Indie movie filmed in Jasper County premieres at Capitol II Theatre

Tiffany Ketcham has not produced a movie in over 10 years, and shooting a film was not something her one-and-only fellow crew member Cody McKinney had ever done before either. So when they found out their movie sold out its premiere seating at the Capitol II Theatre this coming Friday, they were beyond excited.

“It’s probably been our biggest win,” Ketcham said.

McKinney added, “To see people’s responses — even if they’re close to us or complete strangers — has been amazing. It’s our first little premiere and one of our big feature films that we’re doing. I’ve got one guy coming from Leon. So he’s eight miles from Missouri and he’s driving all the way up to come see it.”

Opening day is at 9:30 p.m. Aug. 30 in the downtown Newton movie theater. With the first limited screening sold out, the owners have scheduled a second showing at 9:45 p.m. There will be a Q&A with the cast and crew when the film concludes.

“The Gates” is a supernatural drama rife with action. It’s a story of an anti-hero who goes on a journey to figure out the type of person he is and wants to be. Also, he’s dead. His adventure begins after he is murdered and makes a deal with the gatekeeper. Ketcham said it was a deviation from her previous films.

“I’ve always written straight up comedy with a little romance,” Ketcham said. “But this one I just wanted to go in a completely other direction, and I wanted to do an anti-hero story. When I wrote this, I shot for the moon. There is so many stunts and things we never thought we would be able to do that were able to pull off.”

Which she said was in large part due to the Newton community’s support and the areas they were allowed to film. The locations should look familiar to Jasper County residents. Ketcham and McKinney filmed in places like Maytag Park, Cardinal Lanes, PB’s Pub, Rock Creek State Park and Thirsty Turtle in Colfax.

Newton is McKinney’s hometown. Ketcham moved to town about seven years ago from Keota. McKinney said all the local locations they used worked out perfectly. A lot of the shooting, they said, was done on the fly. The cast of 20 was largely filled with first-timers, and even their kids shared parts.

With the shooting finished and the film completely edited, all that is left now is for the community and friends to see the final product. McKinney hopes audiences enjoy the film but also take notice of the passionate creatives who made it and are finding interesting things to do.

“There’s talent, there’s knowledge, there are things going on with people doing things they’re passionate about,” he said. " … It’s cool and it’s motivating. We’re not working on big budgets. We’re putting in hundreds of hours of time. You don’t need huge things to make big things happen.”

Ketcham loves being able to share her joy of movies with the community and reiterated that there is so much talent in the community that goes unnoticed.

“This thing has taken over our lives but in the best way,” she said. “We can give this amazing, incredible gift to not only Newton but the Iowa film community that you can do — like Cody said — really big things if you have the drive and passion to do them.”