What started nearly a year ago as the dream of a young man became a reality this week as Jefferson City's first film camp for teenagers began.
Showdown Film Academy, created by the founders of California-based Showdown Stage Company, is holding its first film camp for teens. Showdown, which has held theater camps in the Capital City for 14 years, started the new camp to fulfill the dream of one of their repeat campers.
The idea started last year, at the end of Showdown's three-week theater camp for high-schoolers. Flip Kobler, co-founder of Showdown, said his wife, Cindy Marcus, disappeared with one of the campers for a few hours during the cast party.
That camper was Josh Arnold, a now 20-year-old stage actor who had a dream of being in a movie.
Five years ago, Arnold attended Showdown Academy for the first time, and has been involved in the program ever since. Last year, he decided to talk to Marcus about how he could expand the camp, and about his desire to star in a film. But more than that, Arnold wanted to share Showdown with others.
"It's such an indescribable thing, what Showdown is," Arnold said. "I wanted to give people like me who needed this, this opportunity and the people and the love that you get. I wanted to give that back to anybody who had my dream."
Arnold has cystic fibrosis, a chronic genetic disorder that affects the lungs, pancreas and other organs. Showdown gave him an escape.
"It's been so much for me," Arnold said. "It's kind of turned my life around and given me a lot of hope and joy where I didn't have some prior."
When Marcus and Arnold rejoined the party that night, the idea to create a film camp for teenagers was beginning to form.
In order to share Arnold's story - and the story of Showdown - the plan was to make a documentary and hopefully use that to raise funds to shoot a feature film that Arnold and the whole Showdown crew could be a part of.
Marcus and Kobler, a married couple who together have worked on screenplays for films such as "The Lion King 2: Simba's Pride" and "Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas," decided to add another two weeks to their already five-week-long summer of camps in Jefferson City to hold a film camp.
Film Academy offers local teenagers the chance to work hands-on at creating their own films. The camp runs July 1-13. During the first week, camp attendees have had the chance to learn how to operate Apple equipment, which was donated to the camp by the company, to create films.
"By the end of this, they will have learned how to make a movie on their Apple iPhone," Marcus said. "They will know how to write a short script. They're going to get classes in costume and make-up design. They'll get a marketing class. They'll get a chance to direct. Because really, the best way to learn how to make a movie is to do it. That's our philosophy."
In addition to mastering the equipment, the campers learned how to write scripts this first week, during a writer's room workshop.
Finn Kobler, Flip and Cindy's son and a film student at the University of Southern California, led the writer's room Saturday. Some of the 30 campers were working on writing scripts that focused on the reversal of a prop - using a prop in a way it wouldn't normally be used.
Finn has been involved with Showdown since he was young, first as a camper and now to help coach them.
His favorite part of being involved in Showdown is the youth.
"I fall in love with a new group of kids every year, and watching their growth is by far and above the most wonderful part of being on staff," Finn said.
Justin Bruemmer, 17, is attending the camp because of a love of film. He said learning the techniques is really interesting, but one of the best parts is bouncing ideas off the other students.
"It's fun to have someone to talk to about it who thinks creatively in some areas like you - but also people that don't, they let you open up and see things in different ways and think, 'That'd be a good idea for this,' that maybe you just didn't think about," Bruemmer said. "Others can open your mind to different ideas about things that others might like."
Two of the youngest campers, Charlotte Bybee, 12, and Ava Kersten, 11, have done theater camps in the past but were interested in film.
"I thought it would be fun to know how to make a movie, and I thought that my acting skills would improve," Bybee said.
Kersten had to get special permission from Marcus to attend the camp, because of her age.
"It's a little scary for me, because I'm probably the youngest one here," she said. "I was a little nervous being around kids so much older than me, but it's been fun."
By the end of the camp, the students will have had the chance to direct, write, act in and edit their own short films.
However, short films and the camp documentary aren't the only films being shot in Jefferson City - a feature film is also in progress.
To make Arnold's dream of starring in a film come true, Marcus and Kobler used their connections in Hollywood to bring film director Steven LaMorte to the project.
LaMorte and his entire Los Angeles film crew are volunteering their time to shoot the film, called "Gumshoe High," and the documentary. LaMorte and Kobler are co-directing "Gumshoe High," while LaMorte directs the documentary.
"Gumshoe High" was originally written as a stage show by Marcus and Kobler, which premiered at the Stained Glass Theatre in Jefferson City around 10 years ago. It tells the story of Drexton Cage, a high school detective who has been tasked with figuring out who framed a fellow student with cheating.
Inspired by film noir and complete with a main character clad in a fedora and trench coat, the show is a modern-day teen mystery with touches of the past.
Arnold stars as the main character, and to make the film even more meaningful, Kobler said they made a change to the story - Drexton Cage now also has cystic fibrosis.
"We're really trying to embrace the 'Josh-ness' of the project, and why it's important for Josh to be playing this role," Kobler said.
Despite some location changes due to damage from the May 22 tornado, filming for "Gumshoe High" was able to begin on schedule. On Saturday, Arnold and the rest of the cast and crew were filming outside a building at 601 E. High St., on a set of stairs attached to a parking garage.
The film is backed by Sony Pictures and Apple, LaMorte said, and isn't just a short film or made for the web production. It's a full-length feature film, with potential.
"It started as a project we all took on because it was a good cause, and it's really evolved into something we're super proud of," LaMorte said. "I have really high aspirations for where it's going to go."
While LaMorte, Kobler and Marcus are quick to give credit to the start of this project to Arnold's vision, he said that may be giving him too much credit.
"I may have said, 'I would like to make this. I would like to expand Showdown,' but I didn't have the connections or the way to do this," Arnold said, standing in one of the "Gumshoe High" sets while decked out in his costume. "It's just super mind blowing the way that it has, 12 months later, tied together. It's just incredible to me. It's really, really cool."
While it may take a while for "Gumshoe High" to make it's way back to Jefferson City, the short films made by the Showdown Academy campers will be shown at 7 p.m. Saturday, most likely at 601 E. High St.
As for the future, Kobler said they'd love to do another film camp, but it may be more difficult without the Los Angeles crew.
"It's unprecedented that these guys are giving up three weeks of their lives, for no money, to make this little dream come true," Kobler said.