$12M QC film studio gets $3.8M Illinois grant

Rock Island-based Fresh Films is getting a $3.8-million state of Illinois grant to build a new $12-million production studio and sound stages in Rock Island County.

There were 15 applicants for the grants (from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity), and the Fresh Films grant scored the highest. Just three recipients were named Wednesday morning.

“To be chosen as one of three recipients in the state was really exciting, absolutely mind-blowing,” Estlin Feigley – who runs Fresh Films nationwide with his wife Kelli – said Tuesday. “This hopefully can be a little bit of an accelerant, a fire starter, so we can get the film industry here in Rock Island County.”

Fresh Films worked in collaboration with other local partners to showcase how combining the region’s unique locations and history with soundstage studio infrastructure will attract large-scale TV and film productions to this part of the state.

The studio will serve as a catalyst to diversify the local economy, not just in job creation for local talent but also in how it can attract professionals from the entertainment industry, spurring the growth of related businesses and services which adds to the overall financial health of the community, according to the grant application.

“The grant is an investment in economic growth, cultural enrichment, and community development, with far-reaching benefits for the Western Illinois region and for the State of Illinois,” Fresh Films said. “We look at this as an opportunity for all boats to rise as we partner together to benefit the region and its Illinois residents.”

In addition to grant projects in Chicago and Champaign, the $3,797,000 grant for Rock Island County will support construction of soundstages and related production support — including production offices, mill spaces and other facilities that attract and serve large-scale film and TV productions. The grant requires additional matching funds invested in the project, and a site is expected to be chosen in the next two to four months.

Fresh Films needs to raise over $8 million in the next two years, and Kelli Feigley said they plan to break ground by January 2025, looking at either redeveloping an existing building or building new.

The facility will include rooms for hair and makeup, production offices, production support spaces and a smaller training stage. The sound stage will need at least two or three employees devoted to it.

The new studio would have at least two 20,000-square-foot soundstages for large scale film and TV productions.

“We’ll be out talking to donors, investors and partners to make sure we can raise the rest of the funding to make the whole project a reality,” Kelli Feigley said Tuesday. “It’s so exciting that we hope people will get on board with the momentum.”

“To be selected and not be in Chicago is huge,” she said of the state grant. “To be in western Illinois, some people might say ‘Where’s that?’ but we all know in this community that there are huge opportunities here; that there’s been a lot of films shot here, and there is a lot of film history here.

“But you can’t bring the big productions here without a sound stage,” she said. “It will complement all the other awesome locations here.”

The establishment of a soundstage production facility in Rock Island County is an investment in economic growth, cultural enrichment, and community development, with far-reaching benefits for the region and for the State of Illinois, Fresh Films said.

The training and jobs at the studio would create economic mobility for local residents while building a pipeline of talent for the Illinois film industry. Such a facility would serve as a catalyst to diversify the local economy, not just in job creation for local talent but also in how it would attract professionals from the entertainment industry, spurring the growth of related businesses and services which add to the overall financial health of the community, the application said.

Peter Hawley, director of the Illinois Film Office, helped choose grant recipients.

“To be truly competitive as a film center, Rock Island and Moline have to have a film studio complex. This grant helps them get there,” he said Tuesday by email. One grantee had to be from outside of the Chicago area, he noted.

“Five years ago when applying for this job, I said to be competitive, we need more infrastructure – soundstages and entry-level crew,” Hawley said. “This grant and these new soundstages – plus our ongoing training program (Fresh films is a grantee there as well) – is making Illinois a very attractive place for film and TV productions.

“There was a recent economic impact study on the benefits of the Illinois film production tax credit,” he said, noting it showed a return on investment of almost $7 to each $1 of tax credits issued. “That is money that stays in the local economy.”

The state has an Illinois Film Production Tax Credit Act, offering producers a credit of 30% of all qualified expenditures, including post-production.

Kelli said Rock Island County could attract more productions since the state also offers an additional 15% tax credit on salaries of individuals (making at least $1,000 in total wages) who live in economically disadvantaged areas whose unemployment rate is at least 150% of the state’s annual average.

Having the new sound stage within the city of Rock Island could be advantageous to producers to qualify for greater tax credits, since more assistance is offered in census tracts that meet those income levels, Kelli said.

“We’re Rock Islanders now, and you look at the opportunity and what has been here,” she said.

Additional Fresh Films training and internships could be offered in the new facility.

“The studio grant from the state, about 20 percent of the grant application was, how are you going to train a new, up-and-coming workforce,” Kelli said. “It was literally wrapped up in the grant — we want to help you with the sound stage, but you need to train up-and-coming talent, and we already do that.

“The opportunity for people to get trained in the Quad Cities to work in this field, the wages are really high, and with more work, our professional training will continue,” Kelli said.

