“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ― Sun Tzu

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Happy Mother’s Day! UPDATES from CDI (May)

Norway, France, Nigeria and more have joined us this past week. I want to start by giving a nice shout out to all the mom’s out there. We had a wonderful day with our mother’s yesterday which including a little hiking about, lunch and desert. I know not everyone still has their mother with them and I’m so very grateful to have mine. She has always been a wonderful supporter of my art and of me. Thank you momma, I love you very much.

This week was a productive one and this week ahead should be even more so. Let’s look at some of the updates from the past week and look ahead.

  1. This week we’ll start more BESTSELLER promotions. The film will release on DVD and digital purchase on May 31st. We will start sharing links to pre-order or stream as they appear. This Michigan based thriller is extremely intense and if scary is your cup of tea you should be well pleased. Above is the DVD wrap from Deskpop Entertainment.
  2. BEST YEARS GONE announced last week that the BareBones International Film & Music Festival awarded us the runner up in both DRAMEDY and ROMANCE. We’ll be up for a few more festivals but audiences world wide soon can watch and make up their own minds on July 5th! Included below is the DVD wrap from Deskpop Entertainment.

3) I’ve started some outlining and even the first pages of the next book to script to film projects. My hint is that the book is by the same author whose book (Hope From Heaven) we adapted for BEST YEARS GONE. I’m very excited to put this story to script and once completed we’ll see where it fits into our production schedule.

4) HOT ROD LOVE is starting to rev up. We had to push from our first projected shoot dates because we’ve been slowed a bit because of the immense amount of work flow we currently have. Four releases planned between now and the year’s end (Bestseller, Best Years Gone, For the Love of Catch, Smoke & Mirrors)- we’ve had a few of the units taken and our talks with sponsors are underway. We’re about to engage with more of our pool this month. We have some great things in store with this story.

5) We’ll be doing the formal PR announcement about MAN’S BEST FRIEND and WILD FAITH going to NBC/Peacock once we have dates. This isn’t really any different from many of the deals we have with platforms save the very large audience base. I hope these two films are just the beginning of a bridge for our CDI product. We will continue to pursue our various possible avenues for the WILD FAITH TV series Hastings. More on that in the weeks to come!

6) We’ve started to deliver assets on FOR THE LOVE OF CATCH and once those are all received we’ll get release dates. We are also still exploring premiere possibilities including a large festival. This documentary is a very entertaining look at the history of grappling.

7) Also the assets for the KNIGHT CHILLS special BluRay have started to be moved over. Also working on a KNIGHT CHILLS/FROM VENUS Classic CDI Double Feature for Christmas time. Knight Chills will also be heading to streaming with Deskpop Entertainment along with three other CDI films. Lastly this 1st CDI film is getting a video game made of it. I hope to have some teaser in the coming months.

8) SILENT NIGHT IN ALGONA teaser has been exciting fans. Upcoming VFX BTS videos, new poster art and such will be rolling out in the coming weeks. An extended trailer will be done before the December showing of the film in Iowa. We’re all very excited about this movie. We’ll keep dripping some stills out in the meantime.

9) We’ve been having good talks on new CDI merchandise. If you have any good ideas feel free to let us know. I would like to see Tee-Shirts and might be looking to partner with a MI based company. BIGFOOT, UFOS & JESUS tee-shirt?

10) Outdoor soccer season is underway and man did it feel good to get outside and battle. We did not win our first game against last seasons champs but had a great match. I love the workout which is second to none in my opinion. Two gents fighting to hold ground, control the ball and push it up field. It is truly a battle and without the pads of some sports.

WRAP UP:

So we did attend the flea market and first I found a 70’s hat that as the owner said, might have traveled to Woodstock. It is broken in and badass and just might be a character hat. I found a few other treasures such as a pair of beer barrel signs of my favorite Dane beer Tuborg and my high school beer Black Label. Add a hardcover book find of Ashida Kim’s SECRETS OF THE NINJA (80’s kids will get it) and fletching feathers to repair my archery arrows. I also got us a few yard items – just a fun day kicking around.

I’m going to go do a few things in the yard today including setting up the water fountain. I’m happy to have a string of good days ahead to assist in getting things done. We set up a new outdoor fire chiminea from Christmas and I look forward to using that. It helps to burn up many of the small sticks in the yard. The new composter is working its magic and I’ve been slow refilling the wood bins. We are talking about planting clover and other more natural ground covering versus just grass. The stand up planters will need to be planted although some plants from last year are already sprouting. I love to do some of my computer work and after make calls while tooling about the grounds. That connection with nature helps bring balance. I hope everyone has a great week ahead. We’ll talk next week.

Coffee Cheers!

DJ

Welcome May! Getting things done every day! UPDATES!

A hearty sip of the hazelnut coffee as a morning toast to all of you. It is a rainy May 1st but plant life is budding everywhere and bees and birds are on the move. It has been a very active week but I’ll start it with a few little personal updates. I found out that a classmate from elementary school whom I saw here and there over the years, passed away. She was a year older and passed in her sleep, it just reminds us to embrace life and those we share it with.

