Welcome to May! ICFF Updates and More…
It is a beautiful, sunny Monday and I’m doing my blog here a day later as I was traveling back yesterday from Florida. We had a great time at the ICFF film event representing WILD FAITH CHRISTMAS. It has been several years since I’ve been to the balmy Florida. We flew in and right away I met a couple film individuals from my past which was a great start. I got to put some faces with names and met many new filmmakers. This festival has been recognizing CDI films since FORTY NIGHTS many moons ago. It was my first appearance and I think people were happy to finally meet me as well. I went with Shane Hagedorn and we had several good meals, great music and some even greater conversations.
My knee which I hurt sightseeing at a 17th Century windmill the weekend before got still on my flight. Add a few miles of walking around the resort and it was a minor issue the entire trip. Add some nice new shoes that chewed at my heels and I was a mobility mess. But I dealt with it and now with my knee sleeve and some anti-inflammatory meds and I am on the mend. I better I have two weeks before outdoor soccer season.
Back to the ICFF we were up against a record setting submission year and brought home the gold for Hester aka Melissa Anschutz. Anyone who has seen WILD FAITH or WILD FAITH CHRISTMAS knows how much she deserves the award. I accepted for her and cannot recall what I said exactly but I had several people come up and comment on my speech so I guess I did good.
We have just returned and the celebratory for WILD FAITH CHRISTMAS is heating up on the Red Letter Awards front. Shane Hagedorn will be attending in August where we are up for Best Picture, Addy Paddy is up for Best Supporting Actress and Dean Teaster, Best Supporting Actor. More will be rolling out for several weeks. We will be looking to push booking back into the theaters before the 11/3/2026 streaming and DVD release. This beautiful follow up film to Wild Faith is making us all proud once again. See this film if you can in theaters or when it starts streaming.
AI JESUS: The Secret of the Kingdom Chip – This wonderful film will be ready for our first in studio screening soon. I’m so excited to hear all the sound design and music. This week we’ll keep working on the end credits and we will be discussing the theatrical run for this film before the Q4 home video. The BTS is being worked on by Adam Towner and the first draft was really good and now we’re adding more material to it.
ROM COMS MUST DIE – May 18th at the Williamston Sun Theater 7:00 show with box office open at 6:30 tickets $10 cash only. The QC test on the film went well and so we’ll finalize what we need at the hub that distributes the film to theaters. We will start setting up other showings to take place all Summer. Pop Up Screenings! Find our Facebook page and event page and invite your friends to come watch this zany comedy.
DEVELOPMENT:
We have several projects in development at CDI and we’ve talked before about associated films. For a few months now there has been talks on a film project with a good friend of CDI tribe. They have done a few feature films and wanted CDI to supervise and produce. The script underwent several re-writes to streamline the story. Also they were willing to bring the film to Michigan where of course CDI has a serious home court advantage. We have locked in the directorship of the film and have been working on other prep work. We will be announcing this very soon once we solidify a few last deal points. I take our projects very serious and our associated films are no different. But we will be preparing a PR release and moving soon into pre-production. We look to be filming in September in and around central Michigan.
The first script draft for RETURN TO ALGONA the follow up to SILENT NIGHT IN ALGONA is completed. The script was sent to the Foundation that is supporting the development and part of the production. The script was given major flowers by our director and the main producers. Now we’ll likely give a private peek to a handful of talent too. This is looking like it will film in 2027 in Algona, Iowa if everything works out properly.
WRAP UP:
I’m going to be preparing investment disbursements this month and that will be an all month process but one I love. We are so grateful for our investors and sponsors. I’m so proud of this being our 30th year as a production company. I plan to organize some of the contacts from our IFCC trip and follow up on a few business talks there. Again this weekend I was reminded why I feel so blessed to be doing what I love to do. I will likely give my knee a break from working the property for a few but green is poppong everywhere. I am looking forward to a great week of catch up with a fun event at week’s end. I hope you all are enjoying your May kick off. I’m going to refill ye ole hazelnut coffee cup and likely get after a few eggs. I look forward to giving you more updates this coming Sunday! Be good to one another!
DJ
‘BEST YEARS GONE’ Races Into Their First Festival with a Checkered Flag! Plus 10 CDI Updates
Happy Sunday! I’m sipping the hazelnut coffee and happy that we did not get hit by that huge east coast storm. It went under us meaning we got the cold and a few snow flakes but not 20+ inches of snow. This past week flew by with me attacking the gathering of info for our accounting firm. This coming week the 1099’s will go out and I’ve been prepping things for end of year taxes also. We had one day this week we chose as “Viking Thursday” to cut firewood. We actually damaged the axes breaking one handle and losing the head on another. That means I’m in Axe fix mode this week but we got the job done using sledge hammers, wedges and a splitting ring. A splitting ring is a device that you place the log inside resting on a blade and hammer it down to split it. That day we worked was bitter but we got enough split for the next week or two.
The next CDI feature film is looking to be HOT ROD LOVE. The script is getting some amazing feedback and this week I’ll be breaking down more of the business aspects. We are looking at trying to hit an April/May shoot in Michigan. We’ll be announcing more on this property as we go. Now wait, didn’t CDI just do a race theme film? Yes. But that was circle track racing and this is drag racing. The CDI Race Trilogy? Haha, not really, maybe. The film is a comedy with some nice life lessons attached but it could be our biggest comedy to date.
