CD Info

We're making the limited edition, extended CD soundtrack of "The Imposter" available. We only had a couple thousand made and when they're gone, they'll be gone. The CD contains 19 tracks (way to many). And we're offering it for $15 plus $2.50 for S&H.

The CD leads off with the new version of "Carry On Wayward Son" and contains all the original songs from the movie as well as the four songs by the group Downhere. My favorite is the original one that Jeff Deyo sings called "Chance to Choose."

One way we're using these is for churches and ministries to use them as a fundraiser. A Royal Ranger group sold CD's at their church before and after Wednesday night services (part of their Communication merit) and raised a couple hundred dollars to supplement their budget for the semester. Other groups have been selling them as well. Minimum ten CD's and you get the wholesale price. Contact me if interested.

To buy the CD, click here. If you have one, please post comments here and around the net if you enjoyed it.

The Imposter Street Date

Well, I had heard we were releasing February 23. Then there was a chance we'd delay the release to early summer, so I was a little hesitant to announce. But we are officially on track to hit the streets with the DVD's of "The Imposter."

For those new to this blog, "The Imposter" is a faith-based film, made for the Christian, church-going audience. I feel non-Believers will enjoy the movie as well, especially since this one flies in the face of the traditional "Christian" movie.

Johnny C (played by Kevin Max of dcTalk) is the lead singer for the hottest Christian rock band. But unfortunately, what he sings about at night before thousands, isn't what he lives when off the stage. He's been hiding a drug problem and not hiding so well a womanizing problem. And this doesn't set too well with his long suffering wife who finally gets the courage to practice some tough love and takes their daughter back to her parents.

James (played by Jeff Deyo), is the leader of the band and he can't turn a blind eye any longer either and has some tough choices to make. After losing everything, Johnny C has a gut check time-- does he determine to be a true Believer, no matter who is watching, or does he continue to play the game? Johnny is mentored by mysterious "Proff" played by the legendary Kerry Livgren of Kansas fame.

I wrote this story for the Church-- this is my fourth movie and the other three I wrote for the secular audience. I wanted to present a more realistic portrayal of faith in action-- something that everyone can relate to. And it is my hope that as you discover your true identity in God that you begin to take off the masks and masquerades of a delusional reality.

And my wife tells me not to get too preachy. That wasn't so bad was it?

On the Set of Imposter

I often get asked when working with famous people "what are they like?" So let me talk about some of the people on the set of "The Imposter," (soon to be released in early 2010).

Kevin Max-- I first met KMax at a hip LA restaurant, where you paid big bucks to have green things mixed into your beef burger. Kevin was interesting to talk to and extremely approachable. Later, when he got to the set, he got hammered with the flu while shooting, so I pretty much tried to leave him alone. Didn't spend much time with Kevin.

Kerry Livgren-- I was so excited about having Kerry agree to do this movie. And it wasn't as hard a task as I thought it might be. We had talked to several other "founding fathers of Christian Rock" but this one I was really excited about. To get in touch with Kerry began with a simple google search for Kerry's manager, which came up with Dutch Dehnert.

I sent off a hasty email of introduction and he responded pretty quick. Though he didn't think Kerry would end up doing it, he was intrigued and passed the project along. Long story short, Kerry liked the script, the message and the role he was to play is not too terribly far from who he is in real life.

I first met Kerry late one night right before we started shooting. He and his wife Vicci drove down from Kansas and got a little turned around in the metroplex. So Jeff Rodgers and I went out and found them, then we had dinner at Fuddruckers talking about all sorts of things. I will always remember this dinner-- a very special night. I asked him about covers of Carry On Wayward Son that he actually liked through the years, and he mentioned, of all tings, the Oakridge Boys. I still haven't heard that one. I need to check it out.

Kerry was a great rpesence ont he set. A quiet gentleman. I recall there were a few times, while shooting at Bethesda Church, the piano would come alive. I peeked inside the sanctuary, and it was Kerry. Very cool.

