We’ve also added a very-talented music supervisor to our crew, Devon Leger, who has done a fantastic job in streamlining the flavor of the music and finding really cool, under-the-radar songs for us. Devon lives in Seattle, runs a record label, manages bands and organizes several music festivals. We like to think of him as a younger version of T Bone Burnette (the producer who produced the music for “O Brother, Where Art Thou”, among others). We scored big-time in finding him (thanks John Smith!).

That brings us to our last note: While we’ve done pretty well trying to do everything on this film as much as we can ourselves to keep costs down, one thing we still need outside financial help with is affording the rights to the music Devon has found for us. He has done an amazing job finding songs that are relatively inexpensive to license, but the price tag is still too hefty for us to handle on our own. So if you have the means, or know someone who does, we could use your help for this one final push to complete the film. 

We have a number of ways you can help, either via a tax-deductible donation, as an investor, or as a sponsor. Please contact us if you’d like to help. 

In other news, we’ve officially begun entering film festivals with “Soldiers of Paint”. We recently sent off copy of the film for consideration for a festival taking place in March (see photo below). We have two more festivals we’ll be submitting to in the next couple months.

Thanks for sticking with us and check back here in a couple months for news on film festivals. We could be in one near you in the first half of next year! 

-Doug and Mike

“thought it was spectacular. It’s really an awesome film. I thought I looked really great in it since only about 3 seconds showed me and the rest of my screen time was literally the camera staring at a radio! But it does give people a good insight into what goes on behind the scenes and all the work that goes into all of this. All of my guys that watched it left the screening pumped up and ready to go on Saturday.”

“I’ve seen documentaries before. I took my chair to China Beach Wednesday evening expecting to catch a little nap, I got no nap! Excellent film, I thought it did a masterful job of portraying the D-Day event. I will buy a copy when they are available.”

“I will certainly buy a copy when available so I can show my friends and family what really goes down at this event and get some more people out here, amazing job.”

“Great job. I believe you showed what D Day is like. Two thumbs up.”

When: Wed. & Friday nights at 8:30pm (June 8&10, 2011)
Location: Big screen next to the volleyball court.
Bring your chairs.

Meanwhile, we just got back from Missouri where we screened a sneak preview of the film at Bill Bailey’s battlefield. Check out the video of the screening and fan reactions.

On Sunday, we’ll make our way down to Dewayne’s field, or D-Day Adventure Park, in Oklahoma, to pay a visit to him and get a few more shots for the film. We’ll also be discussing plans to have a test screening at this year’s Oklahoma D-Day in June, probably Friday night before the game. Stay tuned for more details on that soon …

- Doug and Mike

Our apologies for being MIA for the past few months. We’ve been so focused on completing the movie we just haven’t had a chance to send out an update.

So what is the update?

Well, despite the tough economic times of late, we’ve never stopped working on Soldiers of Paint and we are happy to announce to you that we are very close to completing our “rough cut” of the film. Completing this unpolished “rough draft” is a HUGE step in the process of us getting this thing finally finished and in front of you.

We spent last summer writing a script with the help of a veteran story producer we brought in to help us tell the highly complex and rich story of Oklahoma DDay.

While we were busy doing that we were very fortunate to come into contact with a talented editor in Los Angeles named Kendra Pasker who was willing to work for the meager funds we could scrouge between us. Kendra edits shows for National Geographic, Discovery Channel and other assorted independent film projects. We sent her the script in October and she got to work right away. After seeing the first few scenes she had cut we knew we had found the perfect editor for the project.

She continues to amaze us with her work as we put the finishing touches on the rough cut. Once that is done, we will be putting the film in front of  some people in the film business world who have the ability to help finance the completion of the film. While having a rough cut is exciting, we still have some obstacles to overcome before the film can be completed. The film will need professional audio mixing, color correction, & graphics. Additionally, we will need to license the rights to all the music in the film, a long and expensive process that can often be accomplished smoothly and quickly with the help of a music supervisor experienced in wheeling and dealing with record labels.

So right now we’re working hard to make the rough cut as spectacular as we can so we can knock the socks off of some these film business folks and other possible independent investors and persuade them to support the film and help us overcome the last remaining hurdles. If all goes well, we’ll have a completed film to show at Oklahoma DDay in June.

It’s certainly been a long road and making this film has taken much more time than either of us ever expected. So we really appreciate your continued interest and patience. One thing is for sure, based on what we have so far, we’re confident that once the film is completed you won’t be disappointed with what you’ll see!

Cheers!
Doug & Mike

Rest assured, we are still working hard on it. You may wonder, “What the heck is takin is so long?”

Long story short is when we first started making this film we were optimistic in getting funding to do it. Despite our best efforts and a variety of reasons, that didn’t happen. So basically we got as far as we could with our own resources, which left us short of being able to hire an editor to finish the film. We thought (and tried) to do it ourselves, but it is just never a good idea for the producers to edit their material. We found out the hard way that editors exist for a reason!

Realizing that, we set out again to find financiers or a partner who had the resources to help us. Well, the heavens were smiling down on us this last fall because we landed both. We found an investor who provided us with an immediate injection of funds that allowed us to eliminate some debt that was on the verge of coming to term. The second, a partner, was exactly what we were in need of. We met two owners of a worldwide film company that love our film and have the resources to find the necessary funds to help us get it edited and out to the world to see. After a couple months of negiations we signed a contract with them two weeks ago. These two gentlemen are now the executive producers of the film and our partners. We hope to make a formal announcement soon, but for now we just wanted to get the word out to you all about what we have been up to and the good news. We really, REALLY appreciate your patience while we work to get “Soldiers of Paint” done.

