By Michael Thomas Masters / QC MAGAZINE / November 2009
Since 1990, more than a dozen feature films, along with numerous made for TV films and student films, have been shot right here in the Quad Cities. Recognized film inventors, filmmakers and film businesses have called the Quad Cities home. In fact, many still do. With Hollywood connections, a history of invention and a picturesque setting, the Quad Cities has kept the cameras rolling.
A RICH HISTORY
Traveling back one hundred years to 1909, motion picture pioneer Alexander F. Victor displayed his new moving pictures projection model to the directors of the White Lily Company at their home offices in Davenport, Iowa. At the White Lily factory, production operations of Victor’s Viopticon—the first portable stereopticon—began in February of 1910. The product was eventually introduced to the public in 1912.
Among Victor’s inventions produced in the Quad Cities was a continuous-reduction printer that produced 28mm prints from the movie industry’s standard 35mm film. By the early 1920s, the Davenport Democrat newspaper featured impressive ads for the Victor Cine-Camera and Victor Cine-Projector. Public and industry response was instantaneously positive, with most dealers offering satisfaction or “money-back” guarantees on the new film inventions. Alexander F. Victor’s movie equipment inventions began a long and productive association between the Quad Cities and the motion picture industry and placed Davenport on the filmmaker’s map.
CONTINUED SUCCESS
As the film industry grew and flourished, so did the Quad Cities’ involvement in film, primarily on the promotion, film distribution and sales sides of the business. Originally founded in 1927 in Galesburg, Ill., by Kent D. Eastin, Eastin Pictures produced movie ads and newsreels for merchants and local news events. Eastin renamed his company “Blackhawk Films” and relocated to Davenport in 1934. From the 1950s through to the late 1980s, classic motion pictures were available for sale or rent on 16mm, 8mm
During its heyday in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, Blackhawk Films boasted up to 18 new releases every month, an in-house professional film restoration facility and more than 90 employees working in a picturesque building in downtown Davenport.
Collectors were thrilled (including this writer, who became a collector while in high school) at the chance to browse through Blackhawk Films’ extensive catalogs, which offered vintage one- or two-reel short subjects among hundreds of stars, including Laurel and Hardy, Charles Chaplin and Our Gang, as well as feature-length films (mostly silent classics) featuring Lon Chaney, Buster Keaton and the Gish Sisters, Lillian and Dorothy.
Due to the growing popularity of VHS video sales nationwide, the Blackhawk Films sales office in Davenport closed in 1987, after enjoying a long and successful history in the Quad Cities.
ITALIAN INFLUENCE
Beginning in the early 1990s, Pupi and Antonio Avati, brothers and Italian filmmakers with over 40 films to their credits, chose to shoot four feature-length films in the Quad Cities. Their first QC location production shoot was the internationally distributed and acclaimed biopic, “Bix” (1991), which centers on the short life and times of renowned Davenport native and 1920s jazz trumpet icon, Bix Beiderbecke. “Bix” played, and was well received, at the Cannes Film Festival in France. It was during the filming of “Bix” that the Avati brothers fell in love with the Quad Cities, stating, “It’s the real America. The America of filmmaker Frank Capra.”
Pupi and Antonio Avati felt that the friendly and accepting people, as well as the farmlands and picturesque landscape of the Quad Cities, reminded them of Bologna, their hometown in northern Italy.
The Avati brothers returned to shoot three additional feature films in the Quad Cities after completing “Bix,” including a romantic Brooke Shields film, “An American Love.” Quad Cities’ locations utilized in this film include a boat ride on the Mississippi (crossing the Centennial Bridge), an outdoor party at a Gold Coast home, a shopping expedition at SouthPark Mall and a visit to the Buffalo Bill Museum. The U.S. film premiere for “An American Love” was held in Davenport at St. Ambrose University in August of 1993.
“Hideout,” a 2007 mystery-thriller focusing on an Italian woman who moves to Davenport to open a restaurant, is the Avati brothers’ latest film to date shot on location in the Quad Cities.
