Students from across the country converged on Rock Island this month to take part in front and behind the camera in filming a new streaming series.
Led by Rock Island-based Fresh Films, this summer’s focus is on ghosts for the series “Dearly Departed,” a co-production with Rock Media that is planned for a Tubi and YouTube release this fall.
Filming started on July 2nd and continued through July 17 with multiple key scenes shot at First Lutheran Church in Rock Island, and other scenes shot at Augustana College. For the second summer in a row, Fresh Films filmed in and around the Quad Cities.
Last year, they produced a Groundhog’s Day film (“Groundhog Gary”), which is scheduled to be shown during next month’s Alternating Currents festival at Last Picture House, Davenport.
“Most people do not realize the sheer number of people and services that it takes to create a film or TV show. Not just actors and camera operators -- but set construction, wardrobe, production accounting, catering, hotel and transport. It’s a 50-person coordinated symphony of talent and service providers all working together,” said Kelli Feigley, managing director and co-CEO of Fresh Films.
In the new series, when teenage Nyah uncovers a human skull buried deep in the woods, she awakens a terrifying gift: the ability to see and speak with the dead. Among the spirits drawn to her is Jason, a teenage boy who doesn’t know he’s dead.
As more ghosts seek Nyah's help, she is pulled into a web of long-buried secrets, family tension, and increasingly complex supernatural rules—while helping restless spirits find closure before they consume her life, according to the series synopsis.
The six-episode series is planned for release in late 2026 in partnership with YouTube channel Rock Squad.
In addition to a professional cast and crew, “Dearly Departed” is a training ground for the next generation of content creators that are part of the Fresh Films program. Over 70 student filmmakers from both the QC and cities across the U.S. participated in the professional production, gaining valuable experience that will jump-start their careers.
Fresh Films originally filmed a pilot for “Dearly Departed” eight years ago in Chicago, Feigley said in an interview with WVIK July 14 at First Lutheran Church, during a break in filming.
“A couple years later, Imagine Entertainment, which is Ron Howard's company, optioned it to sell it. And then they closed their kids’ division and said, we don't want this, you can have it back,” she said. “So fast forward now three more years, it's like the fall of this past year. And we're looking for a project for this summer.”
Kelli’s husband, director Estlin Feigley (an Augustana College alum), suggested talking to Rock Squad, which has about five million subscribers, and does teen and ghost stories like this.
“So Estlin restructured it as a six-episode, and wrote the six episodes knowing— because Imagine Entertainment's budget and our budget are very different,” Kelli said. “We restructured it into something that we knew we could film in a few weeks on a lower budget. We went to Nicole, who runs Rock Squad, and she was like, oh, I kind of like this. We made some modifications based on what she wanted.”
“We're excited,” she said. “So their team provided the lead actress. We’re funding the budget, they're doing all the marketing, they're doing all the distribution. And then the lead talent is theirs, and they'll do post-production and editing.”
In the story, the first boy ghost Nyah sees is stuck in limbo, a kind of purgatory.
“You’re in the in-between, right? He hasn't passed on,” Kelli said. “He's got some issues that he has to deal with before he can fully pass on. And so she becomes the conduit for him to solve the issues he has, which is going to include solving a mystery about his death by the end of it. So she solves with him and another character the mystery.
“But because she can see ghosts— and this is part of ghost lore— once the ghosts know that she's there, they all start coming for her,” she said. “I don't mean it in a mean way, but they're like, oh my God, you can see ghosts, can you help me?”
“Within 10 or 15 minutes, you're meeting another ghost and another ghost,” Kelli said. “She's getting like, leave me alone, like, I just want to go to bed at night, I don't want to be dealing with all of you ghosts and all your damn issues.”
Using local locations, actors, crew
Fresh Films paid First Lutheran a location fee to shoot at the Parish House, which has five bedrooms.
“It's a big beautiful house,” Kelli said. “And so different scenes are done in different areas. So we've got two different bedrooms that are set decorated to look like two different houses. We've got a bathroom scene, a dining room scene, a living room scene. So all the different places are set decorated, and then we use the main stairwell for stuff. It's kind of fun. And then in the basement, which is dusty, dirty, and perfect.”
“Dearly Departed” filmed 14 days in Rock Island, including local actors Tristan Tapscott, Adam and Sarah Lounsberry and Augustana theater professor Jeff Coussens.
