Feature Films

The Midnight Con is an original feature-length film project written and directed by Elliott Ridgway, and produced by Robert Thomas. It was originally written to be a feature vehicle for Robert and Brenen as a comedy duo; however, due to a last-minute scheduling conflict, Brenen dropped out of the project, forcing Elliott and Robert to rewrite the entire script in under 24 hours to focus on a new female lead character, played by Stephanie Nutter.

Principal photography took place throughout July of 2012. The production was marked by several disasters, including fights between actors, a demolished restaurant table, and a trip to the hospital. Despite all of this, the film was finally completed and released in September of 2013.

In 2014, it was screened at the Bare Bones Film & Music Festival in Muskogee, Oklahoma, where it was nominated for Best Comedy.

After completing Case of the Snatched Cerebrum in early 2007, the Ridgways wanted to pay homage to the Pink Panther (their favorite film series at the time) by creating a brand-new feature in that series. The film was finally completed in August of 2008, after shooting was briefly being derailed for a few months by the beginning of the Ridgways’ most well-known film adaptation – Earthbound.

Shadow of the Pink Panther stands as the Ridgways’ longest feature film to date, as well as one of the most elaborate projects they’ve ever undertaken. Featuring a slew of physical comedy gags, strangely similar-looking extras, a bravura performance by Anton Ridgway as Hans Aulsborough, and more Cato attacks than you probably asked for, Shadow of the Pink Panther may or may not be worth two hours of your time.

After finishing Day of the Tentacle in 2005, the Ridgway boys wanted to make an action movie. They began working on a script for a Commander Keen feature film, but ultimately abandoned it. Instead, they decided to focus on writing their own original story, in order to better learn the ropes of how to make an action movie. Filming began in February of 2006 and was completed on April 1, 2007. 

Though the results are a little rough by today’s standards, they learned a lot on this project (including how to green-screen for the first time!) before moving onto bigger projects like Shadow of the Pink Panther and Earthbound.

Case of the Snatched Cerebrum marks the last major collaboration with the Zahorskys, and the last project to be released with the EAPCK Movies logo before the group was rebranded to Ridgway Films.

Day of the Tentacle was filmed in 2005 by the Ridgways and Zahorskys, in an effort to pay homage to their favorite computer game. It is in many ways their first true feature film – it was their first film with a budget (around $100), their first with a tight script that needed to be followed carefully, and their first to be digitally edited in a computer, rather than using the pause and record buttons on a VCR.

Although the kids had the ability to create simple digital effects for their movie, Day of the Tentacle features lots of homemade props – tentacle costumes made out of felt-wrapped tomato cages, a hamster made out of clay, and a Chron-O-John made out of cardboard refrigerator boxes.

Two years after finishing Day of the Tentacle, the Ridgways discovered YouTube, and decided to upload a slightly polished version of the film in ten parts. One year after that, the movie caught the attention of Kevin Toyama, associate editor at Chronicle Books, who at the time was getting ready to publish Rogue Leaders: A History of LucasArts. As a result, the Day of the Tentacle movie was screened at the book-signing party, where it was viewed by Tim Schafer, who later said, “I loved your movie! Better than the original. Do Full Throttle next please.”

After completing The Midnight Con, Elliott and Robert began making plans for their next feature collaboration: a live-action adaptation of Digimon Tamers, which had been a passion project idea of Elliott’s since 2002.

The original draft of the Digital Monsters script was almost two hundred pages long (roughly equivalent to a three-hour film). Filming was originally scheduled to take place in and around Wichita, using theater students at WSU for the cast. However, Elliott and Robert were unable to find local actors willing to commit to such a daunting project.

Faced in early spring of 2014 with not being able to make the movie at all, Elliott dramatically rewrote the entire script, trimming everything down to the bare essentials. Additionally, film production was moved back to Alva, Oklahoma, so that the crew could take advantage of regular cast members from previous projects, as well as convenient availability of locations owned by family and friends.

Principal photography took place over ten intense days of shooting in July of 2014. Following this, additional pickup shots were filmed over the years, including establishing shots of the real Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building in downtown Shinjuku, a location seen in the original anime.

Digimon modeling was handled by professional Indonesian modeler Andry Viyono, while motion-capture animation was recorded at Shocker Studios in Wichita.  The first 25 minutes of the final film (dubbed “version 0.1”) were released in July of 2019 as part of the Year of Film short film anthology series.