January 27th, 2012 -
Kind of a funny title, I suppose.
I’m going to pen just a few lines of thought on this Friday afternoon from my corner of world. I had planned to make the trek up to Utah this week to be a part of the 11th annual LDS Film Festival. The Lord had other plans for me. I won’t go into details, but in years past where I had felt very good about volunteering with the film festival, that’s not the case this year. Keep Reading »
January 12th, 2012 -
Today I announced the open registration for a new LDS-themed filmmaking marthon, Sun Swing Blitz. This idea has been several months in the making and had evolved from the idea of a film festival to a very content specific campaign to produce the remainder of the stories that I had rights to produce from the Friend magazine. To invite other participants on board required a degree of divestment from the project, and an ever greater degree of humility. At the same time, the thought that there would be other working on these projects is exciting. Full details can be found on the production blitz pages.
If you’ve got the time and any inclination towards filmmaking, I’d warmly encourage you to consider your involvement in first Sun Swing Blitz.
December 26th, 2011 -
Recently we pushed live a new page discussing our focus on LDS Kids videos and family entertainment. Our reason for doing so was purely strategic, but it also allowed us to turn our attentions to those terms that people could be using to find more information about our project. In other words, I’ve kind of been shying away from branding our animated series of stories from The Friend magazine as being “LDS Kids Videos,” but at the end of the day, we realized that we were not giving people the information that they needed to find these videos online. Keep Reading »
December 20th, 2011 -
From time to time I get thinking about what makes for appropriate content in a kids’ movie or film. What defines a “kids’ movie” or what makes for “family-friendly” entertainment. I find that the answer to that question to be very ambiguous, and entirely subjective to personal preference. What was “family-friendly” back when our parents were growing up is completely different than what passes as entertainment for our children now. Keep Reading »
December 14th, 2011 -
I’ve talked about and shopped around the idea of starting a film festival for some time. More recently, in discussions with friends and my wife/secretary, we had been talking about film making workshops for youth. We really like this idea and hope to see it gain even more momentum in months to come. However, there still remains before me one over arching immediate objective: the goal to produce a series of short stories from the Friend magazine. Keep Reading »
November 18th, 2011 -
I can’t even recall what has caused me to take up production again on this first animated project that initiated the Friend magazine animated series. Keep Reading »
October 26th, 2011 -
The time is at hand for me to start work on yet another exciting chapter in the evolving purpose for the Sun Swing Media Company. I suppose for a company of one (two if I count my wife) official announcements aren’t much of a big to-do, so there’s not really any fear of letting the cat out of the bag prematurely, so to speak.
Yet, before I jump to the “big” news, here is the reason for it. It has been brought to my attention, on several occasions, how the true stories of Mormonism are actually the continuation of the work of Christ in our day. What is most interesting about the bulk of Christian and even a fair amount of LDS media is that, and especial for children, we are only telling the stories of Christ anciently, those that are taken from the Scriptures. Now that’s all fine and good, but there is a reality of which as LDS media producers that we must come to appreciate.
Starting with Joseph Smith, who did the best with what established Christianity had given him, and then had God the Father and His Son appear to him, the opening of a new canon of living scripture began to be written more abundantly. In reality, only the doctrines and the covenants associated with that “scripture” have been recorded and officially canonized. The stories have not been committed to scripture in our day, except for the very beginning of Joseph Smith’s work as a prophet. But the stories of the rise and spread of the work of Christ in our day are here and they are here in abundance.
It is not my purpose here to elaborate in greater detail at this moment in time about the stories, these true stories of Christ’s modern ministry. Yet, it is the recognition that there are so very few of such stories being told, that has promoted me to organize a film festival dedicated exclusively to the story telling of the work of Christ in our day, with all its attended suffering, hardship, dedication, work, and rejoicing.
Without having worked out details of any venue or other logistics, of which I know there is much to do, I am beginning work on the development of an online and local film/media festival in Phoenix metropolitan area. To stay abreast of the latest details, like “Sun Swing” on Facebook or sign up for our email newsletter. Our Facebook page is setup to receive our latest blog updates. You can also subscribe to the RSS feed for the site directly located at the top or bottom of any page on the site.
Why? Because the sun is rising.
October 20th, 2011 -
My feelings have been drawn out as of late in some deep, personal introspection, ironically on what I presumed to be a completely unrelated topic. At this particular moment, these feelings are quite tender. Perhaps this is a result of the reflections upon light and truth that had come into my life as a youth, and how there is a longing to return to that more so than I find myself at present. Keep Reading »
October 10th, 2011 -
So if you’ve come to this page, you’re probably like me: looking for some where to watch 17 Miracles as a download or online, maybe you even want to do it for free. (Well, perhaps I should chide you ever so mildly for wanting to watch it for free, especially when we’re otherwise very willing to plop down $10 for less-than-worthy entertainment elsewhere. But that’s not my point in posting this article.) This is something of an experiment to see how much web traffic I can drive to a single post about the movie 17 Miracles being available for download online. Which as far as I am aware, it is not available legitimately online anywhere for download. Keep Reading »
September 28th, 2011 -
Please forgive me. This post is mostly a personal note to myself as I work to keep myself afloat and facing the right direction, towards Zion. I’ve experienced a great deal of stress as of late related to my personal finances. To be sure, this is not a lucrative venture. In fact, I’m skipping along the bottom of the barrel. These are tight times. But in all honesty, I’ve never had an abundance of income, and it would probably surprise most people that with the burden of feeding a family of five children, we get along quite well living below the national poverty level.
So what does this have to do with producing movies in Zion? Keep Reading »