Movie Meetings, Music Videos and Memories-
Good morning to everyone out there! I’m sipping my hazelnut coffee out of a beautiful mug gifted by our upcoming ‘Hospitality & Health’ crew member Mollie Davis. I’m super excited about the #cditribe we’re bringing together for this next storytelling adventure. I want to thank all the artistic folks from around the world who stopped in for a coffee break and read. I’ve had an extremely busy week full of positive developments. Some are pertaining to past projects and others to future endeavors. And of course we have the adventures that are right in front of us now. Staying with crew- I met two of the new crew folks we’ll be working with yesterday and a music video shoot. Having done two small film projects at the Turner Dodge house it inspired me to pitch a ‘Scooby Doo’ type story video to the director and in turn the band. They loved it and so yesterday we once again did some shooting at this beautiful historic house. Everyone did a great job and we made our day. I look forward to working with these humble and hardworking gents on our next feature. It’s a multi-layered rock song with an amazing singer, slashing guitar rifts and driving drums delivered by famed drummer Chris Adler (Lamb of God). He and his wife are in from Richmond, VA where we once produced films like WICKED SPRING. (You can watch on Amazon) We knew lots of the same folks from that community and even shared experiences in travel. In between shots we all shared many great conversations about the difficulty of maintaining creative groups and trying to keep that synergy together. We compared hardships of being away on tour and on a film set. I just really enjoyed the artistic talks shared by all. I will be excited to share the music video in a few weeks.
Harsens Island Revenge – We are growing closer to our on-set pre-production and film shoot on the next CDI film. This past week was proofing all the agreements before dispersement. The schedule is finally all set and we had one of our producers up North securing even more pieces of the shoot. I got my 1920’s haircut and that has helped me seriously get into the mindset. I’ve been pulling together elements of my wardrobe and having fun creating. We are working hard to fill the few cast and crew positions available. The schedule caused a few changes but that is to be expected. We’ve been having different department talks also, weapons, vehicles, catering and more. We’ve added the Michigan Community College Association on board as a sponsor. Several more will be aligning their brands with our film. A Michigan story and it’s getting some great support from Michigan companies.
SILENT NIGHT IN ALGONA – We are all very excited to see this movie release to the mass audience around the world. I had a great talk with our distributor. They are working on key art for the DVD and streaming release. We’re being told mid October for a release but that is not official yet. We are still working on our few technical tweaks. The theatrical release is closing with only one unpaid theatre so we’ll likely do our theatrical dispersement this coming week. I talked with some from our collaborating Foundation about the recent special theatrical encore in Algona. Again they expressed how happy they were with the final film and the reaction by the community. That is a big congrats to our entire cast and crew.
DEVELOPMENT – I had a great talk with our distributor over several points including the status of our current projects. We also talked about which projects are still moving with strong momentum and the few that could be made stronger with a bit of re-branding. In our biblical trilogy the 3rd film’s sales are lagging behind the first two. It is not the film itself and you could argue that after the experience of the first two, the 3rd may be the strongest production value. But the name itself which is completely on point (pun intended) is turning some away from a watch. THE CHRIST SLAYER has many themes to it and the title plays into one of the themes brilliantly. The distributor brass loves the title as we do but it could be losing some eyes due to the title. We are considering a title change on some platforms to see if it helps. We have another project that we want to change the key art on. We did that with MAN’S BEST FRIEND which was doing well but did even better after a new poster was created. The first was more artistic and the second more straight forward. Actually on the distributors streaming platform ENCOURAGE TV we are growing close to crossing our 2 million mark. Stop over and watch free with ads and you can be one of those helping to cross this mark.
I also had a great pitch meeting as we talked future collaborations. The WILD FAITH: HASTINGS tv series is still gaining momentum as sales are staying strong and growing. I had some talks also over SPIRIT LAKE MASSACRE looking to be our second film in Iowa. I have some talks over that project this week and we’ll see if we can move that forward on the development board. There was also some good development talks on a few genre projects and even a possible romantic comedy. Development can take anywhere from a year to years plural so you always have to be working it. I think that is one of the mistakes young filmmakers make is far underestimating the time it takes for certain tasks or processes. Patience isn’t a strong suit for many folks and so it makes it even more torturous.
WRAP UP AND RANDOM FINAL THOUGHTS-
This week we played a soccer match in some brutal heat and we lacked subs. The other team had a full squad show with a good supply of subs. At half we had held it all to a tie but second half they started to take advantage of cracks and lack of gas. That game left me so exhausted by soccer gear bag felt like 200 lbs. I was EXHAUSTED at the end of it but there are good things to be said about pushing yourself to those limits. I woke up the next day and felt pretty darn good. Day two a bit sore but by body is really adjusting to the grueling games. I love the competition and it really resets the mind and body.
The yard is in full grow with a daily picking of herbs, tomatoes and more. The chickens are kicking out the fresh eggs. The hops are all turning to cones and will be ready for picking in a few weeks. On that note- people have been really enjoying the Mexican-Style Chili beer. I’ll likely go to bottle with the ‘Rocking Rhubarb Wine’ in a few weeks also. People do really enjoy the handcrafted goods.
I also finished reading the book THE BOYS written by Ron and Clint Howard. It was all about their life growing up and how their parents helped navigate Hollywood after coming from small town farm community. For me it was spending a few moments with my old friend, co-star and mentor Rance Howard before bed each night. I think I’m going to write Ron and Clint a nice letter after finishing it. It was enlightening, inspiring and also made me very appreciative of my own journey. To bring it full circle, that is what my onset conversations did for me. I would not have had many of the adventures I did if not for my career path. Here’s to several more!
