BREMERTON — “I grew up with sword and sorcery movies from the late ’70s and early ’80s,” said Micah Fusco of MonoculusFilms. “I’ve always wanted to make something like that.”

Now, he’s finally working toward that goal.

MonoculusFilms staff is working to create a short film called “The Arcave,” a “passion project” in the same vein of stories such as “Excalibur,” “Ladyhawke” or “Dragon Slayer.”

“But then also throwing in a little bit of a retro ’80s twist at the end,” Fusco added, “that has a lot to do with arcade culture and kind of the retro-wave movement going on.”

“The Arcave” will be about six minutes long when complete. The team plans to take it on the short-film festival circuit, where previous Monoculus projects have done well.

“Thornbrook,” a web series, is a previous Monoculus production. According to Fusco, it won best mystery/thriller at the HollyWeb Festival in Los Angeles, the best cinematography award at Vancouver Web Fest and the audience choice award at the Seattle Web Fest.

Fusco said they decided to turn their talents to a retro-fantasy-style short film because it’s something that appealed to them as consumers as well as creators.

“It was really a matter of, what would we most like to see on the internet?” Fusco said. “What kind of project would we love to watch ourselves? We decided that a very high production value short film that had to do with knights and practical effects and really detailed set dressing and a little bit of cornball humor would be the ideal.”

“The Arcave” staff is mostly made up of a handful of film students working together to branch out and show the film community what they can do.

“We’ve just been working on this passion project without really any returns for us in mind,” said Hunter Stroud, the team manager and “man behind the music.” “It’s a passion project to show our capabilities and hopefully to be able to make some waves in the festival circuit.”

Stroud said “The Arcave” is “sort of riding that new retro wave.”

“We thought we’d pick a different style of ’80s that hasn’t really

been touched on, which is fantasy,” Stroud said. “It’s going to be so much fun for everyone. It brings in video games, which is also a large audience. Everyone loves video games.

“It’s a fun ride back in time.”

Ahead of production, “The Arcave” staff is having a fundraising dance party, at 8 p.m. June 16 at the Marvin Williams Recreation Center, 802 Dr. ML King Way, Bremerton. Entry is free

“It’s just something to draw attention before we get started with production,” Stroud said. “We want it to have a really fun feeling for our audience, something … to say we exist, we’re doing this. Aside from the crowd-funding aspect, it’s going to just hopefully be a fun experience to go to.”

The event will include a meet-and-greet with the crew, a public pitch with a run-down of the script and budget, an introduction to the team and a question-and-answer session.

And, of course, “a big, retro dance party,” Fusco said.

Stroud said the top three dancers will get the opportunity to take home one of three themed treasure chests full of memorabilia, such as Nintendo games, pirate booty and more “really fun stuff.”

“It’s a really fun group of driven, local filmmakers who are just trying to make something [of] quality and fun, and we’re excited to do something, excited to do a physical event where we can actually meet the people who are going to be watching it and supporting it,” Fusco said.

Details for the event and more information on “The Arcave” and MonoculusFilms is available at www.thearcave.com, facebook.com/thearcave and other social media (links found on the website and Facebook page).

A Kickstarter is also in the works. Updates will be available on the Facebook page.

— Michelle Beahm can be reached at mbeahm@soundpublishing.com.

Micah Fusco and Shane Miller location scouting for The Arcave. Courtesy of Arcave Production Staff

Micah Fusco discusses The Arcave at a meeting with his company, Monoculus Films Photo courtesy Arcave Production Staff

Matt Esteron, Micah Fusco, John Rutherford, Allie Siebert and Hunter Stroud are part of The Arcave production team. Photo courtesy Arcave Production Staff