CDI Film Updates and Looking Ahead to 2025!
(Composer Dennis Therrian and Director Carl Weyant working on ‘Harsens’)
Good morning friends! I’m sipping the hazelnut coffee and listening to the birds while watching squirrels busily working for the winter ahead. I want to welcome all the new readers from Mexico, New Zealand, Sweden and more. I’ve had a very busy week getting things ready for the upcoming Harsens Island Revenge release and the Wild Faith Christmas shoot. Dennis Therrian our composer and post supervisor has been busy finishing the Harsens Island Revenge score. Directed Carl Weyant (happy Birthday yesterday) has been prepping everything else to go into the film such as the stock footage, VFX and color correction. This week is when we start to pull it all together. We producers have been working the end credits getting those around. It will be a wonderful thing to see this story all together on the big screen. The end is always trying as you pull everything together. We are close, very close.
(In studio as we locked picture now we are close to a final locked movie)
WILD FAITH CHRISTMAS – We are fully cast, crewed and locations locked. We’re still putting a few pieces in play but departments are up and prepping to the shoot in a few short weeks. Insurance will be going up soon and we’ll be getting communications and lodging set. Last week I had the wardrobe items stored at the office picked up. Also the hospitality and health (craft services) items were picked up. Great meetings with some of the companies aligning with us via sponsorship or product partnership. Reinert Pottery will be supplying some of the on-camera items. Anchor Construction Corporation came on board. Welcome! We have a few flights to manage and also we have a trip to NC to pick up props and art director Robert Bradley that just got a LOT more complicated. All part of the process but I’ve also been enjoying getting into the ‘Ben Lily’ mindset. My tops of my toes are raw and sore due to my first multiple hours wearing my trapper boots. I’ll have 10 days of several hours in them so I’m trying to condition my feet now.
Re-Releases-
KNIGHT CHILLS deliverables to Twin Engines Global/Deskpop is almost complete. I just need to digitize some paperwork this week and upload that. But the film, trailers and artwork should all be there. We have been posting some great new screen captures to the FB site. AN ORDINARY KILLER will release soon on HD DVD and streaming in December. People are enjoying DEAN TEASTER’S GHOST TOWN and the special edition park DVD will be available soon.
(2.5 million plus views on Encourage TV)
The season for SILENT NIGHT IN ALGONA and THE QUEST TRILOGY is right around the corner. I’m happy to announce that on ENCOURAGE TV the first of the biblical trilogy FORTY NIGHTS just went past 2.5 million views! Make watching these feel good classics part of your yearly family tradition.
BEST YEARS GONE, LOST HEART and the original WILD FAITH are good Fall classics to watch! I’ve enjoyed some of the communications from fans of these films. I will also add BESTSELLER on the list if you like R rated scare-fests. Again I’ve been so enjoying the season as the leaves are turning and I’ve even enjoyed a few bonfires. I’ve even allowed my thoughts to start to dance around Christmas just a bit.
Looking Forward to 2025
Once we get WILD FAITH CHRISTMAS in the can (Old term from days of shooting on film) – we’ll turn our attention on ROM COMS MUST DIE a fun feature film we’ll do with Travis Hayward at the helm directing. I will be working on updating the WILD FAITH: HASTINGS TV series to happen after the 2nd film. I’m working on show 4 of 8 right now. I also will be finishing a few scripts over the winter and still trying to land another project that would be both the script and production. Once Harsens Island Revenge is locked I’ll have more talks with director Carl Weyant about development. I have a good project in mind for him that might be a good fit. Looking at maybe developing something with Ian Griffin. I’m excited to see where 2025 will lead the tribe.
(Dane DeFord and Robert Bradley in Maggie valley, NC)
WRAP UP-
I’m about to go look into some eggs and bacon before doing some more yard work. I think inside the Fall stuff might come out. Tomorrow I’ll be pulling prop weapons to be handed off to our armorer Bart Ketner for the upcoming shoot. This week I’ll be tying up many of the loose ends and taking us closer to our end of the month move to Alpena.
My thoughts are still with all the good people trying to rebalance their lives after the storms. And I am concerned a tad hearing about two more storms moving towards the coast. I feel bad for the displaced, the dead and the pets too which are in over-crowded shelters.
I hope you all have a peaceful Sunday and allow yourself a recharge. I’m looking forward to seeing my brother and a few friends later in the day. I’ll be back at the business bright and early in the morning. I’m at the end of the coffee pot so that is where I’ll end this. Be kind to one another even if the world politics has you with differing opinions. I’ll be ready for that to all be done and over with.
Coffee Cheers!
