including from Kittanning Borough, East Franklin Township and the Pennsylvania State Police – to discuss potential problems. He wanted information advising parishioners to use Water Street to get around town on church circulars before this weekend’s filiming.

There will be no filming along Water Street, but there will be intermittent traffic control.

The series filming moves from the studio zone around the 31st Street Studios in the Lawrenceville neighborhood of Pittsburgh to Kittanning to keep up with the change in seasons and represent Altoona in the 1970’s. Filming also took place in places such as Butler, Coraopolis, Tarentum and Vandergrift for season 1.

Altoona’s story arc spans a few episodes in the middle of the season – even if only about eight minutes of screentime will be ultimately used – but is part of the location library Doyle has amassed.

“We wanted to make sure that the scenes we were doing were very wintry – no leaves on the trees, the skies were going to be gray,” Associate Producer Bill Doyle said last week. “There’s such an amazing diverse amount of locations to film here. Everywhere we look is another great diner, courthouse or street, and there’s very-minimal amount of work that we have to do to return it back to that feel and that time.

“It’s important stuff – it really sets a tone for the same reason why we waited until January to shoot it. We’re not searching for stuff the writers came up with – we’re giving the writers ideas to put stories into.”

Doyle will not only be in Kittanning this weekend, but will join “David and Friends” host David Croyle on his WTYM Radio AM 1380 show this morning.

The weekday radio show will also be re-broadcast on Family-Life TV at 9:30PM tonight.

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