Plenty of stuff keeping me busy here in Ransomville.  I skimmed through Standing Firm today downstairs on our good speaker system and with the TV calibrated well.  I had yet to see how the compression of the DVD I had made held up on a 1080HD screen.  Not bad really…stretched about 2x the size (since DVD’s are SD) the image was softer but the sharpness still blew me away in some scenes, especially the close ups.  That’s really what you lose in the lower end HD cameras, even the pro-sumer levels.  In closeups in perfect light most would find it tough to tell the difference between these cameras and film, but it’s in the wide shots and some mediums that the image shows some of it’s weaknesses.  Not in quality of the image itself, but in the sharpness.  Fewer pixels to define the background.  The farther away it is, the less detail your going to see because there’s less pixels to define it.  That’s why something like the RED would still be amazing for products going to DVD.  The closeups will look amazing sure, and even a properly encoded DVD will still be pretty soft on an HDTV, but it’s the background shots that despite the stretching and blown up softness will show a sharpness these cameras can’t touch.  Would I still consider shooting another film on the setup I currently have?  Maybe.  Maybe a step up?  Sure.  Depends on the budget really.  For the DVD market, the setup I used performed extremely well, and never really gave me problems.

I watched Flywheel today with Denise and Jason at the house.  Flywheel is my favorite film from Sherwood Pictures.  Truth be told (and the Kendrick’s would say the same), the film looks awful.  The acting is shoddy in a lot of places, the sound is bad, etc.  Production quality is below bottom of the shelf.  BUT, the story shines through and resonates despite all this.  I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve watched Flywheel and Facing the Giants with and without commentary, read articles about the films, watched the BTS over and over.  It’s given me such a boost when I needed it.  For those of you who don’t know, those two films is what gave Praise Pictures its start.  It showed me that it was possible to do a good film on a small budget with very few people and still come out on top or break even financially.  Those films are such an encouragement to me…I can’t pump them up enough.

I’m really proud of Standing Firm, despite it’s faults.  I think for a first film, with what we had available, we made something remarkable.  We hid our budget very well for the most part, the music according to what I’ve been hearing from my composer as he’s working puts it a step above a lot of films in this budget range especially, the camera work came out far better than I had hoped for, the acting is very solid over most of the film, and I think I’ve been pretty successful building a fan base as time has gone on.  Just doing what I can….with what I have.  That’s the best I can do!  We’ll see where we end up.  I have some exciting news to share hopefully in the next few weeks regarding the DVD, be on the look out for that  God is cooking up something awesome.

There is plenty to pray for right now regarding the film and Praise Pictures.  We still need a song for the middle montage of the film.  This song either has to be the one that we placed in as temp (Third Day song with very high licensing rights), or something original.  I have a guy looking at the film that could give me something excellent but we’ll see.  Because the film is locked it’s difficult.  There is a possible door open to get to use that Third Day song but we’ll see what God does with that.  If anyone out there that might come across this by some divine appointment knows how I can get a screener of this film into the hands of Mac Powel PLEASE email me kyle @ praisepictures.com.  Despite the licensing cost I feel like if someone is going to be able to make things easier it’s him and the band.  Who knows what could happen with that?  Unlikely sure…but nothing is impossible with God right?  If that doesn’t work, I need a good original song still.  Score is going well and I’m very happy with what I hear.  I still have to shoot my BTS interview as well as Kevin’s (co-writer/producer) and get to work on the BTS documentary.  It’s going to be a very tight race come June to get this film completed, the DVD features done, mailed in to get Dove approval (which normally takes 30 days), and out by August (hopefully).

There is also a lot to handle in regards to church screenings and how to properly handle those.  I have almost 100 so far waiting around for the info to become available.  That’ll likely be a focus of mine for the rest of the year and onward.  It’ll be a lot of work handling those orders, not to mention even figuring out how to get the materials together, designing them, shipping them, doing the phone calls and making sure people get what they need, etc.  Lots of legwork!

I’m excited to get a copy of The Secrets of Jonathan Sperry in my hand.  It comes out May 4th in national Christian bookstores and I had the pleasure of doing the DVD Menu’s and the Graphics for the BTS.  It didn’t really hit me till recently but something I worked on is going to be in thousands of locations in a few months.  Wild stuff!  It’ll be weird to walk into a Lifeway Chrstian store or something and see Standing Firm sitting there.  If God blesses us like that then awesome!  We’ll see what he does.

This is a critical time for me as a Christian, as a filmmaker, as a businessman, and as a man.  Satan is going to be on the attack and my flesh is going to be hungry to have me doing something I shouldn’t.  Crushing the spirit and the whole nine to cloud my vision and my discernment.  I’ve already felt myself under attack lately.  Please pray for me.  After over 3 years working on this project, it would be a shame to mis-step now.  This is a critical time.

Thanks everyone…Blessings to you!