Where things are at...

Hey all!

Thanks for your many prayers, concerns, and supporting comments during this time of transition for my next film endeavor.

I wanted to let you all know that the next steps have been taken, and a large move forward is in process. No longer are we talking about "Chains of Freedom"; that film is not dead, but is going to gestate for a while.

I am going to keep the next film's content under wraps for the time being, but here's what you can expect to be seeing in the next few months.

I just met with three people who are now the writers for this film. They are taking on the job of developing the concept, creating an outline, researching the topic, and developing seven drafts of a screenplay. This process will take roughly a year between the three of them. They are very passionate and are excited for what God's going to do with this.

In the meantime, while I let them do their thing, I am working on this film from an "ending perspective" - I'm focusing on where I want this film to go, what I want it to do, and how I want it to get there.

Next week, I will be meeting with another group, which I hope will develop into a production and marketing taskforce. I will be discussing more of these end goals with them, and work the project backwards, from the end to where it is now.

The end goal is to have a film released in the spring of 2012, and to utilize various social media networks (such as Facebook) to help generate a genuine demand. It is my hope that through this process, people will be buying tickets in advance, and we'll have enough of a push to get this into a number of theaters across the country.

Let me stress at this point that this is not (at least I pray it won't be) like "Fireproof" (no offense to its creators or to those who like that film or others like it) -- it will not merely seek an audience of those open to the message of the Gospel. It will not be a sermon. Rather, it will be, simply, a good story, which happens to have a good number of Christians involved in its production. I've talked with a lot of atheists, agnostics, and secularists, and most seem intrigued by the idea of a good film that is Christian-based, but just tells an honest story without preaching, without demanding that the audience agree with what it says.

I want to make that film.

Right now I'm believing that this film will need a budget of around $200,000, as a lot of this will be a labor of love for many. However, my dream, and the reason I am looking at this from the end to the beginning, is that the film is not only a labor of love, but beneficial to the laborers, particularly those pioneers who are already jumping on board now because they believe in me - I want their faith to be rewarded as many times over as possible.

So, stay tuned! Once the film is more solidified, we will be developing a Facebook "fan page" as well as an actual website for the project, and we'll have much more information then, including ways you can connect and help us.

The biggest vision and goal I have for this project is to make something entirely outside of the old system (nothing against the old system), and I believe, the way to accomplish that is to include the online communities in the film's pre-production, production, and post-production, without spoiling the story itself, so that the audience can still enjoy and be surprised by the film.

We will be looking for financial support, for prayer support, for marketing support; just from the people, not from the studios.

More to come,
Brandon

Easing up on the reins...

So, I've been going through a rather liberating experience with my latest short film, "The Janitor", which I'm hoping to shoot on 35mm. I talked with a local film guru, and he was saying, the more writers I can bring on who are locally known, the better shot I have at getting funding.

Well, I ended up deciding to take a risk, so to speak, and wrote down the story I had in my head on paper, as a 4 page short story with no dialogue, and handed it off to another writer. I haven't seen the first draft yet, but already, I'm seriously considering doing this again, if not regularly, with all of my films, including my next feature.

The part of writing that I enjoy is the story itself, getting from point A to B to C. The areas that I have to struggle with, and get the most feedback on, are dialogue points, and matters of pacing. Story itself I have virtually no struggle with. I could flip out 20 good stories in a week, I'm sure of it. It's the technical aspect that I battle with. Don't get me wrong, I've always enjoyed it, but 9 times out of 10 my dialogue is either too wordy or too...whatever.

It's all a part of this process of letting go, of focusing on my strong points and releasing the areas I don't really want to tackle, anyway (and having a good pool of folks to pull from).

So, anyway, I'll be looking to do that more often. This is fun. :)

(I'm also hoping to do this with music -- I love scoring, but I'd really like someone knowledgeable to take my scribblings and synthesized pieces and bring it to an orchestra. Hopefully, that happens with "The Janitor" as well.)