(gentle music) - [Announcer] Funding for "Working Capital" is provided by The Friends of KTWU and Go Topeka.

- Welcome back to "Working Capital."

The foundations of a city's identity were once located in the hearts of downtowns all across America.

It's where culture, business, and entertainment mixed to become the lifeblood of a community.

Then came urban sprawl and the pillars of downtowns were spread far and wide across the map.

We traded connection for convenience, and left the heart of communities to drown.

But now that trend in Topeka is reversing course and community leaders are injecting new life into the foundations of this great city.

Focusing on the future, coming up next.

(upbeat music) Jeff Carson and Greg Ready had a vision of creating a new film and video production company in Topeka.

One that was able to grow with the ebbs and flows of the new digital age of filmmaking.

In 2004, Gizmo Pictures called action for the first time, and their cameras and imaginations have been rolling ever since.

Welcome to "Working Capital" Jeff.

- Hey, Jay, thank you.

- So first off, you do such creative work.

What got you into this field?

Before we get into the main business, what got you shooting?

Where's your passion lie?

- Well, how long do we have?

When I was a kid, my dad had an eight-millimeter film camera, like a lot of our dads did back in the 60s and 70s.

And with this garish, giant, like face melting light on the top of it so that it would work.

But I was kind of fascinated by the picture playback, you know?

It was something kind of- - [Jay] Magical.

- Magical, yeah.

And so then, as I learned later, my grandfather had a film camera when my mom was like four.

And so we had the film of that black and white from 1938.

And my grandfather just went out and he shot train wrecks and all kinds of stuff, you know?

But that got me interested in it and I always kind of had an eye for composition, and shooting and lighting and things like that, so that kind of led to that interest.

Plus, when I got to college, I realized that if I took television and radio, I didn't have to study, right?

- Rely on the creativity and imagination instead?

- Yeah, yeah, just fake it till you make it, right?

- Well that's great.

So you get out in the real world, you start shooting, where'd you start shooting at?

Where was your first?

- So I grew up in Nebraska, went to Kearney State College, moved to Monterey, California in '84, and got a job at the CBS affiliate there doing commercials and promos, and led to a lot of cool experiences because as you know, when you're a professional camera person, you have access to things that the John Q Public people just may not get to do.

So you get to cover air shows and rodeos, and you go into prisons, and you go into courtrooms, and you go into every restaurant on the planet.

And when you're in Monterey, it all just feels like heaven out there.

And so I did that for eight years, moved here in '92.

Worked at KTKA television for four years.

And didn't know a soul when I moved here.

And when I worked here, it was a commercial production job and met more people and got a kind of a reputation for being pretty good at it.

And you know this, because back in the day, I'll tell this for everybody at home, the video production world was really a very specified niche production thing.

We weren't all walking around with 4K cameras, believe it or not.

- In our pockets.

- Yeah, back in the 80s and 90s.

Nobody was doing video production because it cost $100,000 or way more than that to really do a broadcast-quality thing.

It was a lot of money.

So Dale Hammer hired me away from the TV station after a little gig I had in Kansas City selling non-linear editing systems.

I was terrible at that, but it was in my field, so I thought I might try it.

So I did sales for a little while.

But Dale Hammer, worked for him for a year and a half, Hammer Studios, taught me a ton.

He's tightly connected to this place too.

- And really a lot of people probably don't know that name anymore, but that was a big media production house for advertising, everything, for all the agencies and all the agencies here.

I mean, huge place, so a great stepping stone there.

- Great stepping stone.

And I learned a little bit about small business operation.

And soon, after I left Hammer to go to Kansas City to work in the sales job, I got a chance to work with the Fry and Allen folks at the ad agency on selling them a video editing system because they really, really wanted to do an in-house film and video production company inside.

And so I put all this big thing together, put the offer on the table and they said, "Great, we'll take it, but you have to come with it."

And so they formed a company called Fry and Allen Films, and I was 25% owner of that with them.

And then I met Greg Ready there.

He was the 3D animation artist at the time.

And then we kind of outgrew what we were doing there.

And we had other agencies in town, other clients in town asking if we could work directly with them.

And we decided to form Gizmo Pictures in 2004.

- And really, I mean, kind of a creative core of Topekans there because I think Greg, did Greg start it?

- NewTek.

- NewTek, so I mean, he'd been in here for a while, come up with that, Dale Hammer, you're kind of continuing the legacy here in Topeka.

- Well the industry has changed so much that it's a little like newspaper in some ways, and all my friends in the newspaper business know how hard it's been.

