Posts Tagged Standing Firm
We’re Moving…wait, HUH?
Yep you read correctly, we’re moving. Where? To Georgia, more specifically Atlanta and even more specifically Buford, which is a north-eastern suburb outside the city. Moving wasn’t really a secret, but how soon is. By the end of July…the secret’s out. We’re moving almost 2 months sooner than originally planned. We already have an apartment that’s really great and about 30minutes from everyone we want more immediate contact with including our church family, the friends I’ve made already, and Denise’s sister Stacy. The apartment complex is $300 cheaper than our current apartment in NY and that’s with an extra bedroom putting us at 3 and not 2. It’s on the first floor (thank goodness) and includes a much better kitchen and interior (in my opinion) and nice big tubs in both bathrooms (yay!). Overall I was pretty floored by the apartment complex and its surroundings. We’re about 2 minutes from the biggest mall in the state along with everything else down the road. It’s also a stone throw from the more country type areas. I was glad because after driving around the Atlanta area, most of the suburbs within 40minutes of downtown are insanely busy. We’re just far away enough to avoid the business on backroads. It’s still busy mind you, but some of the closer towns were a little too much so…at least for my taste.
Moving means a lot of changes and a lot of things to do in just a number of weeks. Denise and I already made a list of things to handle with lots of it checked off already. We need to buy a few things (lots of bubble wrap) and start figuring out what to pack up and in what. I don’t like moving, but I’ll be glad to move this time and get down south. Both of us are really excited and relieved to be going. It’s just going to be a new future for us and in my opinion a better one. Family was at the center of this decision and we’re certain that where we’re going is a better place to raise our kids, including the church we found down there. It’s reformed and makes no butts about that, and it’s family integrated which was something I specifically wanted. The pastor’s are amazing guys and both have web/tech development businesses. A relationship there between both of them is already growing so God is doing great things. Hopefully my area of service can include growing some sort of media type ministry at the church to help it grow. We’re going to be happy there, and it’s a good environment to raise a family.
All in all, opportunity is calling in more ways than one…and we’re answering. Who knows what is ahead of us, but I have a feeling it’s good things. God has really answered our prayers here, and our hopes/dreams all at once….surreal and satisfying.
After doing like 200 revisions and talking to many folks for feedback, I’ve put up a more legitimate and longer synopsis for Chasing Glory on the movie’s site. Give it a look if you want. I look forward to how the film develops. Work has been relatively slow still but I see some pickup coming…it’s a matter of time. Standing Firm continues to sell pretty well all things considered as we move towards the 1 year mark in August. Amazing what God has done since then and continues to do. Good reviews stream in every once in a while and surprise me, but it shouldn’t. God had his hand on that film from the start and he’s using it…I shouldn’t be surprised! I’m glad to have been apart of it, and will keep doing what I can to make sure it keeps moving out the door. The marketing never stops…not with movies this small in nature.
Prayers appreciated for everything going on…
I Heard The Heartbeat
We had to get up early for Denise’s second doctors appointment at 7:30am today. My alarm went off at 6:15 but naturally I didn’t get up till 6:50. We both felt like pretty crappy I think, and tired on top of that. But, the trip was worth it because we got to hear the babies heartbeat today. It took a while for the doctor to find it. I sat there for what felt like forever waiting to hear it and then it came. Babies hearts beat very fast so it sounded like it was running a 10k inside of her (a joke we later beat to death later during dinner). What a trip hearing that sound from inside my wife. She felt much better because it just makes her feel more pregnant than just ill. It hasn’t been a pleasant experience for her, and honestly I think she’s only thrown up once or maybe twice, but feeling queazy almost all day every day really is a drag for both of us. Sometimes I think she’s depressed and I get depressed forgetting she probably doesn’t feel good. There isn’t a lot you can do about it either except try and eat something small, so it stinks just sorta watching it happen.
I got started on a few little things today. I’m trying to figure out a game plan for marketing of STANDING FIRM this summer. I have a lot of things I’ve yet to do since I didn’t have to put them out there yet. I want to stretch this thing out as long and far as possible. I was Blessed in a recent status update I put on our Facebook fan page (we’re almost north of 220,000 fans now) that got a great response. Sometimes I think people get bugged by the advertising on the fan page, so I break it up with quotes/bible verses. Everyone responded with great kindness so that gave me some encouragement. 
Read the comments by fans.
