Good morning! Hazelnut cheers my friends. So my week started with some unexpected events. My day was winding down early this week and I got an email from a person I don’t often communicate with. It was to inform me that my friend and artistic collaborator Greg Zivic had been found passed away. At first I had hoped it was a hacked email account spreading a vicious lie. But 24 hours later that was found to be the truth. I had been in conversation with Greg as we were looking to sit down with another friend of his over films. We had settled on St. Patrick’s Day. He was an artists who did many other things including ER doctor. He had owned a gallery prior that was a showcase for artists often with food, drink and music. He had various ventures with other close associates from real estate to medical R&D. He was a doer, a dreamer and a damn fine fellow who I never saw angry. I know he helped family, friends and of course the wounded who came into whatever ER he was working. It is hard to say goodbye to such people but as we get older that goodbye becomes more often. So RIP Greg.
We had a few really nice days of sun and warmth before winter made a return. Cold with even a bit of snow. But the signs of Spring are everywhere from little sprouts coming from the ground and lil buds on the trees. I need to do a trim on the mulberry trees while it is still cold. The chickens are almost at full production with 4-5 eggs a day. I enjoyed a few days of working the property save maybe all the dog poop pick up but it had to be done. The upside has been a few more fires in the wood stove before the season is over. Every year we make a few small improvements to the property. I have a few in mind for this year.
Out of respect for above mentioned Greg, I did not release some of the PR we had planned. I will do that this week. I did spend a few days catching up on all kinds of desk work. The streamlining has been moving along and I’m happy to be evolving. I had to get our next wrap book digitized. A wrap book is a book of all the agreements that are executed for a movie during production. These are required for distributors to take your film on especially if they are presenting to 3rd party companies. So WILD FAITH CHRISTMAS is almost all delivered and now ROM COMS MUST DIE is almost done as well. I would say by month’s end for those two films.
OTHER UPDATES:
- The poster for ROM COMS MUST DIE is done and we have a meeting Monday about getting that ready for our theatrical run. We are still in talks about where the premiere will be which might tie into the first local theatrical run. We are going to try and target fewer theatrical with more precision. Also the film will be traveling to some festivals as well. More on that as we know.
- AI JESUS: The Secret of the Kingdom Chip – is moving down the post production line. We will be listening to the dialog mix with sound design this week. Once that is locked up the composing of music and mix will start. The home video distribution team has been already preparing and it looks like we will be tying the branding of the posters together since it is a short window of theatrical to home video. Art is always subjective but in the home video world you have seconds before someone decides to RENT/BUY by pressing play.
- WILD FAITH CHRISTMAS got done in time for a bit of Christmas play but we will be going back into theaters before rolling into streaming and DVD Q4 2026. We are up for a few awards at various event shows and festivals. ICFF has us up for many of them. The RED LETTER AWARDS will be announcing nominations soon. Interesting talk on the future of the franchise. The original film has been successful for us and the follow up should reach the same success even faster due to the built in audience. I do have eight shows for a TV series written and we will explore a few funding possibilities. But it needs to be done right which means creative control. The social media funding path was brought up again which I’m not a fan of. Is it my ego? Is it that I’ve been taught to pitch and partner? The path of THE CHOSEN is always used as an example but you never hear of the thousands that never make it. We will make a good go to set up the TV series. I have also been working on another stand alone feature film working title WILD FAITH 3. Any way you cut it we will be continuing the adventures of Emmett and friends.
- I’ve been also working in my free time on the sequel to MAN’S BEST FRIEND. Right now just the working title MBF2. But the script is shockingly powerful and I’m over half way through it maybe 3/4 pending how it flows. I’ve got a handful of scenes written for a LOST HEART follow up that I’m tinkering with as the mood hits me. I think as these films grow in their fanbase and people fall in love with the characters they want to see more. I’m also working on another follow up script that might have a path to production. The ink will be dry on this writing endeavor this week but writing has already started in good faith. I will be talking about that more next week and some PR will roll out.
- One of the PR announcements I’m looking to release is the CDI development with Katharsys Pictures of three genre films to be directed by Lynn Drzick. He directed the first feature film I starred in. A creature feature called IN THE WOODS. Get the Blu Ray and watch the old version and the updated version. One of the films on the slate is IN THE WOODS 2.
- Speaking of old school, I’m looking forward to seeing some restoration tests on CDI films 2, 3 AND 4. The hope is that we can release back into the marketplace at some point in time. I’ve also been playing catch up on data entry on IMDB and getting some of our short form projects listed such as Making of’s and Special Events. It all takes time.
- The development direction with GOTCH did not pan out as we had hoped. It is not fair to just share the successes without the setbacks. One of the issues on this or any project is control of the funds. As the supervising producer and manager of the project I need to know that every agreement I make has the funds locked up to support that. A couple of earlier career burns has taught me this important lesson. So even with promises of big money, if it’s not set up in a way that you can protect and assure your team of being paid, that’s a hard pass. Now we have some great things in play on this script and we really got everything tight and ready for pre-production. We just need to make the right deal. In the meantime, I want to do a follow up to FOR THE LOVE OF CATCH documentary. We will have some talks on that soon.
- As I’ve almost put the last little business piece in place on our AI JESUS we are starting to look ahead. The project it pushed was a great little comedic ‘who done it’ film set at the turn of the century. It might be what we do next with our friends and collaborators the McGraw’s. We will see once they are back from LA/Hollywood visiting family. We’ve had two great collaborations with them and we hope to make a third very soon.
WRAP UP: I covered quite a bit of development in the above list. I’m gonna send out a last few business emails and maybe do a bit of script writing. I hope the week ahead doesn’t bring any sad news like last week. I went from disbelief having just talked with him and made plans. To sad and mad at why such a great person would be taken so soon. Although he truly did pack two lifetimes into one. To now being motivated that I am still here and can keep creating. One day people may remember my doings fondly but not now. So don’t take any conversations or visits for granted. And don’t be afraid to go after your dreams. I will talk with everyone next week and I hope you have a great rest of your day.
Coffee Cheers! DJ
DJ Perry's Official Blog 'Clawing My Way to the Middle' 