East Canaan Landmark Was Inspiration for Filmmaking Business

By Michael Cobb

Perotti is a name well known throughout the northwest corner of Connecticut. Though he has worked as a plumbing apprentice for the family business, Perotti & Sons, Inc., Ted Perotti’s vocation has led him in a different direction –  filmmaking.

A native of East Canaan, Perotti grew up across from the Beckley Furnace, which was the inspiration for the name of his film company, Pig Iron Films. The name came to him one day while digging a hole where he found some slag in his backyard. Slag is the byproduct in the creation of pig iron. Says Perotti, “Slag is also a cool name, but Slag Iron Films or Slag Productions sounded slightly off. My parents had built their house on a piece of land across from the Blackberry River, which used to serve as the loading area for the trains to pick up the pig iron from the Beckley Furnace. So naturally I thought that the furnace would serve as a great logo. I had a friend sketch it for me and voilà I had a name – Pig Iron Films. “ 

Perotti attended North Canaan Elementary School and Housatonic Valley Regional High School. He picked up a camera for the first time in high school during a film studies class, but his passion didn’t fully develop until college. Perotti graduated with a Bachelors degree in Digital Media and Filmmaking from the School of Communication at Endicott College in 2020. 

“During my time there, I learned the craft from a professor and documentary filmmaker named Steve Liss. He was working on a series called “16 and Recovering,” which premiered on MTV in 2021. I learned the ropes of operating cinema cameras, recording sound, and the pros and cons of working on a small documentary set,” Perotti says. 

A big fan of movies, Perotti cites the cinema verite style of The Maysles Brothers, Fred Weisman, and other documentarians who capture stories with an observational technique as having an influence on him. He also has a deep passion for the Coen Brothers.“I remember the first time I watched “Fargo.”  “I was intrigued and became fascinated by their distinct style of filmmaking,” he says. 
Graduating college with some experience working on commercial and corporate video shoots, Perotti felt confident enough to go out on his own. He wanted to tell stories of the local hard-working people he knew, who became the focus of his senior thesis film, called “The Art of Work.” The film caught the attention of The American Mural Project in Winsted, which contacted him to create a series called “Northwest Connecticut Young Professionals,” in which he documented 12 different individuals under the age of 35 working locally and building their careers in Northwest Connecticut. 

Today, Perotti’s projects range from 30-second ads for companies to two-to-five-minute, documentary-style videos for non-profits and municipalities. 

“When someone comes to me with a project, I want to know who the characters are and what story they have to tell. I love interviewing people. I’ve interviewed hundreds of people, and there is an art to making them feel relaxed enough to tell their story. Everyone is different, so this is always the most challenging and most fulfilling part of my job. I combine these interviews with gorgeous B-roll footage of them working, a nice soundtrack, and voila you have an engaging video for the company or non-profit to use,” he says. 

Working mostly alone as an independent contractor, Perotti will occasionally collaborate with other filmmakers and friends if the project is appealing enough. He works very closely with clients, which he finds beneficial for the best results. 

“I am a very lucky, privileged person who saved up some plumbing money and had the opportunity to buy a used Sony Cinema camera in 2019, and that’s the camera I still use. I enjoy learning with new tools however. Sometimes I rent gear for a specific project, and that’s always fun. The business side can be challenging, and I’m in the market for a business partner to help run the company if I decide to become an LLC in the next few years. The local community is grea. However, it does take a lot of marketing and reaching out to get jobs. Most of my jobs come from word of mouth,” he says. 

Not unlike running a family plumbing business, Perotti handles all aspects of work. He produces, films, records, edits, and color grades all of his projects. He finds it challenging but rewarding. Recent work includes producing videos for Connecticut Children’s Medical Center in Hartford, creating a short film about the Great Mountain Forest’s Forestry Internship Program, a video for Yale School of Architecture focusing on Regenerative Building Practices, and a series of 14 videos for Region 1 Schools, highlighting the excellence of public education in the area and even interviewing a few of his old teachers. He’s hoping to get more jobs in the areas of education, hospitality and real estate. 

Perotti also been working on a small independent horror movie for the past few months in the Berkshires with friend Dave Sondrini, with whom he collaborated on their Green River Festival documentary. Recently, he traveled to Kentucky, Arkansas and New Hampshire to work as a boom pole operator and sound recordist for the uniform company Unifirst. He cites the experience as the highlight of his year. 
As far as the future, Perotti says, “I’d like to do more music videos and documentaries. The style of documentary filmmaking I’ve picked up can really translate to any story, any company or any non-profit, and I hope I can continue to create and tell stories of the people in this area.”