Then, I remember the first time through shooting his guitar playing for the COWS music video. My then 6 year old daughter, upon completion of take one, said in a loud voice... "Hey, you're pretty good!"

Jeff Deyo was a surprise. I had heard of Sonicflood but didn't know much else before Jeff Rodgers brought him to the table. Jeff turned out to be another great find. He is a man who definitely loves God and it shows. I know in our first face to face on the set, I overloaded on him, about the backstory of his character, the philosophy of the movie and about a billion other things. He must have thought me pretty intense and strange.

I also remember when on the set, I got a phone call that my wife and son had been in a traffic accident (that they were okay but going to the hospital in case), it was Jeff asking if he could pray that really touched me.

Tom Wright, who plays the crazy homeless guy is also great to have around on a set. Tom has been around for and his movie and tv show credit list is extremely long. I hired Tom to act in my first movie and out of my first four movies, he's in four. Tom challenges me to be a better director and I feel like I've improved with each movie. I knew when about to do his scenes, I'd better have done my homework, because Tom was going to ask great and tough questions.

So that's what it's like on the set with some of these people. If you've had some experience with one, tell us about it.

What gets shipped to the Churches?

When a church goes to our website and orders a license, we get an email confirming an order has been made with all the details. We send a 2 DVD box that contains a DVD with the movie, suitable for projecting in your church, and a second disc containing a bunch of Extras.

These Extras include Scenes from the movie to use as Discussion clips (with the soon to be completed Study Guide), behind-the-scenes, interviews with the actors, and music videos, including the "Carry On Wayward Son" redone by Kerry Livgren and sung by Kevin Max.

We also send out three to five full size movie posters, with an overprint area for listing the details of your church screening. This all gets shipped in a Fedex Tube via Fedex Ground. Your order usually gets filled in a couple of days, then 3 to 5 days to ship-- so we tell the person who ordered to expect it in ten days.

We have shipped faster for those doing a screening in a shorter time. I suggest that when you get your order, to watch the movie all the way through to make sure it works properly on your system.

I also give the churches a special support website that has downloadable posters, pictures, sample bulletin announcements, ticket templates, quicktime video of the trailer and other helpful items.

Another Common Question

Inevitably, when people find out I have worked with a celebrity, 9 times out of 10, the next question is "What was ______ really like to work with?" So I"m going to answer that question with the people on the set of "The Imposter."

Kevin Max -- Kevin really surprised me, and several others by his natural acting abilities. He quickly found a rhythm and was very believable. And he did this in spite of the fact that he was stricken with the flu for most of the shooting. This movie, more than any other I've shot, put so much onto the lead actor-- there were 136 scenes and Kevin's character was in almost all of them. Usually the lead actor will have some days off from shooting. But not so for Kevin. So he had to really dig deep to bring this character to life and I think he did an exceptional job.

Jeff Deyo -- When you work with Jeff, you realize what a presence he has. I can only guess that this comes from his passion for Jesus. But he is a calming, strong force on the set. We didn't have a lot of time to talk on the set, and he would come in for a day, shoot and then fly away for a bit to whatever concert he was performing. What I remember most is that while shooting in the RV for the scene where James takes the call from Johnny wanting money, I had just gotten a call-- my wife and son were in a traffic accident. I was told it probably wasn't serious, but suddenly I was a mess and didn't know what to do. Jeff took charge for a moment and prayed. And God showed up in a real way.

Later, I've gotten to spend more time with Jeff and I truly love him like a brother. I can't wait to work with him again.

Kerry Livgren -- I was probably the most nervous meeting Kerry for the first time. He decided to drive down with his wonderful wife Vicci from Kansas and called me when he was getting close, so we could meet at a restaurant to eat dinner. Kerry is every bit the actual character of Proff-- he really didn't have to act; he just had to play himself. I loved sitting down to dinner that night and asking all the questions I'm sure he's been asked a zillion times. And maybe a few he hadn't. Questions like how COWS came to be and Dust in the Wind. As well as other people in the industry he's met and worked with (pretty sad... he says "I knew so and so" and my first thing is "Really? What are they like?").
In this picture, left to right, Dan Millican, DP Ron Gonzalez, Sound Mike Gonzalez, Kerry Livgren, Line Producer Stewart Young.