If you have any questions or comments please feel free to email us.

info@soldierofpaint.com

Or visit our website:
www.soldiersofpaint.com

Talk to you all again soon …

-Doug and Mike
Producers, “Soldiers of Paint”

Doug and Mike back at Oklahoma D-Day.

Oklahoma D-Day 2009:

Yep, Doug and I were back at it again this June. Once again we piled my trusty Ford Escape up with camping gear and film equipment to drive the approx. 1,200 miles from Washington, DC to Wyandotte, OK. We were headed back out to our new home away from home – “The Hill” (AKA: The D-Day Adventure Park). Our mission was a bit different this year – we weren’t going to have a big crew with cameras all over the place, this time it was just Doug and myself and we had some specific things we needed to shoot to officially complete the filming for “Soldiers of Paint.” And, after spending so much time in the confined space of our dark and stuffy edit suite, we were excited to be back on the open road – to visit with our friends – and to make some new ones….

Things change & that’s a fact. We knew that the community was undergoing some changes since 2008 & we didn’t know what to expect to see when we arrived at D-Day this year. Well, it is good to know that some things never change – as has been the case over the past two years that we’ve been working on this film, we were immediately greeted with open arms. Every year we are blown away at how open and welcoming this community is to a couple of dudes from DC. From the main man Dewayne himself all the way to the first year player at D-Day, we feel the support & encouragement that has motivated us since day 1 to push forward with telling this story.

Besides filming a few additional things this year, we also decided to show off some clips of the film to the D-Day crowd. Thanks to Chuck & Aaron at JT Sports and Brent @ AirUps, we were able to show sample clips up on the big screen at JT’s outdoor movie nights. Each screening was a rousing success and we are thrilled to know that our film’s subjects were enjoying what they saw. Each night at the screenings we expressed our gratitude and also asked for patience and continued support:

Making a feature length documentary of this scale as independent filmmakers is an extremely costly and time consuming task. We are not independently wealthy, nor do we have the backing of big name studios. Doug and I have to work to make our livings as well as work on completing the film. The good news is that we are making great progress on the edit and we know that we have something special. We are still striving to have the film finished before the end of the year. However, in order to make it as good as it can be and have it reach the larger audience, we still need your help.

From joining our mailing list, to sending your friends to our Youtube link, you can help spread the word for free. If you are feeling somewhat more generous, for just 10 bucks you can get YOUR NAME in the credits of the film. Want to give more than $10? We even have a way to donate to our cause that is 100% tax deductible & you get cool stuff. Finally, if your wealthy uncle is still looking for a great project to invest in, then we’ve got a plan for that too (email us directly: info@soldiersofpaint.com)

So thanks again for your time and support and keep your eyes open for the latest news about the film. Until then, here’s some photos of our latest D-Day adventure.

Cheers,
Doug and Mike

The good news is you don’t have to wait until the end of the year to see clips from the film. JT Sports is having 3 movie nights during the DDay week and have given us some time before each screening for us to show our current trailer PLUS some footage from our work-in-progress film and the 2008 game for you all to see. This will be an exclusive event and the first time we will have shown any of our footage anywhere to anyone. Come check it out on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday evening!

If this is your first time hearing about our film, please check out our original trailer (with footage from the 2007 game) and our website.

http://www.soldiersofpaint.com

See you all on the hill soon!

Doug Gritzmacher & Mike DeChant
Producers
“Soldiers of Paint”

It may not exactly be chestnuts roasting on an open fire, but the warm hum of our brand new G-Tech RAID hard drive is keeping us toasty as we log through the 140 hours of footage we have from Oklahoma D-Day.

Wha-?! One_hundred_and_forty_hours, you ask?

Yes, making feature documentaries requires shooting A LOT of footage to capture those golden moments that will make you want to laugh or cry (or both). Over the past few months we’ve been busy feeding that footage into our computer and watching every single minute of it and, boy, have we got some great stuff! Our task now is to distill all that footage down to an action-packed 90-minute film, which we plan to start doing early in the new year. We know many of you can’t wait to see this film (heck, we can’t either!), but as you can see making documentaries is a very time-intensive process. While we’d love to have DVDs available for you this holiday season, we are on schedule to have DVDs available for you to view with your egg nog next year.

Footage isn’t the only resource-hog of making documentaries. The other, of course, is money. As we move forward with making this film, we still need all financial help we can get, even if all you got is 10 bucks. In fact, for a donation as small as $10, we’ll put your name in the end credits of “Soldiers of Paint”. Click here to get your name in the credits NOW.

For those of you with slightly deeper pockets, or are just feeling the Christmas spirit, you can now make tax-deductible donations to our film. You’ll get your name in the end credits and depending on how much you donate, we’ll throw in a movie poster, a DVD, tickets to film festivals our film appears in—or all three. Click here to help us and lighten your tax burden.

Donations aren’t the only way to help us financially. We have a business plan for interested investors that makes a strong case for a potential for success that is as good as, if not better than, many other non-film investments. You don’t need us to tell you that the stock market stinks right now. So instead of letting your money sit on the sidelines, why not invest in our film? Email us for our business plan and levels of return on investment.

If you’ve blown your stash on holiday gifts, or just never had a stash to begin with, you can still help us in a big way. Click here to find out ways you can become a fan of the film and help us spread the word.

Thanks for checking with back us and thanks for your patience while we continue making this film. Don’t forget to sign up to our mailing list so we can keep you updated on the making of “Soldiers of Paint.”

Happy holidays!

Doug and Mike