One iron in the fire is to possibly release the first 5-minutes of STANDING FIRM on our Youtube Channel. We have a few thousand subscribers and 23,000 friends or so on our channel so we should get a decent response, then of course the social-media blasting of it. I think the first 5-minutes really suck you in when you get the movie so it’s a good chunk of the film to release. I’ve thought about doing a few individual scenes but without context in the story they wouldn’t work well so I decided against it. Beyond that I thought about doing a little promo video today for the film and that basically ate up the rest of my evening and night up until now to start and finish it. I didn’t even realize it would work so well and now we have a second trailer to upload online that’s 1 minute long. It’s perfect for quick promotion without taking too much of everyone’s time and people online are more likely to get to the end of the video. I think it sums up the film really well and it gave me the chance to use all the great quotes we’ve gotten from reviewers and organizations. I’m uploading it as we speak and will be spreading it around soon. Hopefully the response is good.
Give it a look…please share it on your Facebook wall if you can!
So yea lots of fun stuff going on around here. I need to get up in the morning to help my grandma with her TV woes…the life of a geek! G’night folks!
Let The Good Times Roll
Sometimes it’s easy to remember just how good I have it. Do you ever feel that way? Denise and I went to go see Courageous for a second time today at a local pre-screening. I can’t believe I get to do this stuff for a living…being involved in the filmmaking industry full-time. It still blows my mind. 5 years ago I was graduating high school and looking to go into college for engineering. After only a year there I dropped out and working full-time at my church as the media director, then in 2007 Praise Pictures starts…Standing Firm is birthed then then from Aug 2010 is a whirlwind of stress, blessing, tears, love, etc. and now 9 months later I find myself in 2011 married with a baby on the way and an impending move to Atlanta. A lot can happen in 5 years, wow.
The article I wrote on Social Media Marketing for WorkbookProject.com hasn’t been posted yet but I’ll definitely post it here when the time comes. Hopefully it’s useful for people! I’ve finished that Roy Rogers Cover recently for BMG and moving onto the other one due in a month for Adventures In Values which is a children’s program. I’ve done two other covers for their show and this one is a three-volume set. After that another program called Our House I guess is in the queue box for me to do. For any of you looking to make a living at some of this stuff I can tell you it’s really helpful to build good relationships and find those few clients who can give you repeated jobs because it only takes a few of those to carry through a year and this year that’s happening.
I’ve been feeling a little lazy though and that’s probably due to the fact I’m not going nuts like I was in Jan-Feb. Sometimes I feel like the pace is normal but some days I really think I get almost nothing done and somehow hours just fly by without a load of work being completed. I’m behind with developing Chasing Glory and it’s May already! Not sure what’s wrong with me. As I said before I think I need a bit more structure but getting it started is tough. It’s 2am again and I’m writing here so as you can see I’m failing at my goal setting LOL.
I have spent some time during my days doing tests with my AF100 still. Recently I did a ton of tests to get the AF100 scene file settings I have matched with my Canon 5D. The point of doing that is so I can shoot the same subject with either and as long as the exposure matches they should grade almost exactly the same and look exactly the same in post-production. I’ve gotten them probably 95% matched with the other 5% being negligible and not likely to be noticed by anyone besides me. I’ve thought hard about how to utilize the tools out there and squeeze every last drop of quality from what’s available similar to how I did Standing Firm. The 5D for instance will be perfect for a B-camera when it’s needed, possibly to get shots in places the AF100 would attract too much attention, small crane shots where the wide aspect of my 5D’s lens (due to the large chip sensor) would give me something my AF100 couldn’t do without a really wide lens (although that’s on my list to buy). There’s a lot of application here and I need to be mindful of all of it if I hope to do another lower budget film a step up from Standing Firm’s quality. I look forward to seeing how some of this stuff can work out, but my story really needs to take priority and lately I think I’ve been letting the techie inside of me take over. The writer needs to come out!
I got my car back from the shop today, and I’m $1500 poorer. It needed a ton of stuff done to it and since inspection was due I needed to replace the windshield that cracked during the winter simply due to the cold which added to the cost. It’s wonderful after almost 2 months to have my car back though and to drive it. It’s smooth as butter and I miss it. I even miss the seat in my car, which just shows you how attached you can get to a vehicle and your body especially. My neck hurt a lot in Denise’s car and in mine I feel great…weird.
Eyes hurt, time to go to bed!