“Groundhog Gary” last summer was a 20-day production. It stars local actor Ben Gougeon as the father and was also filmed last year at the Parish House, plus Arts Alley in Rock Island, Sylvan Island, and Black Hawk State Park. The lead in the new streaming series is 13-year-old Faye Knightly, from Memphis, Tenn., who plays Nyah.
This is her fifth Rock Squad production, after her last one, “Bloodsuckers,” a horror mystery vampire romance, and her first for Fresh Films.
“This one definitely has like more crew, but I really like it. I feel like they're kind of similar,” Faye said July 14. This her biggest part yet in a show.
“What I enjoy most about this project, I definitely do like my character. I like how there's lots of lines,” she said. “I like to challenge myself, and I definitely think that all these lines is a good challenge, and I'm getting a cool experience working with more people and working with a different group.”
Rev. Christopher Lee, pastor of First Lutheran, said Fresh Films was great to work with. The Parish House (which is used for a variety of events) dates from the early 20th century, and was once the home of Grace Velie Harper, one of John Deere's granddaughters.
“One of the unique things is they built it never expecting to have kids, so there's no kids' rooms in there. It's very traditional,” Lee said. “They were big entertainers because that's what you did when you're of that tier of society in that day and time. So lots of very nice finishes inside because it was back when Rock Island was still a lumber town, so most of the inside is mahogany, which is unusual, which is pretty beautiful.”
“It's been fun,” he said of this month’s filming. “I mostly try to stay out of the way because I'm not really an arts and film kind of person. I don't know what they're doing. We work well with them.”
“They do really well for the kids. Everyone's very respectful. They take very good care of our facility. We had a water main break in Rock Island a couple weeks ago, and we had some water coming to our basement, and Fresh Films cleaned it all up for us. And wow, they really try and leave it better than they found it, which is remarkable.”
Lee also didn’t know Fresh Films works nationwide with students.
“That was really neat that it really is a nationwide program that comes to our neck of the woods to get the experiences,” he said.
“Because this is Fresh Films, we have young people training on the set. So the group that's here today, they're not from here,” Kelli said. “They're from San Jose, California, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Selma, Alabama, and Las Vegas. They go out after work, they went to Whitey's. They're spending money in the community too. That's not my budget, that's the money in their wallet, right? So it's pretty cool. So we kind of are like, this is how it could— film could impact the community, right? You have people coming in from out of town working, spending.”
“We tried to tie this together to be a mini version of what the community impact you'll see,” Feigley said of local film and TV production. “We have 14 days of catering, so it's all the local restaurants. They had to build a brick wall for one of the scenes. They bought all the supplies at Menards, and we're buying food at Jewel.”
Fresh Films worked with 10+ local restaurants for breakfast and lunch catering, and bought costumes, props and supplies at local retailers, have hired local actors and crew, and have non-local crew and actors staying at hotels in Moline. With a 40% tax credit from the Illinois Film Office, most filming and services are Illinois-based, however visiting actors and crew also enjoyed restaurants, baseball, golf, movies and more on the Iowa side of the river.
The Fresh Films crew included students from Davenport Central, Moline and Rock Island, who have gone through Fresh Films training. Most of the students range in age from 16 to 21.
“We got all the pros there, but the students are like the residents, so they're the apprentices,” Feigley said. “They have to submit an application, they interview, and if they're selected, we bring them here and they're on the film set and doing some training for like five days.
“So it's much, much more advanced. So you'll see them rotate through different positions along in the camera department, in directing, you know, mostly they'll do sound, and then they'll leave and they will all have their IMDb film credit,” she noted.
“So that when an employer looks and is like, oh, what were you on? They're like, oh, tell me about this, right? So it helps them stand out.”
“Film and TV takes stamina,” Kelli said. “The youth who are interning are on a very, very similar schedule to a crew member. And we try to be cognizant, like they don't have the stamina, but this is where you find out if this is your thing or if you're like, this is not my thing. And that's okay to find out if it's not. I'd rather them find out it's not their thing here than be working for a big, huge production and be like, oh God, what did I do?”
Fresh Films used to have multiple productions shooting over the summer in several cities at once, but since last year, decided to focus only in the QC.
“It’s the cost center here versus us as a staff traveling to California or Atlanta or New York,” Kelli said. “Boston's one of our cities. So expensive. And it's kind of nice for us to be here at home, and it's great for the community. So we like bringing people here.”
“We did a show of hands with the 12 students who are from around the country. I was like, how many of you been to Illinois? It was like 2,” she said. “How many even been to the Quad Cities? Zero. But it gets people exposed to like a totally different region. Not all of them are going to move here, but some of them might be like, maybe they'll consider Augustana or St. Ambrose. Maybe they'll look at, you know, a job opportunity here that they never would have been exposed to.