Anyway, it was a real pleasure working with these guys. And I hope you get a chance to meet them some day.

Soundtrack Update

Thanks to all who have pre-ordered the Extended CD version of "The Imposter" movie soundtrack. In an effort to ensure the highest quality of each track, it has taken longer to get the master done, but we are nearing the finish line on that. Jeff Rodgers and I are very excited about the results.

All the art has already been sent to the duplicator, so once we have the master in hand, it will go pretty quickly. What you see here is the front cover of the CD (and below is the back booklet panel). And in previous blog posts, I've uploaded the CD Face and the back of the CD case.

My hope is that we will have the soundtracks in hand in a week to ten days and we will ship out all the pre-orders first. In the meantime, until we have the CD's in hand, we will continue to offer the $5 off for pre-ordering, so if you haven't ordered, now's the time at www.theimpostermovie.com.

For those who don't know, the CD will retail for $18.99 and has 19 tracks, which includes just about every song in the movie, including the new "Carry On Wayward Son" by writer Kerry Livgren and vocals by Kevin Max. It will also have Kevin Max singing a new song "Believe (is an Act)" and Jeff Deyo's new song "Chance to Choose." Both of these songs were written for the movie.

We also include the four songs by Kevin, including the title track "The Imposter" as well as all four songs by the awesome group "Downhere" that were used in the movie. Other songs include several by Kerry, Adele Morgan, and some great score tracks by our composer, Josh Goode.

For those that have pre-ordered, thank you for your patience, we're almost there!

CD Soundtrack Update

Well, we are getting very close. The tracks have all been sent to the mastering company. Then we'll go to the duplicator who has all the art and is ready to go.

Maybe we can have them in hand within a couple of weeks. These will be the extended version, with just about every song represented in the movie, along with the best of Josh's music cues from the score. Kerry Livgren remixed "Carry On Wayward Son" last week, so that will be a new version for everyone as well. I think he's like me-- as long as I can keep editing, I'll keep editing. They say a director never finishes a movie-- he just stops working on it. I'm sure Kerry is that way with his music.

We've got the new Jeff Deyo song "Chance to Choose" as well as Kevin Max singing "Believe (is an Act)" for our movie band Grand_design. And a bunch of other really good songs.

We will keep the $5 pre-order discount active until we have them in hand next week, so if you've been putting it off, now's the time to order at the website. All the pre-orders will go out first.

What to do when I'm Johnny C

Even as I wrote the movie "The IMposter", Johnny C was this other guy. He was a guy I heard of in the nineties. He was a guy who I read about a couple years ago. He was Mark Wahlberg's character in Rock Star... and of course I would admit, parts of me. Very small.

But what happens when I'm confronted with some very harsh truth-- that I am flat out Johnny C. I wake up and slapped with the realization that my ego, which I thought I had in control, has actually been raging out of control for years and years. And that the ego's best con job was the one it did on me. Told me I was the smartedt. Told me that where bad role models had failed, I could exceed because they didn't do their badness good enough. They got caught. I could be a better con than that.

So one fruit of this movie is to realize I have had a deep rooted mask hiding a rotting Imposter. What do I do Doc?

First realize that this is going to hurt. There's a deep cancer here that is going to take time. I have to commit to God that no matter how hard it gets, I'm going to follow through. I confess this evil... by confession I can start to free. However, just like Johnny C there are consequences.

For a time, as the failures of my ego, which cannot be easily fixed, and will be hanging around for awhile, are thrown back at me and all I can do is raise my arms as the baseball hits my gut time and time again. I don't sleep. Food is unappealing. I lose weight. I cry out to God. And cry out. I read His word. Especially Romans. And though trust is destroyed with my moved ones, I begin to take every little step down that road.