A LITTLE SUGAR
In 2007, directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (“Half Nelson,” 2006) shot their 2009 baseball drama, “Sugar,” on location throughout the Quad Cities. The primary baseball field location used in the film was John O’Donnell Stadium, now Modern Woodman Park. The Quad Cities provided a memorable location for the film, with the Centennial Bridge fantastic to behold on the big screen.
“Sugar” follows the perseverance and journey of a talented young baseball player from the Dominican Republic, portrayed by Algenis Perez Soto, as he breaks into the American big league to earn the money needed to support his impoverished family.
The filming of “Sugar” generated nearly a million dollars in business revenue for the Quad Cities. The film successfully competed at the Sundance and Toronto Film Festivals. “Sugar” enjoyed a well-attended opening and reception in the Quad Cities in late April 2009.
“Since the Iowa Film and Television Tax Credit Incentives Program started in 2007, the state has seen a tremendous influx of interest in bringing productions to Iowa, with the tax credit incentives thus far exceeding 35 million dollars as of June 30, 2009 and triggering 70 million dollars of production during that period,” says Doug Miller, another important Quad City film figure. Miller was born, raised and educated in the Quad Cities and is a long-time, vital part of the QC film scene. Among his many accomplishments and roles, he was the field producer on “Sugar” (2009) and production director on “Bix” (1991).
Though the tax incentives came to a halt in September and the program is under investigation, the program, while functioning, spurred interest and added to the already rich history of Quad Cities’ film.
Miller serves on the Quad City Film Coalition, which is an affiliate of Quad Cities First (formerly the Quad City Development Group). Together these two groups continue to be instrumental in promoting the Eastern Iowa and Western Illinois regions for film and television production. As a result, the Quad Cities boast admirable and creative accomplishments and connections in both the film production and film business sectors.
A BRIGHT FUTURE
The Quad Cities has also produced its share of talented and award-winning filmmakers. Among the most promising and creative contemporary filmmakers to hail from the QCA in recent years are two University of Iowa graduates, Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, both from Bettendorf, Iowa. Beck and Woods have been writing, directing and producing feature-length and short-subject films since 1996, including “Remembering November” (2002), “University Heights” (2004) and “The Bride Wore Blood: A Contemporary Western” (2006). Each of these was filmed either partially or totally in the Quad Cities.
Still in their mid-twenties, Scott Beck and Bryan Woods are the founders of Bluebox Limited Films, a Quad Cities and Los Angeles production company, which develops new material for films. It is not uncommon for the two busy filmmakers to have several film projects in development at a given time.
Scott Beck, presently living and working on film projects in Los Angeles, and Bryan Woods, living and working in the Quad Cities, recently commented, “There’s magic in the landscape of the Quad Cities. The incredible Mississippi, the green and rolling fields and the colorful seasons make it a great and special place to live and to film.”
“We’re filmmakers,” they state on their website, “and our goal is to continue making films in Iowa on a larger scale.”
Founded in 2006, Crazy Eyes Productions is a Quad City based film and video production company located at the NewVentures Center in downtown Davenport. “We’re now downtown in the swing of things and the NewVentures Center provides excellent opportunities for growth and development,” said 25-year-old owner, Justin Anderson.
A graphic designer, Anderson loved operating film cameras as a kid and designed his first website, a comedy premise, at age 15. For the Rock Island Arsenal, Crazy Eyes Productions recently produced a series of creative animated ammunitions safety spots to be shown overseas to the U.S. troops. The company’s current film work was also showcased when it designed the title graphics for the “History Hacker” series featured on The History Channel. Crazy Eyes Productions also participated in DavenportOne’s Campaign kick-off and presented their “movie spoof” videos, which were a great success.
With a strong belief in the Quad City’s creative film community, Justin Anderson is enthusiastic and hopeful for the continuing success of filmmaking in the Quad Cities. He is also passionate and optimistic about the future role of his company in continuing to inspire and assist creative visual artists in the Quad Cities area to produce original and significant community, corporate, commercial and theatrical film and video productions.
With a rich history of memorable film inventions, businesses and special events, and a healthy crop of recent films and talented filmmakers associated with the Quad Cities, it’s clear that the Quad Cities’ film story is far from over.