Local businesses and community members are teaming up to help get two Northern Kentucky film projects off the ground.
“Casually Cool!,” which is filming this December, and “Truly Trudy,” filming next summer, are both collaborations with Newport-based NKY Films and Covington’s Mediatrix Films and are being produced by former Saturday Night Live cast member Gary Kroeger, who will also serve as on-screen talent.
While the latter is a high school comedy and the former is a murder mystery, both share a connection to the region, with each filmed in NKY and featuring regional talent.
NKY Films co-owner and director Ricky Glore said that while “Casually Cool!” is fully funded, it is low-budget and has outside sponsorships; they are attempting to use the funds they make from it to produce “Truly Trudy,” which, as a full musical, costs a lot more (albeit still pretty low in terms of movie productions).
“Truly Trudy” was written in collaboration with Glore’s childhood friend and horror novelist Eric Hunter.
“It came out of one night,” Glore told LINK nky. “I was going downstairs to the basement to make popcorn, and I got this text message, and it was: ‘What if the last surviving member of a death cult immediately was thrust into her senior year of high school? And it’s a rom-com.’ And I was just like, ‘yep.’”
The film, Glore said, will harken to every other high school coming-of-age movie, a la “Pretty in Pink.” And, it will be filmed at Bellevue High School.
“The whole message is: well, everything can be a cult, but how positively are you going to use it? Are you going to use it in the community?” said Glore. “And if it doesn’t end in death, cults aren’t bad for the most part.”
Up until now, Glore and NKY Films have only made horror movies, with his first feature-length film, “All Your Friends Are Dead,” released in 2022. He said he is looking forward to changing genres and doing something a little different, but that comes with a different budget.
“All Your Friends Are Dead,” Glore said, was made for $5,959. Their next film, “Sweet Meats,” which came out this year, came in at around $22,000.
“Truly Trudy,” being 30 person cast, having scenes with up to 15 dancers and music, Glore estimates it is going to cost between 40 and $50,000.
While they are working to get the funds together for “Truly Trudy,” Glore said they are going to work on “Casually Cool!” which he describes as, “this really fun, scrappy first movie that kind of exudes what ‘Truly Trudy’ is doing, and kind of what we want to do filmmaking-wise, which is community, heart and humor.”
The lead in “Truly Trudy,” Trudy, is played by local actress Eileen Earnest, who has been in several NKY Films productions.
“I’ve been a part of all four movies, and it’s a wonderful family of misfit toys (and I love misfit toys), I really appreciate that because of the lower budgets and because of the kind of grassroots efforts, like everybody gets together and you become more invested,” said Earnest.
Earnest spoke highly of every production with NKY Films that she’s been involved with. She has done other films, but said she feels the energy and community just aren’t the same.
“We’re not going to just go, ‘Okay, well, we’ve reached it. We’ve reached the point where we’ve learned all the things we’re going to learn. We figured it all out.’”
Originally from the Dayton, Ohio, area, now living in NKY, Earnest studied musical theater in college, but after graduation, she said she struggled during auditions, feeling like she was lost in a pool and couldn’t stand out.
“I was never the leading lady,” said Earnst.” I was always either the funny lady, the comic relief, or the old woman. So what I learned was, ‘Oh, the thing that people are going are noticing and taking note of is the comedy portion of what I’m doing,’ and so it was like, ‘oh, there’s something to this.’”
Earnst eventually came across improv comedy, which she said “absolutely blew my mind.”
Glore got his start at Campbell County High School when his now co-owner of NKY Films, Nicholas Hiance, asked him in art class if he liked movies.
“I was like, ‘Do I? I also eat food,” Glore said he responded to Hiance.
The two bonded over their love of film and comedy, eventually filming some of the sketches and putting together a cable-access show in Campbell County called “The Show.”
“We would film this half-hour sketch comedy show,” said Glore. “And we’re like, ‘Can we air it? And they’re said, ‘You can put anything you want on there, unless it’s nudity, hate speech or cursing. And we’re like, ‘Alright.’ And that is literally our start.”
Eric Hunter was in their first-ever short film, a 15-minute zombie movie called “Dead Woods.” The DVD, Glore said, “had over an hour and a half of special features.”
Eventually, Glore and Hiance started NKY Films in 2021.
They have now made several short films as well as two full-length movies. Their latest, “Sweet Meats,” even won “best horror” at the 2025 Port of Fear Film Festival.
Glore said that he is so excited to showcase the region that he is from and still calls home.
“What is really nice about filming in our hometowns is that we do have the hometown buy-in,” said Glore.
Places they have reached out to, if they can’t swing a sponsorship, have been offering support in other ways, like providing catering for the cast.
“People don’t have to move to New York, Atlanta, or Hollywood to make films,” said Glore in a press release. “We’re proving that Greater Cincinnati can build cinema right here, and we want local businesses to be part of that story.”
“Truly Trudy” and “Casually Cool!” are co-produced by NKY Films and Mediatrix Films. Executive producers are Glore, Amy Hassebrock, Jana Haney, Riley Bartolomeo, Gary Kroeger and Nathan Ward.
Find out more about the films at thenky.com. You can donate to the productions at indiegogo.com.