When I defend, it is the ego (flesh) inside me defending. There is nothing to defend. Evil is evil. What, is it important that the evil you're accusing me of isn't that bad? Of that hey, I've gotten so better! What, instead of killing ten people like I used to, now only five? Is that better? None of this is worth defending.

The opposite of defense, contrary to popular competitive sports, is not a good offense. The opposite of defend is to surrender. A lof time on my knees is spent surrendering.

And I change my expectations. Why should they respect me or trust me? How long have I been conning them? In the movie, Tara tells Johnny C to his question of what he has to do, she says "a long track record of keeping your word."

Always off to the side is a wide road that I can take at any moment that this gets too hard. But I won't take it. I won't. Whatever it takes, however painful I will walk where God has me to walk. I now know I cannot fix anything. He will be the fixer. I will be the obedient slave.

This is what to do if you find yourself a Johnny C. And you'll have another mask pulled down and a step closer to understanding your true identity (TRUTH).

Spinning Discs

Well, we are officially pushing forward on the soundtrack for "The Imposter." I hope to have the product in hand within six weeks at the latest, maybe earlier. Here's a peek at the songs we're thinking of including:
* Carry On Wayward Son (Kevin Max singing to Kerry Livgren's new arrangement)
* Four songs from Kevin's "The Imposter" (Imposter, Imposter's Song, Sanctuary, Your Beautiful Mind)
* Four downhere songs (my favorite band, songs include The More, A Better Way, Break My Heart, My Last Amen)
* Local star Meredith Mauldin's "Empty" which has been a surprise hit of the movie
* Our movie originals Believe (is an Act) sung by Kevin, and Chance to Choose sung by Jeff Deyo
* Two Kerry Livgren songs (On the Air, No More Time For Love)
* and a couple of choice score cues by Josh Goode.

We will probably put a real huge pre-sale discount up in the next few days. Hope you enjoy!

Title Issues

Sometimes I think I'm good with titles. Then I look at the track record. Movie #1: The Keyman. Not a great title, but works. I remember on the set, Adam Baldwin, Tom Wright and I brainstorming other title ideas. But nothing better. Then I renamed it later to just make it feel new to get it out to a new distributor, "Finding Redemption." To avoid confusion, I then made it "The Keyman: Finding Redemption."

Movie #2. PURE MOTIVE. Now there's a decent Friday Night Rental title. I came up with this one because my mentor, Dr. Mike Riggins, had talked about how there is very rarely one pure, solitary motive for doing anything. So I wrote the script Pure Motive and started working on casting. Had a meeting with a BIG TIME casting director (she's casted some of the biggest movies of all time), and she said for low budget indie, she didn't want to do a plot driven thriller. Hmmm... The script isn't really a plot driven thriller.
So I remember driving with Jill up to Colorado and we came up with "A Promise Kept." Much more character driven sounding for getting actors, then for the distributors who want a Friday Night Rental title, we can go back to Pure Motive. Problem was, later distributor #1 didn't pass PM title idea along to distributor #2, so for US video only, APK is "The Gunman" which is wrong on several levels. Oh well. So the movie company was setup as Pure Motive LP, the movie shot as "A Promise Kept" and it's on DVD as "The Gunman."

Movie #3
So I thought I would try wrapping a deep theme into the popular horror genre (for which I know nothing and don't like them, but they're selling). I researched and had a whole blood disease called "Porphyria" that is genetic string going. Called the script "Bloodlines." Then took most of the horror out and made it a low budget action movie more than anything else. Sony renamed it "Striking Range." That's better than Bloodlines anyway. So I had all the distributors go with that title.