I knew the writing was kind of on the wall for non-digital media, and especially for the news world when the Chicago Tribune started just telling the reporters "Shoot all your photos on your iPhone and leave us alone here."

And so they took away the camera departments in newspapers and so we've kind of homogenized everything.

And so video production world has done that.

I'm kind of glad I'm not out there being 23 years old or something trying to break into it when there's a thousand people doing it really well.

- Well it's time for a short break.

We'll be right back.

- [Narrator] Every year, millions of animals across the world go without being on television.

Without your support, these poor creatures are deprived of the opportunity to star in an episode of "Nature."

They might not know what TV is, but we can tell it really hurts their feelings.

Only you can step up and right this wrong.

Call, text, or go online right now to support this PBS station and give the animals a chance at stardom.

(bright music) - Welcome back.

Okay Jeff, when we finished up last segment, we're talking about how you and Greg kind of got into this and ready to start Gizmo.

Now getting that up and running, was there still any tape or were you guys on the the digital forefront at that point?

- We were shooting on digital tape, but it was still a tape.

And when you were making a copy of something, you had to do it in real time.

And so it was by today's standards, it was like rubbing two sticks together probably.

But I was just, I think I'm kind of at the right age and stage in my career because when we started dinking around with nonlinear editing in the early 90s, we didn't really know, none of us knew.

But had I been just a little bit older, I might've been old dog new trick, you know, stuck in my ways and kicking and screaming saying "No, I'm not gonna learn this stuff."

So I've learned it along the way and I'm kind of self-taught a lot.

And there are some people that are spectacular if you know the Adobe After Effects world that are just writing scripts and doing all kinds of amazing things and 3D animation.

And I don't do all of that anymore.

I'm a more of a shooter editor storyteller.

- So you guys ended up kind of being, I'm gonna say top dog, kind of the go-to shop in Topeka because we had a lot of marketing firms and advertising agency that didn't do in-house.

So you found a pretty good niche here that created a lot of success.

How were you able to blend with other partners in the community?

- Well, we've always, we, Greg and I, Greg grew up here, I didn't, but we're both nice guys that get along well with people.

We're above all the creative and the precision of whatever is we're working on is with time and money and constraints and everything, we wanna deliver the best possible thing.

I always have said that I think that if it looks important, people sit up and think it is important.

And if it looks like doo-doo, then they kind of go, ah, that's kind of dodgy.

So we got to be well known for bringing a little extra something to the table, I think.

And we collected the gear and we had the truck and we grew, we had up to seven employees for a while there at the height of that.

And we were kind of the go-to people, and we'd like to consider ourselves Switzerland.

If we were working on a hospital for one client and then we went to work on another hospital for another client, we don't talk about, you know-- - Not sharing secrets.

- And so people trusted us and it worked well.

And then it became a lot easier.

Again, it's like the printing press, it became a lot easier.

The cost of entry into video production became a lot cheaper and everything was faster and quicker and better quality and everything.

And so that created an impetus to bring that in house, so every agency started looking at different ways to do that stuff, but still working, still doing great work, and hope to do more for a long time.

- And with all your great collaborations relatively pretty good success.

So you have some growth, you may be looking to change things up.

So instead of getting a nice new building, you decide to kind of give back to Topeka and you go downtown and find the Thatcher Building and find a new home for Gizmo.

So tell me a little bit about.

- 2009, we had been leasing the space in Westboro and we decided things were at a stage where we could afford to buy a building and get established.

And then I started getting lured into the downtown Heartland visioning process with John Hunter and all the Greater Topeka Partnership folks.

And it became real evident that we had found the perfect spot when we walked into the Thatcher.

- And I love it because it's not just for your offices, the way you've always had it from the get go, other shops in there.

So you've had restaurants in there before, there's spaces for other offices coming up.

There's a lot of room there, let alone one of the best backdrops, one of the best sites around I'd say for shooting.

- A studio and hopefully we'll see pictures of that.

And there are a lot of things still going on up there, but the building's empty right now, and we're kind of looking for new tenants for the restaurant space.

And I think everybody, you know, the doldrums after COVID has made the process kind of tentative for people.

But there are a lot of talk about, some big things about to come.

- But the momentum is still there.

It may have slowed down.

But it's coming back.

- When we bought the building, it was a bet on downtown and it was a bet on Topeka that we can do better, we can make it better, we can help do this.

And boy, when the cafe was thriving and you'd see the mayor and a state senator and a big board room in the back having a meeting.