BREAKING NEWS! So BEST YEARS GONE is prepping for its home video premiere run in June-Sept and in the meantime we’ll keep playing some theaters and also a few select film events. I will say that I’m not a fan of virtual events but with all these festivals going remote one thing stands out to me. Often the filmmakers that show up at the event and smoke have a better chance of winning because the fest gets a good acceptance speech (sometimes). So to me the one positive is that the films are really being evaluated on the content vs the political ‘schmooze’ factor. Our director Shane Hagedorn submitted us to a few select festivals. We announced that we had our first official acceptance into –
We found our yesterday that we were nominated for the following categories and actually won a few award. I’m so proud of this film and the cast and crew involved. First the SCREENPLAY was Nominated as one of the best. I appreciate this nomination greatly as I love writing and believe it is the foundation of every great film. Without a good battle plan you don’t have a real chance. I also think that having such strong source material from Karl Manke (book Hope From Heaven) also helped.
I feel our entire cast could have been nominated for the rich roles they brought to the story but this organization nominated three actors for awards. Melissa Anschutz and Randy Spence for BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS and ACTOR. It is only due to all these supporting performances especially by my costar Erika Hoveland that allowed me to be nominated and actually win BEST ACTOR for my work as ‘Gil Gilles’. But that’s not all-
As we all know the technical people behind the scenes help create and capture the world/story. I again believe that many of the crew were nomination worthy but Mr. Travis Hayward was nominated and WON for BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY. And finally, my favorite nomination and WIN…
This award represents the TRIBE! We all made this picture what it is and again I’m just so proud of our cast and crew and excited for the world audience to see this film. Here is a great statement from our director Shane Hagedorn. But first a quote from a legend.
What we do come up with has no special right to call itself better. It’s just different. No, if there’s any excuse for us at all, it’s that we’re simply following the old American tradition of the maverick”.
-Orson Welles
And from our director-
“I am thrilled for our cast and crew on these major wins and nominations from Maverick Movie Awards. Although we filmed through the height of the pandemic of 2020, our tribe of artists and crafts folk banded together to create something unique and special–all the while overcoming many obstacles while doing so. Thanks to the team at Maverick for recognizing our art and best efforts”.
-Shane Hagedorn
Our release dates can be found on our IMDB.com page and updates are flowing out to our FB page also. I also want to take a moment to give congrats to my fellow local filmmaker/actor Michael McCallum, who was also nominated in the shorts division for ‘Best Actor’ and I believe had a few other nominations between two (?) shorts they had represented. I’m not 100% sure on all the nominations but I wanted to tip my hat. Two filmmaker groups from Lansing, Michigan getting noticed in London, England, nice.
Let me see if I can do a bullet point of some of the weeks activities-
- More “Silent Night in Algona” stills are being released on FB and soon (Feb) we’ll release a BTS video. Editing is underway with a first cut expected by mid-March.
- “SMOKE & MIRRORS” the short proof of concept short cut from the feature script is uploaded to film freeway and a few choice festivals will be chosen for this steampunk, spooky short starring David Gries and Melissa Anschutz.
- We are moving closer to a deal on FOR THE LOVE OF CATCH, our doc on the history of grappling/wrestling directed by our own Curran Jacobs.
- A verbal agreement has been made on moving forward with an app video game based on CDI’s first feature film from the 90’s KNIGHT CHILLS. The film is a cautionary tale about bullying woven into the awesome realm of role playing games like Dungeons & Dragons. Paperwork will follow this week.
- Look on Facebook ENCOURAGE TV for my buddy Josh “Ponceman” Perry promoting BIGFOOT, UFO’S & JESUS. If you haven’t seen the film you should. It is a fun romp and ‘Chip’ Josh Perry is a show stealer. https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=4724060584352381&id=124174114296086&ref=sharing&_rdr
- In the wake of THE QUEST TRILOGY push that will continue through Easter has brought up discussions on a couple other possible films set in the time of sand and sandals. These films come from a unique perspective different from most biblical adventures. So even if organized religion is not your thing, you might enjoy these three films which purposely shoot in a ‘Star Wars‘ original trilogy style.
- WILD FAITH and the developing WILD FAITH: Hastings TV series are growing stronger. As millions view the feature each year, enjoy the storytelling, the eight show series is getting closer. Now as people are getting back to work I hope to move some major pieces on the chessboard with this TV series.
- BESTSELLER is finally getting the home video release it deserves. I cannot wait to see the new artwork and such. It goes to digital rental I believe same day as BEST YEARS GONE (Sept 1st, 2022) This script is adapted from the book of the same name written by Michigan’s own Christopher Wright.
- I hope to do a follow up meeting soon to see what the evaluation of some of the old CDI library films yields at BMG. Some would need to be uprezed and conformed but that would be cool to see! Are you hoping for any one film in particular to come to the market in HD?
- WICKED SPRING is being introduced to new audiences and old audiences are getting to stream the film in HD. I want to try and do some collectors merchandise on this film in 2022. I’m thinking about a collectors poster. If you enjoy merchandise we have several items up from various films at the http://www.cdiproductions.com site.
I’m going to wrap this up and get on some bacon and eggs. Our chickens are doing well even with the frigid cold they are still kicking out eggs. I might look into my axe situation. This week ahead will be productive. I’m doing some more writing and have two other potential script writing projects. I do enjoy that writing time especially when it is freezing outdoors. If I missed anything – forgive me. This week I wish you all well and remember to have patience and be good to one another.
DJ
DJ Perry's Official Blog 'Clawing My Way to the Middle' 