Movie #4
I wanted to do a movie about a fallen Christian rock star. And I wanted to do a comedy about a church staff that would employ some of the same elements (flights of fantasy) that "Scrubs" uses. Then I thought I could combine them. I started writing the script and my working title was the Christian Scrubs idea. Then more and more of the comedy and Scrubs-like stuff got cut out. As I neared the end of the first draft, my title was "Son of Thunder." Which incidentally was the *worst* title idea ever Producer Jeff Rodgers quickly told me. But the characters name was Johnny. His bandmate was James. James and John. Sons of thund... oh nevermind.
So the whole movie was about the concept of the word "Believe." How about that as a title? So second and third draft was "Believe." And the movie company was setup during this time (Believe Movie LP). But I didn't like the title. To 60's-ish.
Then as we talked to Kevin about starring, I listened to more of his music and The Imposter was a great song and perfect for the movie. I talked to Kevin and he said he didn't mind. So now the script was "The Imposter."

And we've kept it there. Although I did have a pretty well known Christian filmmaker say that I should really consider changing the title because it gives too much away. Newsflash-- the VO at the BEGINNING, Johnny tells one and all, "*I* was the Imposter." So I think we're okay there.

Grammys is not short for "Grammar"

Another story from behind the scenes of Imposter... When I wrote the script, I wrote lyrics of what maybe the songs inside the movie would be. Then I handed those over to composer Josh Goode and he then wrote the lines I wish I had ("pretty little preacher all dressed up for the show.".

But I always had the line "Believe is an act." (Josh lengthened it to "Believe is an act of action). When Kevin came in to sing it, he did call me up, with some lyric questions/suggestions. Some I took, grateful for his Grammy-award winning experience. But one that I hoped he laughed at later was his comment that "believe is an act" is not grammatically correct and he was having trouble with that. And we all know how important grammar is to the music industry. ("Luv Is A Verb" has a typo by the way, Kev).

His grammatically correct point was that it should be "belief is an act". Yeah well, the whole point of the song rides on Romans 10:9 "Believe in your heart". Believe has an aggressive nature. It has action. It's happening. Belief is passive. It's already happened. Anyway, Kevin was quick to understand. And for his part, Kevin took a good song and made it great with his input. Thank you, Kevin.

Remember, if you say you "believe" Kevin is awesome but you never buy his music, I doubt the genuineness of your "believe." Believe takes action. I would have had "Baleeve is a Verb" but it was kinda taken.

Here's the full music video of the song "Believe (is an Act)".

Carry On Wayward Son

So how did Kerry Livgren become a part of the movie "The Imposter?" For those that don't know, Kerry was an integral part of the super-group Kansas. He wrote the classics Carry On Wayward Son and Dust in the Wind.

I've always been a fan of Christian rock and enjoyed the work of an all girl band called Rachel Rachel back in the early 90's. They did a cover of COWS and a music video to go with it.

A few months before shooting Imposter, I was cleaning out some VHS tapes and saw one where I had recorded a Christian music video show. I had saved it because of the COWS video. In it, the girls rock out and Kerry comes on stage during the solo. I had been racking my brain for who to play the role of the Mentor in the movie and wanted an older Christian rock icon. I thought Kerry would be perfect.

I did a search on the internet and came up with his manager Dutch Dehnert's email address. After firing off an message, the reply was pretty quick. Dutch would pass the info along, but don't get my hopes up.

Long story short, Kerry wasn't too keen at first, but agreed to read the script. And his wife Vicci read the script. And he decided to do it and the movie was so much better for his participation.

So with Kerry attached, I began to dream. Wouldn't it be great if Kerry re-did the song with Kevin Max singing? I didn't think I would be able to talk Kerry in to it, and at first he wasn't big on the idea (He said he'd like to remake some of his songs-- COWS is not one of them). But then I got a CD in the mail with a return address Kansas. That was the day before shooting started. I popped it into the truck's CD and cranked it up. It had no vocals yet, but it was awesome.

The day after the last day of shooting, Kevin laid down some demo vocal tracks. A few months later, we paid for some studio time and Kevin laid them down for real. I had shot some music video segments on the set and during the summer edited the music video.

*When* we release the soundtrack, I'm sure that will be one of the songs. I might release the COWS video soon as well.