“You know, one of the students from Atlanta, he was like, could I work here next summer? I was like, absolutely,” Kelli said. “Like, we have young people who aren't from here working here all summer.”
Student experiences on set
Edwin Nava, 17, who recently graduated high school in San Jose, Calif., took Fresh Films classes there last fall. “It was a really nice environment. Everyone was supportive of each other, and I learned a lot of great material, like cameras, audio,” he said at First Lutheran, noting he’s worked sound mixing for “Dearly Departed.”
“I definitely like the work environment and how the things are really used in the real world,” Edwin (whose favorite filmmaker is Christopher Nolan) said. “Like how the equipment is used.”
Kel Lawson, who just graduated Davenport Central, plans to be a film major at Augustana. For the Fresh Films series, she did audio work, camera work, and set building.
“I was part of Fresh Films all four years of my high school experience,” Kel said, noting she first got interested in film work as a junior high student with Creative Arts Academy. “My responsibilities ranged from managing different jobs on set to reaching out to our different talent that we needed, along with managing my fellow crew members. Along with taking, later on in my Fresh Films experience, taking behind-the-scenes photos because I was employed by Fresh Films my last year.”
She was part of last summer’s “Groundhog Gary” shoot and said “it went amazingly.”
“I got to experience a lot. I got to see puppeteer live at work and work on the film set for the first time. And it was very amazing to see a working crew going in motion and seeing all the moving parts,” Kel (who loves director James Gunn) said.
In the industry, she’d like to do audio work. “I love sound mixing,” Kel said. “I love running the boom pole. And I also really love set building. And this program helped me find both of those.”
Gavin Zimmerman, 19, graduated in fall 2024 from Bettendorf High, and his favorite filmmakers are Steven Spielberg and George Lucas.
“Compared to a lot of people who start when they're in middle school or their freshman year of high school, I started pretty late compared to that. So I started doing the program this last January up to May, and I got to work with a lot of really cool people, and it was a really good experience being able to use the knowledge, that I learned about like camera tricks and film and being able to actually put that into practice,” he said.
“I really like storytelling, so writing stories to turn into film,” Gavin said. “Also I really like camera work and cinematography and making a scene look like a piece of art. I love when scenes are more than just like the basics, but when you add like light and colors and different pieces like props, whatever it is to add to the scenes.”
For “Dearly Departed,” he was one of many production assistants, doing varied odd jobs. Gavin said he most likes camera work.
“I think it's really cool how they— how the story is like kind of as we filmed, I've kind of learned more about what the story is. It's pretty, pretty fascinating. I'm definitely going to want to check it out when it comes out.”
Part of the crew is doing the vital work of compiling, labeling, saving and backing up all the shots for Rock Squad, Kelli said.
“They're basically doing all of the behind-the-scenes grunt work. But that's the job of the digital imaging tech, is to get all the footage prepared and backed up for the editors,” she said.
“So they're doing that. We might bring in a couple to edit some of the behind-the-scenes, but most of the heavy lifting on the film will be done by the Rock Squad team for this one.”
They’re planning to do post-production through September, with a planned air date in October, she said.
“YouTube content creators, they're just— their timelines are so much faster,” Kelli said. “It’d be awesome to have a Halloween launch with ghosts. But people watch ghost stuff and vampire stuff all year long, so we'll take it. But it could, in theory, could be on air before ‘Groundhog Gary.’ It's just the speed of how YouTubers move, which we're kind of excited about because, when you produce something, you want to see it go.”
Working on major studio in Rock Island
Fresh Films, a Rock Island-based nonprofit production company, is using its latest streaming series to showcase how film and TV production can fuel economic growth across the Quad Cities. The project is part of a broader initiative to build Rock Line Studios – a $12-million campus with soundstages and other infrastructure needed to attract $5 million to $30 million Hollywood productions to the QC, creating jobs and positioning the region as a growing hub for the creative economy.
As Illinois’ film industry grows from $700 million to $1 billion over the next four years, regions with film studios will receive significant economic benefits, and Fresh Films has been working with local partners and investors to raise funds to build the Rock Line Studios campus in downtown Rock Island.
The build is backed by a $3.8M grant from the State of Illinois, the city of Rock Island, local private investors and donors and recent support by Senator Mike Halpin’s office.
