So Spring is here, and of course after a few days of some OK weather we get slammed with snow.  I woke up to a blanket of snow in the morning and then a little blizzard for a couple hours in the afternoon.  It’s high 70s in Atlanta, GA today and where my parents are in Augusta, GA it’s almost 80.  That’s sickening given the fact we’re freezing up here and Spring was supposed to be in swing.  I really don’t think I’ll miss the winters here if we move, I really don’t.  I’ll miss the snow in terms of how it can look sometimes, but it lasts for a few moments and then you just want it gone.  The more Denise and I talk, the more we’re sure we’ll likely be out of here sometime in the late fall.  I just don’t think this is the place for us.  Most of our spiritual support among friends will be gone by the Fall as almost all of them are leaving and going south or west.  It’s funny how God has surrounded me over the past 2 years with people who’re all going to seminary.  It’s been a real pleasure having a solid group of friends who love the Bible, love to discuss theology, etc. and now they’re all getting engaged and married and leaving.

I really would like to be closer to my parents as well.  They still have their house here, my family is still here mostly, but it’s them I really want to be near, even if that means a couple hours drive.  I mean I’m all for “leaving my father and mother and clinging to my wife,” but they’re still the closest family I have.  Luckily it’s not just me because Denise has a sister in GA and apparently she (Denise) has wanted to go south for years.  If we didn’t meet she probably would’ve been down there already!  Funny how things work out huh?  So I’m trying to figure out financially how we could make this happen.  It’s possible her Sister would get a new house and rent the old and we’d have first dibs, a perfect setup to be honest…until we find out what we’re doing or get a house of our own but that’s not looking like it will happen.  It still might but it’s more unlikely now than it was just a month ago.  Either way I think we’re going, it’s just how and when.  Lease here in our apartment is up in October so the timing would be good so I’m not penalized for waiting then getting out of my lease.  I HATE moving so I hope wherever we find to go I like it enough to stay for a while if need be.  I don’t think we’ll get a house right away since I want a good down payment, but I don’t want to wait more than 3 years either.  For those of you who read the blog more often, we’re not NOT trying to have kids (most of you know what that means) so we’ll see when God Blesses us with our first (of many I hope) little one.  How quickly we have them will likely push me into getting a house even sooner then I “plan” to.  Anything can happen.

Atlanta is still the place I believe though.  It’s Hollywood of the East with tons of resources, and a few people there I know, Denise’ sister, etc.  Lots of churches down there, but I think we already found the first one we’ll try.  It’s smaller, family integrated, reformed (important), and I’ve already emailed the pastor to dialog and we both think Denise and I would be a good fit if we go.  It’s likely we won’t find an apartment much cheaper than the one here, since Atlanta is very comparable to the Buffalo area in terms of the cost of living.  Certain things definitely are cheaper down there though!  Weather is going to be great for a portion of the year, then absolutely kill me for the summer.  I’m guessing I lose a lot of weight in 2012, like a melting ice cube.  Luckily, everything has AC down there, LOL.  People know better.  I think it’s a great place to go and make movies given the resources there, film companies and crew, actors, and it’s very business friendly.  Also, Atlanta is the best place to travel from.  You can fly anywhere from Atlanta and because of that it’s been the busiest airport in the world since 1982 or something like that.  The traffic in the city is AWFUL, and not just on the highways but on the side streets as well (some have told me it’s worse there), but whatever it’ll be something we have to deal with.  We won’t be going into the city anyways, but in the towns around it.  Snellville is where Denise sister lives, and apparently some people I know are familiar with it (Rich Christiano who I work with had The Secrets of Jonathan Sperry play there as one of his theaters when it released).

Since we’ve begun development of the new film we’re doing, I’ve already taken on some of the producing duties really early on to figure out what we’ll likely be doing, who we could hire, what we would be shooting on this time, etc.  I have a special surprise coming in the mail for myself tomorrow and I look forward to playing with it.  It needs a lot of accessories and I’ll show a picture in a later post, but I’m incredibly excited.  Between this and the MacBook Pro I got recently, I’ve definitely taken a hit in the financial department, but all of this is investment.  Between the costs before production started on STANDING FIRM, and the money spent afterwards and on marketing from me personally, I think I myself spent the average American salary on it, half of that in the last 12 months…so I’ve seen my bank account flux like a roller-coaster.  It’s just the name of the game when you do this stuff.  Lots of people when it comes to camera prefer to rent their setup for the duration of a shoot, but I want to know my camera and have experience with it.  Even if I’m not the one shooting from a producing / directing standpoint I need to be confident of what the film will look like.  Oops, did I give away what it is I bought?  Yes this stuff is always a gamble, because equipment in this field isn’t cheap, but when you have a real purposeful purpose for it, it’s worth it.  Being a techie and camera nerd it’s just wonderful too, LOL.  I get all giggly and stupid when I get new gear.  I’ll need to get a new desktop this year as well because it’s starting to show its age.  I got it before we even did STANDING FIRM and that was 4 years ago this April.  It’s old enough that my new laptop is actually benchmarked to be twice as fast.  Insane isn’t it, how technology progresses?

So the Spring has started, work has been very busy and some new stuff has come in again since my last post.  STANDING FIRM continued to do well with some promotions coming up for Father’s Day which I hope are successful.  Always a gamble to advertise, so we’ll see.  If all goes well, the film will be in Brazil and surrounding areas soon, so that’s exciting.  Some folks in Singapore, China are going to show the film to their church and use it as a fundraiser Anybody who is international who has contacted me to screen the film to their congregation I’ve just given away for free since the shipping costs I would have to charge are too much.  It’s been sorta fun to get their responses and see how excited they are.  God is good, and I’m glad the film continues to make an impact.  One of the cool things about the Christian market is you never really have to stop marketing your stuff.  Every year the film will find new people who have never heard of it.  It’ll slow down for sure, but it’ll never truly go down to zero, especially since this is a small film and by the time I bet a number of years have gone by the amount we’ve sold in the grand scheme of things won’t be MONSTROUS.  You just don’t sell hundreds of thousands of copies in this market.  Some of the most successful out there besides the Sherwood movies and maybe some bigger ones from the past year or so have done 200,000 or less.  By the way that number comes from a few very successful films well known in the market and they’ve been out for almost 10 years.  They still are moving on shelves, one of them even picked up by Sony recently, given a new cover, and re-released as if it was brand new.  STANDING FIRM looks like it could have a long life, and if we do a second film sometime soon like I think we will, it’ll get new life breathed into it!

Spring is going to be fun…and I look forward to every moment!