DJ
Powerful Posters, ‘Harsens’ Post-Production and Premiere Info and ‘Wild Faith Christmas’ Pre-Production Updates
A light rain and cool breeze is welcome versus the horrible storms they’ve got down south from the hurricane. I checked in with many of my friends and some like my cousin outside Tampa, FL had nothing but wind. Others like Robert Bradley in Maggie Valley, NC are good but their town and region is not. Highways washed out and roads impassable. The main drag of Maggie Valley is flooded out. Just sad that so many are facing the hardships they are. Knock on wood- but we’ve been lucky being on a high hill and our property is sandy and absorbs water quickly. My thoughts and prayers with all those suffering in the aftermath.
I want to welcome out new readers from France, Netherlands and more. I really love the global artists circle we have. I had several folks comment and we’ve had lots of new subscriptions which is great. I’m going to provide some great updates and I hope give some insights that you can apply to your own endeavors. I’m going to do a warm up on my hazelnut coffee and we’ll get into this. Speaking of coffee we’ve been enjoying the new enhanced deck for sipping coffee and watching the morning nature. The dogs enjoy having a better view of the surrounding area and the gate allows me to have them enclosed. That helps at night if I smell skunk in the area which anyone who had had to bathe a dog who has been sprayed knows. I built a small step deck off the office/fort porch and a new compost bin from some of the old deck wood. I still have a good amount left for some of my projects. I’m still harvesting the end of season herbs and using them in cooking and for tea. So many great compounds that are in plants.
NOW TO THE PROJECTS!
With every CDI film we really try to let the director’s pick, choose and oversee one poster, the theatrical one. Because marketing staff at the home video level will put together the artwork that will best serve their purpose. This is the beautiful picture that our director Carl Weyant put together for our theatrical run. Below is some moody shadows and reminds me of the old detective posters of the 20’s and 30’s. Above you see The Purples, a glimpse of the Harsens militia and the innocents put at risk with this conflict. I’ve had a lot of people talking about wanting to buy a poster and all in good time.
We will be getting an RSVP for main cast and crew to see who can attend a private showing in Alpena. Following the screening they will have another show for sale for the public and it will play for several weeks in Alpena. That is what the deal is looking like. The theater controls how many screens and times so we are limited. But as I’ve said before, the more the demand the more screens and times they might open. Currently the invite is for just cast and crew and not plus one. Folks will be responsible for their own travel and lodging. I’ll keep you all informed here and of course we’ll be posting on the Harsens Island Revenge Facebook page. Now in January 2025 we’ll start our theatrical run. Several runs might be kicked off with a special event party like in Owosso, Lansing, Grand Rapid and Detroit so that might be closer for many of you!
We’ve been working hard on end credits trying not to miss any or misspell any names. That said, it happens every film because of the sheer amount of names and sometimes handwriting by people. Lastly, it is passing through human hands and we all make mistakes but we try to keep that as low as possible. The music, color correction and VFX are being finished and polished up. Next week they start to pull that all together. Dennis Therrian has been working a powerful musical score and every artists has been putting his all into the film. Final posting and mixing always requires an increase in focus and communication. Something I myself also work on and try to encourage. If you send something let the party know it has been sent. If you are the receiving party let the sender know it has been received. There is a reason the military is so effective with their communication. The thing to remember is that you all have the same goal and you’re trying to make a process as smooth as possible. Bottom line is the film is getting close to being done.
AN ORDINARY KILLER streaming will be on December 15th and I’m hearing that it will be going to XUMO and The ROKU CHANNEL. Likely it will go to AMAZON and possibly PLEX and PLUTO TV.
DEAN TEASTERS GHOST TOWN is streaming on TUBI and various platforms. We do plan to start selling the special edition theme park DVD’s prior to Christmas. For those that know Robert Bradley this was filmed in his home town and he co-stars.
KNIGHT CHILLS is starting to deliver assets for the streaming release. I also wrote my foreword for the new release of the novel. I’ve been collecting some materials to put together a nice script and making of book also. I’m excited that this film is out there on HD Blu Ray and will soon be streaming! I would like to see this franchise take another step and we’ve got a script. So we’ll see what happens!
Looking Ahead!
This year saw three of the films from CDI’s library (Dean Teaster’s Ghost Town, An Ordinary Killer, Knight Chills) get set up for a new release. We’ll tackle a few in 2025 also. We have to get the technical correct in order to HD remaster the films.
WILD FAITH CHRISTMAS is in the final weeks of pre-production. We had a great meeting on Friday looking at the remaining TO DO’s. I’m happy to say that the main cast is all DONE! We found our last two leads and we could not be more happy! The sets are on point and we’re working on the last of the logistics. I met with our associate producer and legal over sushi and he’s putting the final pieces in motion. As I was reviewing the new official script and highlighting my Ben Lily lines I was so taken by the story again. I’ve been up to my neck in the business of it but it was pure joy to do lines and re-read the entire story. We have some new sponsors coming onboard with DEANS TREE FARM, SPORTS UNLIMITED and ANCHOR CONSTRUCTION CORPORATION! Thank you to all the fine companies and individuals helping to make this film be everything it can be.