An additional $1.6 million is needed for the project to break ground, allowing the studio team to set an open date and begin selling the QC to producers, like Amazon, Netflix, and Hallmark.
“The studio in Rantoul, Illinois just got another holiday movie. Without this essential production infrastructure, the Quad Cities will continue to miss out on these larger-scale productions,” Kelli Feigley said. “While we can film here without a studio, larger $5 to $30 million NBC or Apple productions won’t come here without the studio infrastructure. We’re hoping our smaller production this summer helps shine the light.”
Rock Line Studios is a transformative film and television production campus planned for downtown Rock Island. Featuring two soundstages, support spaces, a workforce training center, and multiple outdoor lots, Rock Line Studios will be four-block campus on 5th Avenue between 20th and 22nd Street.
Built to attract mid-level productions with budgets ranging from $5 million to $30 million, the studio campus has the potential to bring 100+ jobs and millions of dollars in economic revenue and business opportunities to the QC. Learn more at freshfilms.org/studio.
They really want to break ground for the studio by this fall, Kelli said.
“If we don't raise it by then, you can't put steel in the ground in November and December, the ground's frozen,” she said. “So if we don't get it by the end of the summer, we'll probably have to wait all the way until the ground thaws, right. But as soon as we break ground, from that point, one year later, we could be attracting productions here.”
There’s a smaller studio in Rantoul, Ill. (the east-central part of the state), created in an old airport hangar that is up and running, called Flyover Film Studios.
“They've already done $12 million in business. It burns me up because they're great people, actually, but I don't want them getting all the business,” Kelli said. “I'd love for some of it to come here. They’re doing a Hallmark Christmas movie.”
“You can't make it snow outside in summer. So all those, all the Christmas movies for Lifetime and Hallmark are all filmed in the summer in studio space. So they film them in May, June, July, August for Christmas in a studio space,” she said. “So if we're up and running by next summer, we could get some of those Christmas movies here.
“And they're all small budgeted features, which is perfect for what we're building. We're not too expensive,” Kelli said. “We have basically about a million to go to break ground, and then another like million and a half after that to finalize.”
“It's harder right now because people are like ‘I don't know, is this a Quad-City thing?’ ” she asked. “They're like sort of skeptical. Could this happen? Or why the Quad Cities? Has this ever been done before? And we're like, no, it's never been done before. Yes, we should do it. Why not the Quad Cities? And get on the bandwagon. And I think you have to have some amount of belief.”
The QC can offer exterior locations, but needs a big studio for flexible space, Kelli said.
“If we want bigger productions here in the Quad Cities, we have to have a studio because that's the infrastructure that's needed for them to stay longer,” she said. “Otherwise, they're just going to come in, shoot a few exteriors, and off they go.”
“If we want the film industry to come here, we have to build the stages. We have to build the box where they can shoot the films in,” Kelli said. “We just have to build the infrastructure. And then it's not that they won't rent the exteriors and film on the farms and Aledo Opera House or downtown Rock Island. Absolutely. But you need both if we want them to be here for some length of time.”
Fresh Films could make the partnership with Rock Squad ongoing, since they film all over the country, Kelli said.
“If we can start working with them more often than just this, like we could be collaborating with them every summer on a Tubi and YouTube series,” she said. “They could be producing from here too, and that helps with our whole vision for the studio. We want to bring outside producers to film here.”
"Groundhog Gary" (to screen at Last Picture House in Davenport on Aug. 15 at noon) follows 11-year-old Benny who is dreading his family’s cabin trip, convinced his parents will announce their divorce. After learning that a groundhog’s shadow can predict six more weeks of winter, Benny hatches a plan to stall the trip and maybe save his family.
With help from his best friend Sadie, Benny kidnaps the town’s beloved groundhog, Gary, but keeping a celebrity groundhog hidden is harder than he imagines and as the Groundhog Day festival approaches, Benny is pushed to his limits. Realizing that he truly fears isn’t the end of winter but the end of his family, Benny comes to understand that while you can’t control the seasons, you can choose to weather them together.
Fresh Films programs are free and open to all—no particular GPA or previous experience required. “We make sure opportunities are equitable to everyone, including youth of color, young women and students from low-income communities,” its website says.
For local youth that want to be interns on future projects, they should visit www.freshfilms.org.
This story was produced by WVIK, Quad Cities NPR. We rely on financial support from our listeners and readers to provide coverage of the issues that matter to the Quad Cities region and beyond. As someone who values the content created by WVIK's news department, please consider making a financial contribution to support our work.