And it was really exciting to think that we had kind of been up there making films and doing this, but we also were part of creating a better aesthetic for Topeka because the space is beautiful and the concepts were beautiful that were in there.

And we're excited to get that going again.

- Well, I'm excited you guys came back to the heart of Topeka helping to revitalize that as well as everyone else down there.

So it's time for another short break.

Grab some popcorn and we'll be right back with today's main feature.

- [Narrator] Golfers, are you ready to have fun while raising money for a good cause?

Then register now for the annual KTWU Golf Classics.

September 22nd at Shawnee Country Club.

9:00 AM tee time, four person scramble, exciting contests, and great player amenity packages.

Sponsorships available.

Go to ktwu.org to register.

Remember, it's about supporting your public television station one swing at a time.

So grab your clubs and come join us for the annual KTWU Golf Classics, register now at ktwu.org.

- The Jayhawk Theater opened its doors to the public in 1926.

Created as a high-tech entertainment center, the architectural masterpiece became Topeka's premier Vaudeville and motion picture palace.

For five decades, it was the heart of downtown Topeka until it closed its doors in 1974.

Now with a new lease on life, the historic Jayhawk Theater is focusing on the future.

So Jeff, you start fixing up the Thatcher Building, then you get some people approaching you to maybe take on a bigger project.

How did this project really capture your heart?

How did they first approach you about the jazz?

- So one of my favorite films is "Cinema Paradiso."

And if you've ever seen that Italian Oscar-winning best foreign film, if you haven't seen it, you need to, it has the best ending ever, I'm just gonna leave it there.

But it's about an old theater in post World War II Italy and how a guy helped who grew up in it actually as a projectionist, and so it left a-- - Left a mark.

- A mark in my soul.

And it's a great movie.

"Cinema Paradiso," rent it now, buy it now.

I also, in college, backing up a little bit to the early 80s, was the campus activities chair.

And again, as a reason not to study, I joined these clubs and so it was like a activities council and we booked films, we booked lecturers.

Your older audience members might remember G Gordon Liddy.

Got to hang out with him for a while, which was kind of fun, and so I got of the bug and we screened "The Shining" on 16 millimeter, you know, and we made shirts and sold tickets.

And so I had a little bit of this sort of venue operating, kind of glorified AV guy kind of background from college.

And that sort of sprung to life when the theater called.

And I put all that back together and I thought, God, so I maybe get to work with a team on an old theater.

So I joined the board in probably 2010.

Something like that, 13 years ago.

And I didn't do a lot for several years, but I was helping and Kathy Duncan and then Doug Jones was board president.

And then when his term ended and he was ready to move to Colorado, they asked me to assume the board leadership.

And so that was like six years ago I think.

- So when you first walked in the Jayhawk, what were your initial thoughts?

- I first walked in it with Dr. Doug Jernigan and I was a camera guy shooting an interview for a news reporter up in the balcony.

And I remember it being very dirty and gross and dusty and just had these warehouse lights and stuff, but I thought, wow, we can't lose it, I'm glad somebody cares about it and is working to save it.

- So what have been the plan so far once you got in there and saw how the board was working, what are the steps going forward?

For quite a while, even as the board was doing good, there wasn't any life in the theater.

They weren't having any events in there.

How did the progression go from how we're gonna fix it up to bringing in new acts?

- Yeah, well it's one of those things, I don't really write a manual on here's step one on how you go about this.

And so looking back, it was enough to keep the lights on and keep the insurance in place and to keep it as dry as possible.

And so when I got there, I saw that the challenges were gonna be huge.

It had been languishing for years and downtown had been languishing for years, but now it isn't.

Now everything's turned around.

Now it's safer for the theater to get developed and built and have a better chance to open its doors to an adoring public.

And so it became a lot more exciting at that point when you think that through.

- What are the biggest challenges facing the renovations?

- Well it's almost a 100 year old building, and so it has no modern amenities.

And so what we've been doing is trying to, what I call improve the curb appeal.

And so make it so that we can bring donors and shareholders in and they don't have to be careful where they walk so much and and be afraid that they're breathing in something that isn't healthy.

So we just went on kind of a campaign to just clean stuff up and get it to where it is today.

- I know the city's really supporting this with the revitalization.

I also know in '93 it was named the State Theater of Kansas when it was shuttered.

Is there any state funds, anything coming from any higher authorities to help preserve this?

- Well what we've learned along the way, and again, going back to your question about why didn't it work before, I think it's hard to get your hands around something this big.

It's a multimillion dollar effort.

There have to be so many things in place before you can really get serious about raising the money.

