It’s been a long time since we shared any news, and that’s because we’ve been busy putting together all the pieces of Episode One. But now we can announce that it’s all going very, very well.
Creating a film like this involves several stages, and each of them has to be completed to perfection… and a lot of the work is “trial and error.”
For example, we have countless hours of interviews and historical footage to draw on, so the first major challenge has been to figure out exactly how to tell our story. I submitted a script draft of Episode One and it all seemed fine on paper — but the production team cut together an extremely rough version of the visual elements following that script and … it just didn’t work. It didn’t have the kind of drama and tension we feel the story deserves.
So we all discussed it and from those conversations, creative consultant David Duncan and I restructured and rescripted. From this the team made another rough cut, and … well, it was closer, but still not “there.”
There’s a saying that “the third time’s a charm,” and it has proven true for us. The next script draft solved a number of problems that had revealed themselves to the keen professional eyes of Mike Edwards and Chris Martin.
(Believe me, friends: with Mike and Chris putting it all together, the story could not be in better hands.)
The real “stars” are, of course, the witnesses and experts we’ve interviewed. As you might imagine, the words and story of Matthew Rozell hold the whole thing together.
But we don’t have photos — much less video — of every person and event in the story, so we’re having to be creative about how to present them onscreen. This is where graphics geniuses Shawn Tegtmeier and Nate Tomcik save the day, and we think you’re going to love what their talents bring to the project.
While those visual elements are being created, so is the musical score — and for that we are beyond fortunate to have the remarkable Jim Papoulis on the team. I can’t say much more about what he’s doing right now, but believe me, when we have some audio samples we can share, you’ll get them here.
And we’re not quite ready to talk about who’s narrating the film yet. That’ll be an announcement of its own once we have that settled.
All of this brings us up to the present moment, where the executives at ITV (our distributor, the biggest of its kind in the entire world) have invited Mike to their Los Angeles offices to present a private screening of Episode One on March 3rd.
They’re accustomed to seeing “works in progress,” but given that timeframe it’s likely that what Mike will show them will be a complete, slick, polished episode.
When — not if, when — they love it, the work will kick into high gear on
(a) our creating the other three episodes, and
(b) ITV offering the series to potential buyers.
Our mission is all about teaching and education. This has been our main goal from Day One and this next step of working out the distribution is just another part of fulfilling that mission: to bring stories to the world that will educate and inspire!