As published in the New York Times, from “A Year After the Big Blackout, a Film Festival Flickers to Life” by MELENA Z. RYZIK (Published: August 13, 2004)
Aron Epstein and Daniel Stedman had to create a blackbox, blocking out light, to house their actors.
Luckily, their actors are not very big. Mr. Epstein, 25, and Mr. Stedman, 26, are cousins and co-directors of ”The Moth and the Firefly,” a four-minute film about a moth who becomes attracted to a firefly after the blackout robs the moth of its beloved light source.
As with any epic, casting the hero was the main problem. ”We found that there were plenty of fireflies in Prospect Park and Central Park, but there were very few moths,” Mr. Epstein said. They contacted an entomologist at North Carolina State University, who sent them some packets of moth larvae, which hatched in a cheesecloth covered bucket in Mr. Stedman’s Brooklyn apartment.
”It was actually ideal because we had 25 duplicate moths,” Mr. Epstein said. (Hollywood’s dream come true.)