So what we've worked hard at is not only getting electricity to the stage and building with connections in our area here with Dave's Lights and Mokan Sound and these guys bring in gear and they set it up and they tune the room and all that sort of thing so that when we do have events, it looks really professional and it gives people a better taste of what we're capable of.

- How would you kind of describe the setting in there now since it's been partially renovated, but not, is it kind of a shabby chic?

- So well yeah.

It is shabby chic right now.

In fact, a lot of people kind of enjoy coming in, seeing it in the before state.

But boy, it's going to be a palace when it's done.

- That's awesome.

It's time for another short break.

Stick around, we'll be right back.

(upbeat music) Welcome back to "Working Capital."

All right Jeff, new Life is there.

I've been to weddings there, I've been to some other events, it's not just local events or local people who can have their events there.

Tell us how you've kind of been reaching out and bringing in some bigger acts to really revitalize the mood there.

- Well because it's not fully operational, we don't have the smoke detectors and things like that.

We are limited to 299 people in the room.

So we can't sell more tickets than that.

We can't use the balcony and that sort of thing, but we knew we could sell enough tickets at certain price points and find good sponsor opportunities to help underwrite a little bit.

You guys know anything about underwriting?

- I think a little bit, our viewers may know a little bit too at this point, yeah.

- So we are able to bring in these national touring acts and there's just a different level when you go to that level.

Last Friday for instance, I don't know when this airs, but last Friday we had Isaiah Kelly, a Bronx comedian with an opener from the Bronx and they flew out together and came here, got back and flew home, and they loved it.

And we sold it out.

And it was a great opportunity for us to be able to tell a great story about how we're proactively making diverse programming decisions so that we can bring in Black Topeka and Northeast Kansas and Kansas City and we wanna bring in world-class musicians, lecturers, films, and all sorts of things, And people have a love for the arts and there's really no replacement for live music in film in a big ornate theater like that.

- There's not.

So coming up here in the next six months to a year, what are the plans?

How do you keep the ball rolling?

How do you keep the growth?

- Well part of what I said earlier about putting the theater on a good business footing has given us the credibility to have earned a $5 million grant from the State Sprint Tourism Grant Program.

A $30 million statewide program to help tourism.

All of this is federal dollars, ARPA dollars.

And we are so thrilled that we were qualified and taken seriously to do this.

The state doesn't hand that money out just to everybody.

You have to really earn it.

You have to prove on spreadsheets how it's gonna work and how you're gonna approach it.

And also the dollars have to be spent by the end of 2025.

So we're gonna have to get started really soon.

And we intend to break ground on a first phase of our restoration next year.

Now we've been making small improvements along the way just to make it suitable and usable and not scary for people to walk through.

And so this will help us do all of the mechanical behind the scenes things as our first phase.

So we're excited about that.

- I will say, don't worry though, the candy counter is fantastic there and looks great.

So plenty of snacks going on.

How is the visibility across the state, even nationally for the Jayhawk Theater?

- Well we're members of the Kansas Historic Theaters Association, and we have a pretty good membership statewide of similar organizations doing the same sorts of things we're doing.

Many of them are operating Hutchinson and Salina and those places, and we're kind of following some of their leads and they're following some of our leads and that sort of thing.

But we're also part of the League of Historic American Theaters, LHAT.

They have a conference every summer.

Last year it was in Cleveland, this year it was in Kansas City.

So on the Sunday before the conference starts, they pile into a bus and they do a ramble and they visit three or four theaters on a Sunday.

The second stop was the Jayhawk Theater and we had launched a tour and it just woke them up to what we're doing.

And we were able to talk about a $5 million grant that gets everybody's attention.

These are theater operators from Canada and all across the United States, Broadway.

So we get to interface with this national caliber of people.

We've drawn consultants in to help us guide the way.

And that helps us with our confidence.

It's gonna be exciting.

- Well, I appreciate and I thank you for your dedication and stubbornness to revitalizing our downtown.

Without people with your kind of visions, stuff would just go away and we'd be bulldozing it.

So really appreciate it, Jeff.

Looking forward to what the Jayhawk can do in the future.

- Thanks Jeff.

- That's all the time we have.

I'd like to thank Jeff Carson from Gizmo Pictures and the Jayhawk Theater for joining us today.

As always, if you know of any interesting businesses or business topics, we want to hear from you.

So give us a call, drop us an email, or send us a letter.

Tune the next time, and thanks for watching "Working Capital."

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Funding for "Working Capital" is provided by The Friends of KTWU and Go Topeka.