I hope you all have a wonderful Sunday morning. I’ll be ready to hit it hard tomorrow which includes an art department meeting. Weds is a directors meeting and Friday the producers meeting. Thursday will see our team back on the soccer pitch. On that note I see that Sweden beat the USA women’s team in a shoot out. That is how it sometimes goes. Congrats to Sweden! Thank you all for stopping by and I’ll look forward to chatting with you next week.
Coffee Cheers!
DJ
Past, Present and Future – The Cycle of Creating and Living
(Getting a 2024 re-release – Ghost Town)
I’m sitting here now after having taken a trip down the road to the first Mega Mall flea market. I love going to look for future props either for a character or the film as a whole. I came home empty handed but that is sometimes how it goes. Yesterday we celebrated my niece’s bday with some morning bowling which was fun. I did pretty good for not bowling in several years. I now have soccer on the TV and I’m excited to start playing with our first game the first week of May. I’ve also enjoyed the spurt of warm weather whereas I re-planted some clover seeds and started doing clean up on the yard. The old hop vines cut down which the birds LOVE for nest building. It is nice to see the bees getting busy to work and the birds active with their activities. We are prepping to grow some veggies and such and even the apple trees are looking really good this year. It won’t be long before the yard is full of berries and rhubarb. I do have the materials to make a Mexican-style light beer and some berries from last season to maybe do another multi-berry wine. We drank up most of the other during the long winter. We had a record temp day in Lansing, MI of 85 degrees but now we have a cold front passing that could put snowflakes in part of the state. Only in Michigan.
Last week I had a great meeting with fellow CDI founder Jeff Kennedy. He has been sidelined for several years dealing with some health issues but also has been enjoying retirement. Retirement doesn’t mean not creating art. They have wonderful artwork everywhere inside and outside their home. We shared a beer in his backyard garden and discussed the classic CDI films and their forthcoming re-releases in HD. We were making plans for CDI to march on for another 25 years. Yes. It’s a long ways off but still you have to plan for such things. The new films are doing quite well and we’re very happy about how many people we’ve reached with our stories. We are always looking ahead and we’ve got a lot of great projects developing. CDI is a multigenerational company and we’re proud of all the growth.
SILENT NIGHT IN ALGONA continues to be played in theaters across the Midwest. It will also be playing as part of the Iowa Motion Picture Awards next month where it has been nominated for BEST FEATURE FILM. We are awaiting to see if we’ll be invited to play at a few other events. The new improved home video version of the film is also being pulled together as we start delivering our master and materials to Bridgestone Multimedia Group. The film will be delivered in May and we should have our hard release dates for home video announcement in June. My guess is an Oct/Nov release.
HARSENS ISLAND REVENGE is full speed ahead and we’re still reading talent and interviewing a few remaining crew spots. We’ll be traveling up North to do some location scouting with our team. With directors approval we can start locking in locations and seeking the final few that we need. Lodging and catering are being explored and we should have all the info we need after the trip to get our schedule completed. That allows us to move forward with cast agreements, vehicle and extra breakdowns and more. Excited by all the cool locations, vehicles and props we’ve found so far. It will be a great shoot and so looking forward to seeing some of my artist friends that I only see when filming.
DEVELOPMENT
WILD FAITH: HASTINGS, SPIRIT LAKE MASSACRE and FOR THE LOVE OF CATCH 2 are among some of the projects in development. We will be having more discussions on these new projects and start to put more pieces in play. After we wrap Harsens Island Revenge in October we’ll be looking to see what project is next up in the Spring 2024. We have a few possible “in association” projects also developing and so we’ll have to see what happens in the coming months.
We also have several projects being prepped for re-release in 2024 with KNIGHT CHILLS being the one we’re focused on right now. The Blu Ray is in the works and we’re all excited about that.
WRITING – I have several scripts that I’ve been working on and I’m going to try and settle into some daily writing. Even working a little each day all adds up. Once we get SILENT NIGHT IN ALGONA delivered that will help free up some time.
ACTING – I have been aware of a few projects casting in the area and even saw a breakdown that had a character or two I found interesting. But for me to be invested I like to read the entire script. I considered a few projects but for now have chosen to focus on the next role of AXEL, Ex WW1 officer and now an outdoorsmen just trying to live the peaceful life. I LOVE to create a role layer by layer. I love to watch and read about the time period and to try and adjust my perspective of that time. I do have to say that following BEST YEARS GONE, I am looking forward to more comedy.
THE SELF – Partially for the next role and partially for the upcoming soccer season, I’ve been working to get myself in even better shape. Tai Chi, heavy bag work, meditation and even some weapons (stick, staff and sword) practice. I’m just taking it all up a notch and I’m really enjoying it. Laughter and music also play into my plan of keeping the self healthy. I additionally had some great conversations with some old friends this past week. It is always a pure joy to catch up with people and share stories.
WRAP UP – This coming week we’ll be finalizing plans for the forthcoming scout trip. I’ll be focusing on sponsorship talks this week since we have some great opportunities for cross marketing. I’ll probably put some more clover seeds down this week. I want to explore a few tree trims and still want to explore the building of a new deck. The tree trimming helps refill the wood box for next winter. Cycles. It was just a great week of embracing and celebrating the past while also motivating oneself for the future-thus charging our present endeavors.
I’m going to sign off here and get after a few tasks. We have a cold front coming in and so I’ll likely prep the wood stove for a few final wood stove fires. I’m excited for the seasons and tasks ahead. I’m so appreciative for the path I’m on and work each day to achieve balance and momentum moving into the next endeavor. Until we speak again next week please make an effort to be good to one another. Many good folks out there are dealing with their own issues seeking balance.
Coffee Cheers!
DJ
DJ Perry's Official Blog 'Clawing My Way to the Middle' 