For Immediate Release: 12 Jan 2012
Sun Swing Media Company is please to announce a unique film-making experience for a new series of LDS Kids’ videos. Registration has begun for the first Sun Swing Blitz film-making marathon. The event will commence on Wednesday, February 1st, 2012 and will run for six weeks until Wednesday, March 14th, 2012. All interested persons are encouraged to sign up for this one-of-a-kind venue.
Registered participants will compete to create one of three stories, which were first published in the Friend magazine, an official children’s publication from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). These completed stories will be added to a larger collection of projects that are already in production. Films will be selected for each story, with small cash prizes for winning entries.
The online event is open to anyone at any age or level of experience. Though the content is exclusively focused on producing LDS themed content, no distinction of religious affiliation is being made for registration.
For complete details about the event, visit http://www.sunswingmedia.com/blitz/
For additional questions, please contact Brent Leavitt at brentleavitt@sunswingmedia.com or at 801-372-2610.
More information:
Six years ago, a small company in a rented warehouse space was in production on the first of what was planned to be a new series of cartoons. These stories demonstrated living the Christian lifestyle in a modern world from a kid’s point of view. Unfortunately, the project went belly up in the Spring of 2006 with the company following suit by the end of the year.
Director Brent Leavitt spent that summer selling ice cream and frozen entrees door to door. Then, in the fall, he decided to go at it again. With the formation of a new company, Leavitt went on a fundraising tour to continue work on the project series. He determined early on that he would not go into debt for these projects.
However, trying to raise money for the project came to a halt when he finally met up with a venture capitalist. Leavitt realized that the potential for return was nowhere close to what a venture capitalist was looking for.
Consequently, Leavitt’s one man show has been creative in seeking original ways to get these stories produced. This spend-thrifty way of production came to a head when in 2009, Leavitt competed in the LDS Film Festival’s 24-hour film-making marathon where he took 2nd place. “I realized that the money that I had been waiting for, I didn’t need. And that the most important resources for production I already had within me.”
With this shift in mind set, Leavitt set out to produce the next slated project in the series. Through crowd sourcing, he raised enough money to cover the costs of sound recording and music. He employed a much more efficient production model and within a year’s time, the next project in the series was finished.
Employing the “Spend Nothing” production model, production has resumed on the first project. Leavitt anticipates to have it completed by the end of this spring.
Hoping to make additional stories available by that time, Sun Swing Media announces production blitzes, a film-making marathon to get more producers working on the series. “I’m not in this for the money. I would have pursued a career elsewhere a long time ago if that were the case,” says Leavitt. “But I’m very excited about the possibility that there are other filmmakers out there with skills better than mine that will want to get involved.” To that end, Sun Swing Blitzes create a venue to finish the next three stories in the series.
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