Narberth’s Louis Knight can’t wait until American Idol fans see what can be done with an iPhone.
Three iPhones, to be exact, as the ABC singing competition on Sunday presents this season’s Top 20 contestants, pandemic-style, in performances recorded at their homes.

“They’ve been sending us so much equipment,” the 19-year-old Lower Merion High School grad said Friday of the show’s production staff, which has been working with contestants to get them ready for this weekend’s two-hour show, whose viewers’ votes will determine the Top 10. “We are all creating an entire production, essentially, from our house.”

Contestants who in past seasons would have had the support of a small army of crew members while rehearsing for a glitzy performance onstage in Los Angeles are instead building sets at their homes and getting a crash course in lighting and sound.

“We none of us expected to be doing this, but we’re learning so much,” Knight said. “I’m chatting with the audio engineers through Zoom. … It’s just been completely invaluable.”

Three iPhones, mounted on tripods, were used to capture the performance Knight filmed earlier in the week at the home he shares with his parents, John and Amanda, his older brother, Max, and his younger sister, Daisy, and their dog, Milo.