Story and photo by Nat Levy |

Movie stills by Ben Kadie, Slugco Films

Ben Kadie’s age shows on screen.

His earlier work included purely green-screened backgrounds resembling mob movies and comedies starring his friends. The over-the-top concepts were full of shootouts and one-liners.

But the now 16-year-old junior at Interlake High School is growing up, and the evidence of that can be seen in his latest film.

Kadie is in the midst of shooting his most mature, hard-hitting film yet, “Alone Together.” The story focuses on two families who take a trip to a fictitious Chilean Island (portrayed by beaches on Whidbey Island, and forested areas on Cougar Mountain) only to become ship wrecked.

The majority of passengers escape on a life raft, but the teenage stars of the movie, Brendan (Asher Jordan) and Eloise (Bellevue High School graduate Brianna Massie) are stuck on the island together. This development represents a fantasy for Brendan, who has held unrequited feelings for Eloise much of his life.

“He can choose to keep Eloise there [so that she’ll] still be with him or leave the island because he found a working radio,” Kadie said. “It’s selfish love versus selfless love.”

Kadie has been working on the concept for nearly a year. Like his past projects, the director is keeping “Alone Together” low-budget.

But he’s made a number of changes to his style for this picture.

For example, he made more of an effort to shoot in real locations, rather than green screens. Other than the Whidbey Island/Cougar Mountain shots, Kadie and his crew were able to secure use of the Arthur Foss from the Northwest Seaport. The 1889-built vessel serves as the boat taking the two main families to the Chilean island. He’s shot underwater, and put together a shipwreck sequence of the century-old boat.

Kadie’s emphasis on believable sets, comes with a more professional cast. For the first time, he was able to audition actors and actresses for the character-driven film.

“I think as I’ve just gotten older, I’ve become more interested in stories about characters rather than stories about explosions,” he said.

And the actors took notice.

More than 60 people tried out for the leads of Brendan and Eloise. For Massie, who has been acting since the fourth grade, working with Kadie was a pleasant experience.

“Ben is only 16 and he hasn’t been on many professional shoots,” said Massie, 18. “He is more professional and nice to work with than other directors because he cares about his projects in an innocent way.”

The 19-minute film is another step for Kadie up the ladder into the film-making world.

Kadie is primarily a self-taught director, who uses minimal gear. He has stepped up his supplies this time around, using boom mics and a new camera. All of this leads to a goal of continuing his self-education as a filmmaker.

He’s attended film camps and learned new skills during his high school career. He has submitted his films to festivals and posted many of them on YouTube. His website, slugco.com gives a potential audience the chance to view all his movies and keep up with his projects.

Kadie’s ultimate goal is to attend film school to become a director.

“Alone Together” will likely be done in December, and it represents one more step in the evolution of the self-taught filmmaker, who does almost all of the production work himself.

“Just doing it so much is what’s taught me the best.”

For more information, go to http://slugco.com/ and http://www.nwseaport.org/arthurfoss.html.