DiscussMormonism Triumphs Again as "Witnesses" Garners Top Prize

[IHAQ]

Interestingly...

The 2021 Audience Choice Award winners, voted on by audiences that attended the festival, went to The Santa Box, (Feature Film) directed by Spanky Ward, Remembering Heaven, (Feature Documentary) directed by Tom Laughlin and Sarah Hinze, The Stranger, (Short Film) directed by Kurt Hale, The Most Beautiful Trail in America (Short Film Documentary) directed by Dave Baumann and Davis Yates, and Wonder (Music Video) by Ryan Stream.

https://latterdaysaintmag.com/20th-annu ... ing-films/

[Lem]

Interestingly...

The 2021 Audience Choice Award winners, voted on by audiences that attended the festival, went to The Santa Box, (Feature Film) directed by Spanky Ward, Remembering Heaven, (Feature Documentary) directed by Tom Laughlin and Sarah Hinze, The Stranger, (Short Film) directed by Kurt Hale, The Most Beautiful Trail in America (Short Film Documentary) directed by Dave Baumann and Davis Yates, and Wonder (Music Video) by Ryan Stream.

https://latterdaysaintmag.com/20th-annu ... ing-films/

Compare the above paragraph with the one preceding it. Also interesting. the audience choice awards matched the first place awards in every category but one.

The festival’s first-place Feature Film award went to WITNESSES, directed by Mark Goodman and distributed by Purdie Distribution (releasing June 4th). First place in the Feature Documentary category went to Remembering Heaven directed by Tom Laughlin and Sarah Hinze. The Short Film category this year had several excellent films, first-place award went to The Stranger directed by Kurt Hale. The Best Short Film Documentary went to The Most Beautiful Trail in America, directed by Dave Baumann and Davis Yates. Closing out the judging categories is Best Music Video and first-place winner was Wonder by Ryan Stream.

The 2021 Audience Choice Award winners, voted on by audiences that attended the festival, went to The Santa Box, (Feature Film) directed by Spanky Ward, Remembering Heaven, (Feature Documentary) directed by Tom Laughlin and Sarah Hinze, The Stranger, (Short Film) directed by Kurt Hale, The Most Beautiful Trail in America (Short Film Documentary) directed by Dave Baumann and Davis Yates, and Wonder (Music Video) by Ryan Stream.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Something is rotten in Provo. How were these films voted on? Who received the votes? Who saw the pre-announcement results? This voting thing is starting to feel a lot like the 2nd Watson Letter affair.

- Doc

[Doctor Scratch]

Interestingly...

The 2021 Audience Choice Award winners, voted on by audiences that attended the festival, went to The Santa Box, (Feature Film) directed by Spanky Ward, Remembering Heaven, (Feature Documentary) directed by Tom Laughlin and Sarah Hinze, The Stranger, (Short Film) directed by Kurt Hale, The Most Beautiful Trail in America (Short Film Documentary) directed by Dave Baumann and Davis Yates, and Wonder (Music Video) by Ryan Stream.

https://latterdaysaintmag.com/20th-annu ... ing-films/

Thanks for posting this, IHAQ. It certainly raises some questions about how the winner in the Feature Film category was chosen. It also doesn't bode well for the future success of Witnesses. I'm reminded that Dr. Peterson was frantically trying to drum up something like $200,000 not all that long ago. How was that money spent, I wonder?

[Dr Exiled]

Possible headlines: Witnesses' award: an inside job? Witnesses: audiences look elsewhere? Witnesses: do we have to see it, grandma?

The trailer looks professionally done. Yet, perhaps people aren't that excited about another film portraying foundational religious history?

[Moksha]

Something is rotten in Provo. How were these films voted on? Who received the votes? Who saw the pre-announcement results? This voting thing is starting to feel a lot like the 2nd Watson Letter affair.

- Doc

Are you suggesting that the final donation drive was for a payoff to the accounting firm of Dewey, Cheetham, and McConkie that handled voting tabulations?

[Doctor Scratch]

Boy, just look at this ridiculous nonsense:

One or two of you may have missed my explanation of the fact that, when a new film is unveiled, its performance on its opening weekend is vitally important. I have no great hopes for a vast turnout of Latter-day Saints on Sunday, 6 June 2021; in fact, for reasons that should be manifest, I hope for quite the contrary. But that, of course, means that Friday, 4 June 2021, and Saturday, 5 June 2021, loom even larger for the “market success “or “market failure” of Witnesses.

What do I mean by “market success” and “market failure”?

Once again, I point out that, however well or however poorly the film does, I will derive no money from it. (Nor, in a vain attempt to cover all the bases with my obsessive critics, will my wife, my children, my grandchildren, my in-laws, my nieces and nephews, my cousins, my neighbors, my pets, or any other of my heirs or assigns, nor any dummy corporation in the Cayman Islands.) There is nothing in any contract related to any aspect of the overall Witnesses effort that grants me any personal financial interest in the film whatsoever. Whether you buy tickets or not, whether you buy tickets for your ten thousand closet friends to watch it a hundred times each, I won’t earn a single cent. (I hope that’s clear enough.)

It's almost clear enough. By any chance will any of the money get funneled back into the Interpreter Foundation, which DCP founded and of which he is currently the President?

What I mean by “market success” or “market failure” for Witnesses relates to the size of its audience. That’s how we will measure our success. We want people to watch the film. We want members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to see it, of course. But we would be delighted if people outside of the Latter-day Saint community see it, too. We want to get its story out there.

