Guides to the Past: The Story of Rockford’s Elks Lodge #64
A building as memory
ROCKFORD, Ill. — Some buildings are more than bricks and mortar. They are time capsules, holding within their walls the story of a community, a reflection of its people, and the spirit of its age.
That was the guiding idea behind Guides to the Past: The Story of Rockford’s Elks Lodge #64, a new short Documentary Expose film produced by Multimedia Marketing Group (MMG). The video pays tribute to one of Rockford’s most significant historic landmarks while also experimenting with the future of storytelling.
Elks Lodge No. 64 opened in 1913 as a centerpiece of Rockford’s civic and cultural life. It was a place where leaders met, where parades passed by, and where the architecture itself embodied the pride of a growing industrial city. Today, the Lodge still stands, weathered by time but not forgotten.
“This isn’t just about a building,” said Joe Arco, founder of MMG. “It’s about memory, identity, and legacy. Our goal was to honor what the Lodge meant to Rockford at its peak, and to show how modern tools can help us see history with fresh eyes.”
Why tell this story now?
For MMG, the film is both a community tribute and a statement about the possibilities of media innovation.
The Elk’s Lodge has been the subject of debate in preservation circles — should it be restored, reused, or deconstructed? Instead of taking a position, MMG sought to tell a different kind of story: one rooted in memory and reflection.
Respect for the Lodge
“Too often conversations about historic buildings are framed as problems to be solved,” Arco said. “We wanted this project to be more about respect. Respect for what the Lodge was, respect for the people who built it, and respect for the community that surrounded it.”
At the same time, the project allowed MMG to demonstrate how generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI, CGI, and FX) can be integrated into professional content creation. By blending archival material, historic postcards, and newly generated imagery, the film re-creates what downtown Rockford might have looked like in the early 20th century.
The result is a work that feels less like an advocacy campaign and more like a time capsule.
How it was created
Producing Guides to the Past required a mix of old-fashioned research and cutting-edge technology.
MMG’s creative team began by gathering historic postcards, photographs, and architectural references as well shared media. These materials provided a baseline for what the Lodge and surrounding downtown looked like during its prime.
Next came the application of generative AI tools. Still images were enhanced, animated, and sometimes rebuilt frame by frame to create cinematic transitions between past and present. One sequence uses a “morphing” effect in which the current, weathered Lodge gradually restores itself to its 1913 appearance — brick cleaned, missing details replaced, signage illuminated.
The production also leaned on MMG’s “Synthesized Video Ambassadors,” on-camera hosts who guide viewers through the narrative. These ambassadors appear both inside and outside the Lodge, framing the visuals with context and reflection in a polished, PBS-style tone.
“Generative AI isn’t replacing the storyteller,” Arco said. “It’s giving the storyteller new tools. The technology gave us the ability to move beyond static images and create living, breathing moments in history.”
A look inside: From decay to splendor
One of the most powerful sequences in the film comes inside the Lodge itself.
The camera first lingers on the building’s current condition — dim halls, peeling wallpaper, the silence of unused rooms. Then, without explanation, the visuals begin to transform. Chandeliers glow again, marble gleams, polished wood furniture fills the space, and members in 1913 attire mingle as though no time has passed.
The narration avoids technical description, allowing the visuals to speak for themselves. Instead, the voiceover frames the transformation as an act of memory:
“These halls once echoed with laughter, music, and the voices of leaders who shaped Rockford’s path. By recreating the Lodge as it once was, we don’t simply look back—we connect to the spirit of a city at its peak.”
Downtown Rockford reborn
Beyond the Lodge, the film expands its scope to downtown Rockford in the early 20th century. Using generative AI and CGI to animate archival postcards and images, MMG created a short companion segment that shows parades, storefronts, and city life as it might have been experienced by residents a century ago.
The sequence opens with a re-creation of a 1927 parade passing the Lodge — a moment meant to anchor the building within the wider civic life of the city.
From there, viewers see bustling sidewalks, period automobiles, and citizens dressed in 1920s fashions. It is not a documentary in the strict sense — no one can say with certainty exactly what those moments looked like. Instead, the segment functions as an interpretive visualization, an artistic bridge between history and imagination.
“It’s about making the past feel present,” said Arco. “When people can see it and feel it, they connect in a different way.”
The symbolism of the peacock
Not every discovery was about streetscapes and facades. While producing the Documentary Expose, MMG’s team saw remnants of ornate wallpaper inside the Lodge featuring a peacock motif.
The peacock design was a hallmark of the British Arts and Crafts Movement, later feeding into Art Nouveau. Its rich colors and swirling feather patterns symbolized beauty, luxury, and the intertwining of natural and artistic forms. For Rockford in 1913, it was a statement piece — a way of aligning the Lodge with broader cultural trends of refinement and sophistication.
In the film, one of MMG’s ambassadors pauses beside the wallpaper to reflect:
“Even a single pattern tells a story. The peacock reminds us that this building wasn’t only about structure — it was about beauty, about aspiration, about how Rockford wanted to see itself in the world.”
Memory, identity, and legacy
Ultimately, Guides to the Past is less about preservation debates and more about cultural reflection.
By framing the Lodge as a “silent witness” to Rockford’s changing story, the film positions architecture as a vessel of identity. The building becomes a character in its own right, standing through parades, prohibition, migration, and industrial change.
The voiceover closes with a reminder:
“Elks Lodge No. 64 is not only architecture — it is memory cast in stone. It is identity shaped by generations who passed through its doors. It is the legacy of a city at its peak, when Rockford was a rising industrial and cultural hub.”
Sharing the story
MMG plans to share the film widely with community stakeholders, preservation organizations, and the public. The goal is to spark reflection, not only about the Elks Lodge but also about the role of heritage in Rockford’s future.
“We’d love for people to watch, to comment, and to share,” Joe stated. “If this project inspires conversations, if it helps people see history in a new way, then it’s done its job.
Innovation in service of history
For MMG, the project also represents a milestone in the company’s evolution. Founded in the mid-1980s, by Joseph and Susan Arco, the firm’s principals, has continually adapted to new technologies, from traditional media production to today’s digital and generative tools.
The Elks Lodge film demonstrates how technology can serve storytelling without overwhelming it. The generative AI sequences are impressive, but they are never the point. The point is the story, the heritage, the memory.
That balance is what makes the project both innovative and deeply human.
“Technology is just the paintbrush,” Joseph said. “The story is the canvas.”
What comes next
MMG sees Guides to the Past as a proof of concept — a demonstration of how historic narratives can be revitalized for modern audiences.
Potential future applications include educational programming, museum exhibits, tourism campaigns, and public history initiatives. The same techniques used to bring Rockford’s Lodge to life could be applied to other landmarks, other cities, and other stories.
“It’s about accessibility,” Arco said. “Not everyone will read a history book. But if we can show them, if we can make them feel it, history becomes something living again.”
A tribute, not an argument
In the end, MMG resisted the temptation to make the film a rallying cry for saving or restoring the Lodge. Instead, the focus remained tribute-driven.
“This project was never about convincing anyone,” stated, Arco. “It was about honoring what once was and letting people experience that beauty again.”
By doing so, the film stands as its own act of preservation — a preservation of memory, of feeling, of community identity.
And in that sense, Elks Lodge No. 64 continues to do what it always did: bring Rockford together.
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