ROM COMS MUST DIE is still on deck for the first of the year. We’ve been quiet as of late but that is because we have a lot out there. That said, we do keep moving pieces on the board. We’ve added Ian Griffin as the AD and will be playing a role in the film. He is an amazing actor that I met in 2002 on AN ORDINARY KILLER. He’s been in many of the films such as BEST YEARS GONE (The police officer) and he’s Boozy Jack the bootlegger in Harsens Island Revenge trailer that says he would sell to the devil himself.
Tis a good season to watch some scary films like IN THE WOODS, now on Blu Ray!
WRAP UP:
We have lots of things in development but like I mentioned we’ll wait until we have more in place. It is rainy and so I’ll likely work on getting some stuff done here in the house and at the desk. I like to get a jump on the week so I’ll soon switch to hot tea and keep at it. I am going to try and catch up on a few calls too. So until we chat next week I hope you all have a great day and week ahead. Remember that everything happens by slowly chipping away at the TO DO’s. I’m going to FOCUS and try to COMMUNICATE and promote better COMMUNICATION This week. We have a lot of exciting things ahead. Happy Sunday and coffee cheers!
DJ
Casting and Crewing Updates -Plus Talks on Seeking Balance in an Unbalanced World
(In 2023 Tribe CDI will be storytelling in the 1920’s)
I’m happy to report some sunshine this morning in the mid-Michigan after several days of clouds and rain. It is still chilly but the warmth is coming and I see birds making nests and buds starting to sprout. The cloudy cold and on-going rain was conducive for my desk work I needed to get done. We concluded a few weeks of polishing on our Harsens Island Revenge script. It was adapted from a book of the same name and the difference is a more condensed version where you try to show more versus tell more. Dialog was strengthened, removing lazy or lingo that wasn’t befitting the time period. The opening of the film that starts in WW1 was adjusted to match talks with the art department and our director.
I also was able to finish some developmental work on an epic 1800’s tale that tells of the conflict between the Iowa settlers and the resisting Lakota Sioux. We are now starting finance talks and we’ll see if we can get this story off the ground. I just finished watching a mini series on Amazon Prime called THE ENGLISH that had some of the same tone in beauty and brutality. The last Iowa-based project took North of a decade to bring to the screen. Our hope is that this one might be a little sooner.
(SILENT NIGHT IN ALGONA – COMING to home video later this year!)
Speaking of that last Iowa-based film, SILENT NIGHT IN ALGONA– it has played theatrically non-stop since it premiered Dec. 9th and this past week we had even more theaters reach out to book the story. But even more exciting news is that our home video deal is signed with Bridgestone Multimedia Group, who has done a wonderful job getting our other films out to the world. We’ll do some PR on this in the coming week. We’ll have until the beginning of May to get all our materials delivered and once approved they will assign hard release dates for the fall release to DVD, TV and streaming. Foreign sales talks will start even sooner and we are excited to share this story will millions around the world. In the meantime, if you get a chance to see it on the big screen do treat yourselves. I’m thrilled to hear that classrooms of children are watching the film. There are many lessons that history can teach us.
(The power of casting – much care was taken in the casting of our Germans)
Back to our Harsens Island Revenge film – we’ve added several great actors to the cast. Randy Spence takes on a dynamic role. Ian Griffin will once again loan his talents to our story and this week we’ll be adding Josh “the Ponceman” Perry who is always a joy. We also started reaching out to a few MI agencies looking for a few roles. A wheelchair bound stroke victim, a young lady 7-10 who plays young and a few others. We’ve also received some great reach out reels from some actors and we’ll be discussing them more. While the actual island will be featured, we will be shooting most of the scenes at another small coastal town that fits our needs on set and off set. We’ll be going on our second location scout end of this month to lock in locations we found and seek that final locations required.
(Scouting in Iowa for SILENT NIGHT IN ALGONA)
Last film had us aligned with several great sponsor and partnerships, some worldwide like Hershey, Smithfield Foods and Hormel. We have started talks with some new potential local sponsors. I love to see local, regional, National and worldwide companies all come together. If you want to have your company or business included please do reach out.
Our crew is getting close to a full boat only missing a few folks which we’ll find in good time here. I’m beyond excited to tell this story and the enthusiasm of our team makes it all the better.
MISC.
- We will be doing a PR announcement about the Knight Chills 25th Anniversary Blu Ray release. We are going to have some new interviews from some of the main cast about this experience long ago. A few have been hard to track down. And some might have gotten a red rose and won’t be participating. Damn Sir Kallio!