New Rock Island HQ

Fresh Films is renovating a vacant 1912 house at 428 19th St., Rock Island, for its new headquarters, production and training space, next to Project NOW downtown. That is expected to open April 1.

The city has helped support this renovation, Estlin said, noting a $20,000 commercial property enhancement grant. Fresh Films paid $70,000 for the property and is spending about $50,000 on the renovations, Kelli said.

“It’s amazing what a little paint, plaster work and flooring can do,” she said of the two-story building. “We purchased this before the big grant, but we’re gonna need it for sure. The studio’s not gonna be ready for a couple years.”

The other state grant recipients include $5 million for the Fields Studios in Chicago (conversion of an old Marshall Field’s warehouse), a $200-million project that includes condos and restaurants, Estlin said. A project in Champaign got $1 million from the state.

“If you look at the cityscape, you want Chicago,” Estlin said of film and TV shows, but the QC area boasts tremendous variety of locations, from urban to rural, to riverfront.

“They don’t shoot here because there’s no studio space — they shoot in Vancouver,” he said. “If you want a river, if you want hardscape, you want small towns, there are other options.”

Rock Island County and Illinois also present advantages in cost savings compared to other regions of the country, Estlin said. And Rock Island County is less expensive, less traffic and fewer headaches than Chicago, he noted.

“We’re gonna have to build our reputation,” he said.

“In the city, everything is more expensive — parking and food, even utilities and labor,” Kelli said of here versus Chicago. “We’re gonna have to work hard to really sell the region, and get people to realize we’re 2 1/2 hours outside of Chicago. Can we get the equipment here? Yes you can. Can we find the talent? Yes you can.

“I do think it’s gonna be those productions that are looking for that, we need farm backgrounds anyway and there’s studio space here,” she said. “Certain things, they might have to travel to southern Illinois to get what they want, but in this case, they can travel 15 minutes.”

Getting bigger productions here

Rock Island and the Quad Cities at large have a huge history in film, Fresh Films noted. The founders of AMC Theatres are from Rock Island, the 16mm camera was invented locally, Blackhawk Films (which distributed Chaplin films, Little Rascals and many others) was founded here. Hollywood icons including Cary Grant and Treat Williams have worked here.

More recently, renowned Hollywood producers the Farrelly brothers filmed part of their 2021 television series “The Now” here. Writers and filmmakers Bryan Woods and Scott Beck (from Bettendorf) are investing in the region with the new Last Picture House theater in downtown Davenport.

And Rock Island natives and Rock Island High School alums Megan Trinrud and Nate Trinrud (who are creators, writers and producers of the Paramount / Netflix series “School Spirits”) have cited wanting to have Rock Island as a home base for future productions, Fresh Films said.

Although the region has had many films shot locally, they were generally films that only worked in the region for a few days up to a few weeks.  Studio infrastructure is needed to attract larger scale TV and film productions that rent the facility for multiple weeks or months which impact employment and economic development, the Feigleys said.

Productions will come here because of the studio AND for the unique locations, unique history, the region’s cost savings, and the crew pipeline.

“Rock Island has enormous potential to be another hub for Illinois’ film production industry with an employable, diverse workforce, strategic locations, historic charm, supportive economy and a wide range of affordable amenities,” Fresh Films said.

Studio space would be complemented by the opportunity for varied locations, architectural and period styles all within minutes of each other from Victorian homes to rolling hills/bluffs and river vistas, farming communities, mansions, railroads and unparalleled views of the mighty Mississippi River.

“Private location fees are incredibly reasonable and public sites are generally free,” the application said.

Fresh Films will continue to operate its high-school and young adult training program. With the new facility, Fresh Films training area residents for film and TV jobs will expand four-fold and expand into other production crafts. Fresh Films is one of five Illinois Film Office training programs working in the state dedicated to training young adults for jobs in film and television production.

Originally headquartered in Chicago, and now in Rock Island, Fresh Films produces films, TV shows and documentaries while training young adults in all aspects of film production to train them for future careers in film.

Not only does Fresh Films work with high schoolers (75 in the QC, plus 500-600 more including Twin Cities, Chicago, Boston, L.A., Seattle, Atlanta, New York, Pittsburgh, Memphis, and virtually), they have a new accelerated training program to kick-start careers for those new to the field in film, TV and other media.

Fresh Films’ productions include The Filmmaker Lab, a documentary produced with Hello Sunshine and Reese Witherspoon that trained 41 diverse young women to learn documentary filmmaking.

Fresh Films’ feature The Stream starring Rainn Wilson released in theaters and currently on streaming platforms had 120 trainees working on the film set, and the Emmy-nominated “Detectives Club” — which launched on WTTW — engaged trainees in all aspects of production, and stars Tim Kazurinsky, an Evanston native who starred in Saturday Night Live and Police Academy.

Other productions include documentary “I AM disABLEd,” which premiered locally in November 2022. For more information, visit the Fresh Films website HERE.

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