CINCINNATI — In a small hotel room off I-75, dozens of crew members dart back and forth, checking the light, raising the boom to catch the best sound, setting props, giving the actors a final look at the script or a little touchup to their makeup. Then, within minutes, everything is still.
The director calls “action,” the executive producer looks on with glee and the magic begins.
This is the scene set for “Rebel/Rebel” as it reaches the midpoint in its production schedule. It’s the second of two feature films that chose the Cincinnati area as their backdrop.
The coming of age movie follows a once-famous actor struggling with addiction and self-discovery and started production in late May, roughly the same time another picture, “Bones and All,” began its filming.
Production began in late May for “Rebel/Rebel”
“Bones and All,” is the first film shot in the U.S. by Italian director and 2017 Academy Award Nominee, Luca Guadagnino. The horror-romance film, starring Timothée Chalamet and Taylor Russell, centers around a young woman with an uncontrollable urge to kill and eat the people who love her.
These are the first films to set their cinematic projects in Cincinnati since the pandemic, but Kristen Schlotman, the executive director of Film Cincinnati, has been working to attract projects like this for years.
“Seeing people back on set, seeing people getting hired and being excited about it, seeing projects up and running in Cincinnati and knowing that we’re getting really, really busy, that’s what film Cincinnati is here for,” she said. “That’s what we do.”
Before the pandemic, things were trending up for Cincinnati’s future in film. Between 2002 and 2020, crews shot 25 films in Greater Cincinnati, now Schlotman hopes these productions serve as a starting point for many upcoming productions.
“It’s important to have a mix of projects and to make sure that we’re attracting big and small so having them both here at the same time is really exciting,” she said.
Both films have hired local talent to serve as production staff and “Rebel/Rebel” has two executive producers who call Cincinnati home, Johnny Mocker, Jr. and Chip Heidt.
“Because you know it’s just such a great place,” Mocker said.
Executive producer Johnny Mocker, Jr. looks on as the actors and director set the scene
The team initially planned to shoot the project in Los Angeles but Mocker said Film Cincinnati convinced them to keep the project closer to home. He said almost anything they could do in Los Angeles they could do in Cincinnati, often at a much lower cost.
“All the talent we needed was here in Cincinnati,” he said.
The settings are too. Mocker said his team has picked out 38 locations across the Cincinnati area.
“The locations, it just fit so well with the script,” he said.
Director marks the scene as filming begins
It also brings a piece of Mocker himself to the project. This is his second feature film, though he hardly considers himself Hollywood. He’s a self-described Cincinnati steelworker with a creative streak, who got involved in film production through Instagram.
Mocker said that’s how he met Drew Harwood, “Rebel/Rebel’s” writer and director, they both followed and supported the same LA artist.
“We just started talking on instagram and we met for breakfast when I was out in LA and awhile later I got involved in the film,” he said.
From there, Mocker said he fell in love with the idea of seeing one of these productions go from script, to rehearsal, to screen.
“This is all part of the same process: art,” he said.
The team plans to wrap up production in early July and release the film early next year. They hope to premiere it in Cincinnati.