- IN THE WOODS, is also going to get the anniversary Blu Ray release. This was my first starring role in a feature film and this new release might contain some new scenes. The film was re-transferred from the film stock (Yes, we use to shoot film:) and will be remastered. I think I mentioned that in addition to new swag like the cool Making of ‘In the Woods’ book on Amazon- other cool things are in the works like action figures.
- I have another Ron Knauss audio book from his FOR GENERATIONS TO COME series to record narration for and this week I’ll look to get that done. If you love history, this is a great series of books and audio books.
- We do have a few other films from the CDI library being prepared for new releases. It all just takes time.
- FOR THE LOVE OF CATCH 2 foundation paperwork is almost complete. Director Curran Jacobs is working on the outline. Also a new teaser poster should be coming soon. Exciting stuff!
WRAP UP:
I feel so bad for the people this past weekend affected by the tornado and storms. Some lost their lives and others all their belongings and homes. Mother Nature can be brutal. I’m looking forward to gathering with some of the #tribeCDI at the Capital City Film Festival mixer later this week. It is a great time to stop and just be in the presence of artists and filmmakers working towards their dreams. It is such a great event to have for those struggling to have their work seen. It has really grown over the years and some congrats to all their staff.
I’m going to finish this up here and get to a few other Sunday activities. With the sun shining outside and it getting warmer, I look forward to some yard work this week. As the cold gives way the need for firewood is lessening. But that means more splitting and letting it season for next winter’s chill. I want to replace the compost bin which is in bad shape after several years duty. I’ll be looking at quotes for a few projects around the premises. I saw a small greenhouse yesterday that I just loved.
In our meeting last week I think will drank the last of the Frankenberry Wine. I have the needed materials to do a run of beer and I might even have enough random rhubarb and berries for another wine run. Our chickens have been back to egg producing which is what I just ate in my small break in my writing. I love doing all these side things in nature as they help give balance.
(Rance Howard – he saw much change in his lifetime – I miss our talks)
BALANCE:
Balance – That was a main discussion in one of our meetings this past week. That should be the goal everyday for everyone. Extreme ideology has people thinking that you need to dominate others to win. To me that is a miss. We all have things important to us, our priorities. Just like others have their priorities, important to them. For one group to have everything, means another will be at a loss. But good citizenship is giving up some priorities for the good of others. Your fellow Americans. To strike a balance, whereas you may have a different ordering of your priorities compared to your neighbor, friend or family. In love you can support things outside your priority list.
I think more of us are moderate and hold middle ground with our beliefs. I don’t think you can put people in a box and call them just one thing. We all have those things/priorities that mean something to us but that doesn’t solely define us. I go into every conversation knowing I could be wrong. Knowing if I listen, I might learn something new. The emptying of the cup allows this. There’s a great strength in that ability. The loudest voices in the room seldom reflect the wisest voices. Sometimes the quiet one, who will not shout or yell over someone, has the truest point of view. They listen. They discuss in a friendly, open manner not an aggressive condescending tone. Respectful communication breeds new understanding and ultimately balance. Seek balance and you will find happiness.
Be good to one another. Disagree. But be good to one another. I have things I agree and/or disagree with but none are worth losing the laughter and cherished friendships I have. The world is changing and we cannot stop that. But we can control how we live and act during a time of change. Women now can vote and show off more than their ankles in public. Segregation had its day and is now gone. Military animals such as horses and dogs were once deemed only Govt. property and destroyed once service ended. Change is inevitable and can be good. Change is hard, but many things worthwhile are. I can barely keep up with technology on a good day. I miss things from the good ole’ days but I’m proud that some good ole’ ways we’ve moved past.
I have no real point to all this reflective pondering only to ask you to ponder these things on your own. Not what anyone tells you to believe but your own sincere thoughts. I’m aware of all the wild speculations out there and some contain a grain of truth inflated to unbelievable levels. Conspiracy was a fun thing we pondered as kids but to see it everywhere in everything becomes a sickness. It takes away your balance. If you have balance you can respond to actual events and regain your balance when something effects it. But to live in fear is an imbalance. What is the old saying that anticipation of death is worse than death itself. The human race has been brutal and beautiful to one another. That is likely why people are afraid of AI – if our actions and deeds are evaluated and judged that could be scary because we fail as often as we succeed. I will seek to live in balance. I will seek to know thyself and understand others. We’re not a perfect nation because the human race is not perfect but we are a good example of a society striving for balance. We have a long way to go but it starts with individuals.
Happy Sunday to you all!
DJ
DJ Perry's Official Blog 'Clawing My Way to the Middle' 