Biloxi Cub Scouts are newest movie stars on the Coast

BILOXI -- If you're a Biloxi Cub Scout attempting to get a merit badge in moviemaking, it doesn't hurt if you have a cool sister and brother-in-law who happen to be professional filmmakers.

"The Boonies: Lost Treasure of Biloxi" is a short film that was made as a labor of love between Nativity Elementary Pack 213 Webelos, a division of the Cub Scouts, and NuContext Creatives, a Los Angeles-based production company.

The film, shot in Biloxi, features recognizable locations such as the Biloxi Lighthouse and the Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art. Though it's not exactly a remake of the '80s classic "The Goonies," it is a big adventure film packed into about five minutes.

"We were talking about getting the filmmaking merit badge," Scout leader Susan Guice said. "My son Breton is in the pack. His sister Angela (Guice) and her husband, Mikael Tyrsen, have a production company in Los Angeles. So they did a story concept and decided to make a film."

Angela Guice said the treasure-hunt concept seemed to be a perfect fit for the Scout pack.

"We wanted to do something that was altruistic and show the work the Scouts do for the community and have them learn something about Biloxi and filmmaking in the process, so we thought a cross between 'The Goonies' and 'National Treasure' would be cool," she said.

Tyrsen served as the director and cinematographer for the film, which includes aerial shots made with a drone. He said he shot the entire film on two GoPro cameras fitted with custom lenses.

"I think it looks like a movie that Scouts would make," he said. "It doesn't look too slick or overproduced."

Although he has worked on several projects, Tyrsen said nothing quite prepared him for working with a group of 10-year-olds.

"We don't have any kids yet, and you forget how kids are at a certain age," he said. "You get a group of 10-year-olds together, and they can get wild."

Angela Guice said they did most of the shooting with the children over three days the week before Mardi Gras. She said the Scouts really made the film their own.

"They came up with a list of locations where they wanted to shoot and helped with the dialogue and the staging of some of the scenes," she said.

Perhaps the Scouts' biggest contribution, Angela Guice said, was helping to craft the film's ending.

"At the end, the Scouts give the treasure they found to a school," she said. "This was all them. This is how they wanted the film to end."

This story was originally published March 10, 2016 at 3:26 PM with the headline "Biloxi Cub Scouts are newest movie stars on the Coast ."