Missouri has been the backdrop for several movies and TV shows, and they’re not always flattering. A team of three women is working on “Big Mike’s Cabin,” a feature film.
They plan to shoot in the Show-Me State — and they’re looking for Springfield locals to play a role.
Turning a disappointment into a new project
Rebecca Holopter graduated from Missouri State University in 2007 and moved to Los Angeles. She met Verity Butler at a chili cookoff. They soon became best friends and writing partners. Among other projects, they spent 10 years working on a TV pilot. It didn’t pan out.
“We got to a certain point and it just felt like it crumbled and fell apart. It really hurt,” Holopter said. “We both felt lost, like, ‘What do we do?’”
In 2020, Butler moved back home to Houston, Texas, to be closer to family while grieving the loss of her father.
Holopter stayed in LA, where she works as a painter, a painting teacher and an acting coach. Eventually, the two best friends channeled their pain into a new screenplay in which two women run a flower store. After the store goes under, the women struggle and grow apart before reuniting for a weekend at a cabin in the Ozarks.
“It’s a very personal story to Rebecca and me,” Butler said. “That makes it both exciting and scary — but in a great way.”
Artists often seek to show the specific to demonstrate the universal. Holopter wanted to see platonic relationships on the silver screen, like in the classic film “Thelma and Louise.”
“I want to see women friendships, especially in their 40s and above, where they feel lost midlife, where they don’t how to communicate and they love each other so much,” Holopter said.
Grief fuels creativity
The writers, along with costume designer Allison Williams, channeled grief into the creative process.
Butler’s sister dreamt of chatting with her dad after his death and Butler incorporated it into the script. She said this was “incredibly cathartic.”
“I feel like folks who have lost a loved one will relate to the wish of being able to see them again,” Butler said. “I miss my dad’s straightforward, no-nonsense advice, so to be able to have one more chat with him would be incredible.”
She said she found some healing while spending time with a medium.
“Maybe it was all B.S., but after that experience, I felt like a weight had been lifted,” Butler said. “I wanted that same feeling for (my character) Marianne in the script.”
Williams has also lost her father, and used a mystical experience to inspire the character of Ghost Dad.
“Ghost Dad’s appearance reminds me of a dream I had about my late father,” Williams said. “In it, my father was in a shed out in the woods, wearing a tuxedo and working on inventions. He loved inventing things and tinkering, so I know the dream was meant to be healing.”
Holopter was also saddened during a time of global grief.
“I felt profoundly lonely, especially after my best friend moved away and I experienced the loss of my 15-year-old kitty, Lucy,” Holopter said. “I tried to stay positive and keep moving forward, avoiding ‘bad feelings’ at all costs.”
She realized blocking painful emotions wasn’t sustainable, and learned to feel them to heal them.
“Working on (‘Big Mike’s Cabin’) brings up a lot of emotions and (I’m learning to) face them rather than skirt around them,” Holopter said. “I feel like filming is going to be very cathartic.”
A ‘dapper’ ghost
The story has elements of magical realism, like a talking rooster and a merman with a dadbod, so Williams isn’t concerned about asking the audience to embrace both whimsy and mystery.
“Big Mike’s Cabin” includes elements that are blatantly unbelievable — a life-sized shrimp, a merman — so a ghostly representation of Marianne’s dad doesn’t seem like a huge leap,” Williams said.
Some characters will look silly and some will look sharp. Williams, the costume designer, works on wedding clothing and commissioned fits.
“Ghost Dad will be looking dapper in his flashy Nudie Suit, which is a bedazzled Western suit,” Williams said.
She was inspired by her dream of her father in a tux. It may be fabricated, so to speak, but she said considering a loved one looking well “has a way of putting you at ease.”
“There is something healing about seeing your past loved one looking good when often the last time you saw them they were not,” Williams said. “It goes against the inherent images of death.”
Location, location, location
Williams is based in Springfield, so she is scouting settings for filming in the area.
She’s particularly fond of Hercules Glades Wilderness Area, which is in the Mark Twain National Forest in southern Missouri.
“It’s really beautiful, with nice bluffs and waterfalls,” Williams said.
She’s also keen on Stark Caverns, which is near Lake of the Ozarks.
“They have bright blue lights and bright red lights to highlight little features in the cave, so it really gives it a psychedelic look,” Williams said.
They are excited that filming in Missouri now makes sense, so to speak, thanks to a new tax credit.
“Senate Bill 94, a bipartisan effort in the Missouri Legislature, will incentivize the film and music industries to invest in our state,” Representative Betsy Fogle, D-Springfield, said.
The previous entertainment tax credit expired in 2013, so recent shows like “Ozark” and “Sharp Objects,” though set in Missouri, were actually filmed further south.
“No longer does a show that’s based in Missouri need to be filmed in Georgia,” state representative and gubernatorial candidate Crystal Quade, D-Springfield, said.
Naturally, there’s more to Missouri than meth, murder and money laundering, and Holopter wants to show off the good stuff.
“A big mission of ours is to show the Ozarks in a good light,” Holopter said. “(The shows) are one-dimensional as far as characters go and their accents are all over the place.”
Holopter said they also plan to film at her uncle’s dock on Table Rock Lake. Years ago, she said, a friend named Michael suggested they shoot a movie at a cabin where his dad, called Big Mike, lives. That inspired the title.
How to help
They also want to stay local in terms of cast and crew.
“We want to support MSU actors and students in (Springfield) Little Theatre,” Williams said.
The SAG-AFTRA strike, ongoing since July, has ground major casting to a halt. Holopter said they’ve received audition tapes from local talent, however.
“We can’t talk to anybody until the strike is over, acting-wise, but the second it’s over we are reaching out and getting our cast together,” Holopter said.
Williams said they also intend to use actors from Mosaic Arts Collective because of the importance of a diverse cast.
Watch the first trailer and you’ll recognize a couple of Springfield’s best-known actors: John Goodman and Brad Pitt. Alas, Holopter incorporated found footage of the two. Naturally, they’re still creating the cast, so the trailer needed stand-ins. But that doesn’t mean those two aren’t welcome.
Holopter just doesn’t want to put friends of the actors in an awkward spot.
“We’re open if anyone wants to reach out to them, 100%. We would love that,” Holopter said. “But we’re also just being respectful, like, ‘Hey, maybe go through his agent.’”
Williams sees a silver lining in the delay because, as a producer, she’s working on fundraising. Donors can contribute via Film Independent and receive a tax write-off.
Holopter encourages parties interested in “Big Mike’s Cabin” to follow up.
“We will take any connections whatsoever,” Holopter said. “If people are wanting to be a part of this, reach out.”