This week many hours working in the yard doing some clean up and repairs. Our Luna Mae pup got a cut on her paw chasing a squirrel and had to get a few stitches. I did some wood cutting and trimming but will have a professional tree cutter come in for a few branches. This week will be setting up the new fire pit and that will be nice to enjoy. I’m looking forward to some grilling and chilling in the months ahead.

It has been a very busy time for CDI business also. Let’s look at some of those updates.

DEEPFALL‘s ‘Revolution’ music video – The Michigan-based rock band kicked off their tour with 7 Dust this weekend in Grand Rapids and Detroit. We are excited to start a second music video with them as soon as they complete this tour. Here again is the music video: https://youtu.be/xtlc7GQvr70 and we wish them an awesome tour.

Sticking with the theme of music videos here is the music video for VERTICAL BRIDGE and their winning song OFF TO THE RACES that appears in our upcoming release of BEST YEARS GONE. Here is the music video featuring clips from the film – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ka43XfLnsEA

BEST YEARS GONE releases July 5th, 2022 and we will likely find out today if we won the BareBones International Film and Music Festival for ‘Best Comedy‘ feature. Now we did not attend because of the long drive and they seem to still be trying to get up to speed for Covid lock down. We might start doing some more fun marketing spots as we draw closer.

I was informed by our distributor that two of our films WILD FAITH and MBF: MAN’S BEST FRIEND will be releasing with NBC/Peacock which is an audience of 33 million so we’re all excited for the films to reach new viewers. That will help our efforts on the Wild Faith TV series for sure. Once we have dates we’ll be doing a full PR release. We hope that many more of the CDI films will follow. A TV series?

To prepare for the worldwide release on FOR THE LOVE OF CATCH we started to deliver assets. That should finish up this week. We are also exploring a large festival as a possible premiere venue. Also the first assets for the upcoming KNIGHT CHILLS Blu Ray were delivered. I’m having fun gathering assets to provide a new unique look at this little ambitious film from all those years ago. The streaming deal will be set up with 3 other title and the video game development is looking great.

SILENT NIGHT IN ALGONA released its first official teaser last week to much fanfare.

Here is the link – https://youtu.be/abGtdP-93mE

We had a pick up VFX shoot yesterday for SILENT NIGHT IN ALGONA and I’m hoping to have a VFX featurette video to share with all of you soon. We will likely start work on some other assets like a theatrical poster. We’ll wait for the new tighter cut of the film itself before we start pulling scenes for the official trailer to release on the run up to our December Iowa premiere. I’ll be circling around with our sponsors and potential sponsors about this upcoming event. We will keep dripping photos out in the weeks to come.

BESTSELLER releases worldwide this month! This cool Melissa Anschutz led thriller will release to DVD and digital purchase May 31st. This Chris Wright book was turned into this intense film and now the world will be able to watch. It has some great talent involved and we’re all excited to share it with you. Pics and promo will keep dripping out from the Facebook page so be sure to follow us there too.

I also spent some serious time trying to clean and organize my emails but that is an on-going never ending endeavor. We had a recent merchandise promotion meeting and we’re looking at bringing a few things to market. I LOVE the poster art for BIGFOOT, UFOS and JESUS and might explore shirts. LOST HEART might get new poster art. More of you are discovering the WICKED SPRING HD streaming links and so if you’re just discovering this film or its a favorite from years past- enjoy. Try this link below but just google up ‘Wicked Spring’ and ‘HD’ and go back to the Civil War!

Wicked Spring

I’m going to try and wrap some of this up. I can also report ahead of the PR release that I’ve inked a new deal to adapt a book to a screenplay and produce it with our CDI Tribe. I usually start to immerse myself in the art, music, fashion and history of the time. This particular story will have CDI storytelling in the roaring 20’s. But as I focus on the script we have one script ready to roll – HOT ROD LOVE. We’ve been in pre-talks with locations, car owners, companies, talent and potential sponsors and investors. We have some folks committed and will be asking for support again here soon when we disperse more funds back to our base. These are hard and dark times for some out there. I pride myself on the fact that even with all these challenges we’ve continued to keep telling our stories of hope and inspiration and laughter. So yes, we’ll be asking once again for some of you good folks to travel with us again. We will have to access our target dates because a few things have moved just a tad slower. But May will let us now much more as we work hard to launch this next endeavor. It has some female empowerment elements embedded in the 1975 world of drag racing. Just you wait and see.

I hope you all have a great week and make good progress on whatever endeavors you are working on. As you travel be good to your fellow life adventurers as they all have challenges of their own. I got my old hop vines cleared and I see new sprouts climbing already. I will plan to set up the water fountain and fire pit this week. I might quote those tree trimmers. I hope we get some sun so we can do a few meetings outside and I can continue my screenwriting out amongst nature. Lastly, my outdoor soccer season starts this Thursday. Our indoor league did the job of getting my legs and lungs back up to task. You have to keep your kung fu strong:) Thank you all. I appreciate you so much and appreciate you stopping by and the support. Have a great Sunday!

Coffee Cheers!

DJ