EXPERIENCE OVER EGOS and OTHER CDI UPDATES!
A fine good morning to everyone out there. We are now into June and the heat and humidity has arrived. We had a soccer game last week in the heat and we lost but what a great workout. I was so tired after my soccer bag felt like a hundred pounds and I had to drink some pickle juice before my shower. I ordered some prescription sports googles so I can see better on the field. So now I will have the Kareem Abdul Jabbar look going on. My eye doctor also said that my eyes were having allergy issues so I got some drops. I’ve just been steadily adjusting to being a glasses wearer. I will ballergiese missing my Thursday soccer match which might have a rain out but I have a promo show for for ROM COMS MUST DIE on Thursday with Adam Towner. It is streaming live with a live audience so it should be quite enjoyable. This is my birthday month and so I’ve been reflective upon the journey thus far. Again I feel blessed to do what I love doing working in storytelling. Let’s look at some of the other recent updates.
UPDATES:
- ABOVE is the Thursday show that we will be doing. It looks like so much fun. TUNE in Live if you can and listen to us talk about films and making movies in Mid-Michigan for the world market. ROM COMS MUST DIE is an insanely fun ride from beginning to end. We are still trying to work both theatrical pop ups and brew N views.
- AI JESUS: The Secret of the Kingdom Chip had a final watch/listen through and now the end credits are finally done. We had an 11th hour add to the end credits that was almost forgotten by one of our keys. Missing name or mis-spelled is the most common and once you render and deliver that is what it is. Know if we’ve ever made a mistake it was never on purpose. We plan to have a great premiere for this film and we’ll see if Dreamscape Productions wants to partner with us on this title into theaters. This is a very unique and timely story ripped from news headlines and given a SciFi twist. This coming week I’ll be digitizing the wrap book and getting that uploaded to the distributor.
- WILD FAITH CHRISTMAS – We have a two punch coming up with the RED LETTER AWARDS and ten nominations in August. And in October we have the WILL ROGERS MEDALLION AWARDS to accept for screenplay and the film. We won either gold, silver or bronze. We are the underdog of sorts with both the other films having some amazing talent from C. Thomas Howell to Dennis Quaid, Mary McDonald, Tom Skerritt and Kurt Russell’s son Wyatt. I LOVE that our troupe is in such great company. I’m looking into using this win to try and connect with a literary agent. I had an agent at one of the big 3 agencies years ago but I’m looking at that once again. I love to write and so it might serve me well to have someone focused on work-for-hire or selling scripts I don’t plan to produce. They will be honoring others like Clint Black, Kevin Costner, Barry Corbin and more…
- DEVIL’S PASS is now in pre-production and we’re forming the production entity now. Next week we plan to start signing on our backers and getting the bank account open. Creatively it has been a wonderful process working with the writer and our directors. We have a walk through this coming week with our production designer. We also just dropped a casting call for three roles that can be found on the Devil’s Pass FB page. It also has the extras submission info but why not read for a role and see what happens. We will be doing some PR announcements soon including pulling BONANZA alumni Mitch Vogel out of retirement. I wish we could work with everyone but we too have limited resources referring to cast and crew. Many of our artists have to be local due to costs. But this September we will film this moody mid-western film. Darby Hinton from WILD FAITH is back as one of our leads. We have a few holes in oBonanzaur cast and crew that we’ve been interviewing and auditioning people for. We will also start talking to sponsors this week.
DEVELOPMENT:
We are making some moves to try and bring on the second part of funding on RETURN TO ALGONA the 1968 follow up film to SILENT NIGHT IN ALGONA. We have some great leads and interested parties. Preserving the history of this PW Camp and the Nativity Scene has been a wonderful process. My goal is to get the matching commits this year and film next year in Algona.
We also have a couple of film’s developing with Curran Jacobs who directed FOR THE LOVE OF CATCH. A slate of films with Katharsys Media and a handful of one offs trying to find the right backers. It is always a process of matching up the right variables to make a movie happen.
I’ve had another book sent to me to consider turning into a screenplay. I’ve been paid to do this several times and it is a process I do enjoy. It is different from an original screenplay but both have their fun aspects. As noted before, even projects with funding are strongly evaluated because the process is complicated and if you get the wrong pieces in play it can stop being fun really fast. Experience over egos is what is required to make these projects a success.
WRAP UP: I’ve been enjoying creating a new character for DEVIL’S PASS. I love working with the voice, motivations, wardrobe and even facial hair. As we cast folks each read of the script becomes more clear as you can imagine performances. Just like with the locations that add fuel to your imagination. So I’ll keep looking for those unique pieces.
I might have to put a mow on parts of the lawn today before the rain moves in this week. I did some grilling yesterday of some venison burgers and it feels great to have the grill operational again. We just had some eggs from our hens and that just really makes a morning.
This week I’m back to working on film disbursements and love how streamline it is becoming. I have my team to thank for that. The back end of the week is the production designer scout on Weds, the live show on Thursday and Friday a Devil’s Pass production meeting. I look forward to a great week and hope you all do as well. I’m going to close this up and go get my lawn things done before the heat kicks in. Coffee Cheers! DJ
DJ Perry's Official Blog 'Clawing My Way to the Middle' 