pilgrim’s progress

Received 2008/7/21
Hi Daniel,
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sorry for the long delay in replying to your email…
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Sounds very interesting and very entrepreneurial of you to commission the development of the film to India!! It was very interesting to watch the first chapter of the book.
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I’ve posted the DVDs to you about a week ago. The should be with you shortly… it might take a while to get from the UK to Indonesia. I’ve just turned 25 and my background is Business & Marketing, but in all my free time I developed Media, Design and programming skills and am currently working on 3d animation.
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My main interest and passion is for Christian film but through praying and learning I’ve realised that there are three main areas that I have to build on to fulfill the dream of telling Christian Stories through film:
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1. Become as professional as possilble through hard work, studying and practice
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2. Create strong networks with other Christians with the same passions and interests.
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3. Earn money to support my family & develop my skills + passion and eventually fund this media ministry.
=> All three elements to fundamentally give glory to God and praise him.
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The animations on the website are developed by Scott Cawthon, I’m helping him to distribute them and am currently working on my first animated feature similar to his films. My background and a small (slightly dated)portfolio of myself is on http://www.davidhutter.com
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I think God can do anything through us despite our age, background and abilities. It might not be the way we imagine it, but if we align our lives with God’s will then anything is possible and we can live a fulfilled life. Believe me, skill is only one aspect of doing films. What I found much harder to deal with is disappointment, managing passion for film making and perseverance through often much slower learning curves than I wish for.
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There are three books that really helped me get all my emotions, faith and passion right that I really encourage anybody to read before embarking on such a long journey…
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1. Purpose driven life, Rick Warren: Worship for God through our life is most important in anything we do. Family is more important than any ministry. Priorities: 1. God 2. Wife and family 3. Ministry
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2. Me, myself and Bob, Phil Vischer: Lifestory of Phil Vischer, creater of Christian animations. Sold millions of videos but his business went eventually bust. Learning points: Die to yourself, let Christ reign in your life and don’t do things without clear pointers and directions from God. Also, big is no longer better: Smaller productions and companies have much better chance now and in the future than large corporations. We can do films with much, much smaller budgets than anybody in the past. Digital rocks!
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3. The slumber of Christianity, Ted Dekker: Everything we do in life is motivated by hope. How to deal with disappointments, how to create passion and drive by understanding how we work and by getting fully sold out for heaven!
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In regards to your question about remuneration for making these films: No, we never really made money from the animations. Scott tried selling them on Amazon and sold a few. They’re cut however is enourmous, approx. 70% of sales price. We give them away for free now and receive the odd donation. But it’s very hard to make money with small productions like these. There are few people (like yourself) who appreciate the detail and work that went into making them, most people automatically assume that it has been created by a company and are disappointed by the quality in comparison to Walt Disney, Pixar and Hollywood.
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Please keep me posted about your develoments. Good to hear from you,
God bless,