And if it performs well on its opening weekend, that greatly increases the likelihood that it will appear on a higher number of screens and that it will be scheduled for longer runs on those screens.

LOL! Talk about sophistry! Uh, do not "audience" and "money" go hand in hand? Does "market success" mean something different for Mopologists than it does for the rest of the world, including every film industry on the planet? But okay, let's take this at face-value. It's merely about how many people see it--okay, sure. Then post the whole film on YouTube. It's free! You have an audience that equals potentially the entire world. So, go for it. Let's see how many people want to watch the movie that failed to get even third prize in the "Audience Choice" award contest. Proving that the movie isn't about money would be the easiest thing to do.

[IHAQ]

I think the more interesting question might be to ask if DCP has provided funding for the film himself, personally, out of his own pocket. Or is this solely other donors cash he's playing movie mogul with?

[Moksha]

I wish Dr. Peterson a resounding success with his movie.

[Doctor Scratch]

Dr. Peterson is striking a hopeful tone in his most recent "SeN" post, entitled "What will we do with all the money?" Let me just state for the record that I don't think it's going to make much money. And I am going to laugh when that happens, just like I laughed when the film was shut out of the Audience Choice Award at the LDS Film Festival. And it was the premiere, opening-night film! With a sold-out crowd in the largest theater in Utah! Well, just as the teenagers in Canoga Park used to determine "final cut," so the audience at the LDSFF will seal the fate of Witnesses. Or so we shall see.

But don't you know? Money actually doesn't have anything to do with this:

I’ve said that, for us, it’s not really about the money but, really, about the size of the audience that the film can reach. We want it to have an impact. So we want to get it out there on as many screens as we can for as long as we can, and then we’ll turn our attention to DVDs and streaming. (We’re actually already in discussions, and we’ll soon be in negotiations, in that regard.)

However, money is definitely involved. I doubt that making a feature-length film with absolutely no money is even possible, but we certainly didn’t try to do so with Witnesses. Although I’ve earned nothing from the production of the film, and won’t earn anything, some people have. Filmmaking is their profession.

Do we have financial goals for Witnesses? We’ve never really spoken about the matter. It’s genuinely that far down the list of priorities for us.

I see that he's lowering the stakes here. Now it's about the movie having an "impact." On who? TBMs who already believe in the witnesses? If so, isn't that pandering? Collecting money from people by giving them a warmly supportive and reinforcing depiction of something they already care a lot about? (And come to think of it, many of the films at the LDSFF can be described as doing pretty much the same thing: at least, that's true of the ones that were blatantly LDS.) If that's the goal, then that's an awfully low bar. But all his promotional materials seem to indicate that they're not aiming any further than that.

In any case, it turns out that money hasn't actually slipped his mind after all:

But, yes, it would be nice if Witnesses could earn back a significant portion of the money that has been spent on its production. It would be very nice if it could recoup all of its costs. And we would be absolutely delighted if it could earn a little profit. What are its odds of doing these things? I have no idea.

How much thought went into this thing?

What will we do with any proceeds from the film?

They won’t go to the Interpreter Foundation. Funding for the overall Witnesses project has been raised separately from the funding for Interpreter, and the monies have been kept distinct.

I’ll let you in on a secret: Especially if this one does reasonably well and has an impact, we would like to do another film. We already have a specific subject in mind, though I won’t be disclosing that any time soon. We hope to put any and all funds generated by Witnesses toward that new film project, about which (candidly) I’m rather excited.

Of course, I intend to share my thoughts on Everybody Wang Chung's thread about what this future project might entail. Re: the goals and the money situation however, this is pure nonsense. "They won't go to the Interpreter Foundation"? Talk about sophistry! The project, from day one, has been an "Interpreter Project." It has been connected to Interpreter since its inception, and all the pleas for money were done in Interpreter's name, with the President serving as Chief Representative.

And as Lem has pointed out, a "separate" account was set up to manage this Interpreter film project. Or, hey: maybe I'm wrong, and this "side hustle" was formally severed from the Interpreter Foundation at some point, but I was under the impression that Witnesses was very much an "Interpreter" project.

In any case, I continue to wonder why it would be in any way a problem if Interpreter, the President, or whomever else made a lot of money off this venture. I mean: why not? They'd get accused of priestcraft, but hey: they did that to Rodney Meldrum, and nothing happened to him. So, how fair is it that Meldrum should get to do that stuff, plus get rich, and then get away with no punishment? Why should the Mopologists have to settle for measly cruises and the odd, Church-funded jaunt to the Antipodes?

Here's a question for all you students of Mopologetics out there: suppose Witnesses is wildly successful. Suppose it shatters records in Utah, goes on to have a viral campaign in the rest of the Zion Curtain, and then Wham! It suddenly gets an opening weekend nation-wide, right as the pandemic is lifting! Expectations get blown to smithereens and the movie makes $100 million at the domestic box office, and don't get me started on international distribution rights, streaming, and Blu Ray sales!

So, the money flows in, and what happens? At what point does Dr. Peterson get to take a slice of this? Could he get, like, half of a percent of that? $100,000? Or would he still insist on "donating" it all back into the film studio he "founded"?

I mean, this would never happen. As soon as the film moves beyond the borders of Utah, you would have to assume that the official Church would intervene and take over at that point. That might be the most awesome outcome possible in all of this: a complete re-hash of the destruction of FARMS, where the Brethren slowly take over by sucking the private entity into BYU.

Seen from that perspective, I can't help but hope that the film is a huge success.