Thinking it was a "nice makeup job," she non-chalantly snapped at him: "Stop foolin"" around, man!"After Chuck flipped the cellar switch and restored power, the hockey-masked figure threw him backwards into the opened power box where he was electrocuted(# 9 death), causing the lights to blink on and off.The first scenes to be shot were on grainy 16 mm.in New Orleans (during Mardi Gras) on a budget of $12,000, afterwards followed by funds for a total budget of $360,000.Abby: Oh, do you remember, Martha, once a long time ago, we thought if he""d be George Washington, it might be a change for him, and we suggested it.The film was based on former North Carolina Baptist minister Rev.Thomas Dixon Jr.""s anti-black, 1905 bigoted melodramatic staged play,The Clansman, the second volume in a trilogy:The Leopard""s Spots: A Romance of the White Man""s Burden, 1865-1900The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux KlanThe TraitorIts release set up a major censorship battle over its vicious, extremist depiction of African Americans, although Griffith naively claimed that he wasn""t racist at the time.