Here is the news that went out today. Now that the film is completed at last, I look forward to regular blogging again Thanks to everyone for your patience.
Yes, the DVDs are here at last! The documentary on St. Elizabeth is done!
The first shipment went out on December 17. I am gradually filling orders over vacation. Many of you who ordered or donated will be receiving your copies very soon, if you haven’t received them already.
A few other notes. I wasn’t able to finish all the subtitles, but this version, for the North American release, has subtitles in English, Spanish and Italian. The wonderful woman, a Secular Franciscan, who is doing the French subtitles was unexpectedly hospitalized, and could not finish them
in time. (She has many troubles and could use your prayers). We are still working on the French, German and Hungarian subtitles, and they will go on the next release, hopefully right after Christmas. No closed-captioning as yet; I am also working on that.
Due to the time-consuming nature of putting subtitles into the whole film, I didn’t have time to finish the study guide in time to put it on the DVD in PDF form as planned, though I expect to do so in later issues. In the meantime, I will start putting up the parts that are finished on the
film’s website
www.stelizabethdocumentary.com
Look for them by the beginning of the new year. This could actually be the start of a fascinating project. I would like to invite anyone who uses the DVD for Franciscan formation to send in any study materials they have developed and I will post these on the website as well, so they can be
useful to others.
Also, there are a still a few orders, mostly foreign ones that, due to the terribly clumsy nature of the Paypal interface, have reached me without any shipping charges added. For foreign mail, this is a considerable amount ($13.95). I will need to contact each of these people individually
to solve this problem. So if you haven’t received your DVD yet, this may be the reason.
Thanks again to everyone who made this possible. A very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you!
Sorry for my rather long silence. I didn’t finish the DVD by September 1 as I had hoped, because the score was still delayed; I’m happy to say that I’m very close to the end at last; I finally received the rest of the score toward the end of September and it adds tremendously to the effect. My brother was finally unable to do it, so it was composed by a fine musician friend of his named Andy Najera. I only need to finish a few final details, such as the insertion of the subtitles before I can reproduce the DVD. Many people have asked about the subtitles. They will be in English, French, Italian, Spanish, German and Hungarian.
My leg is still giving me trouble, so my hours at the editing station have been rather limited, but I plan to have the film ready to ship by St. Elizabeth’s feast day on November 17 – and in time for Christmas presents, of course!
In the meantime, you can enjoy some pieces from the score in the final revision of the theatrical trailer that I’ve just put online. (The first one is by Peter Vamos, the others by Andy Najera). You can also hear the character voices for Elizabeth and her husband.
In the meantime you can continue to pre-order the film at
I’m happy to announce that I’m now in the final stretch of the St. Elizabeth documentary I have been working on for almost five years. At long last I have the score in hand and will be able to quickly finish the sound editing and get the DVD master ready to produce. I can’t wait! I know many other people have been waiting a long time as well. Thanks to all of you for your prayers, donations and help. I plan to be able to distribute it by Elizabeth’s feast day on November 17, if not before.
I thought he it would be very fitting to put here these beautiful words on St. Elizabeth from the Holy Father’s sermon in the Domplatz in Erfuhrt, in Thuringia, on September 24:
God’s presence is always seen especially clearly in the saints. Their witness to the faith can also give us the courage to begin afresh today. Above all, we may think of the patron saints of the Diocese of Erfurt: Saint Elizabeth of Thuringia, Saint Boniface and Saint Kilian. Elizabeth came from a foreign land, from Hungary, to the Wartburg here in Thuringia. She led an intense life of prayer, linked to the spirit of penance and evangelical poverty. She regularly went down from her castle into the town of Eisenach, in order to care personally for the poor and the sick. Her life on this earth was only short – she was just twenty-four years old when she died – but the fruits of her holiness have endured across the centuries. Saint Elizabeth is greatly esteemed also by Protestant Christians. She can help us all to discover the fullness of the faith, its beauty, its depth and its transforming and purifying power and to translate it into our everyday lives.
Here is the latest newsletter that went out a few days ago. Only there are a couple of changes /additions: One is that my brother tells me his part of the score is done except for the mixing! The other is that the premiere in Arizona will have to be put off until Jan/February since the Franciscan Renewal Center won’t have room for us in their schedule until then. Still working on the New York premiere.
Hi everyone,
A brief notice this time to say that I have finally opened up the Tau Cross Books website for pre-orders of the DVD! The cost is $18.50 U.S. plus shipping. I expect to be able to ship the DVD around the beginning of September. (It was precisely in September four years ago that I started
shipping copies of my book on St. Elizabeth). Also, you can check out the cool cover art! I have made other improvements to the site, including a description of the film in different languages.
www.taucrossbooks.com
I have added methods to pay using British pounds and Euros on the site, and will monitor them to see how they work. If it goes okay, I can add more currencies. However, I believe that in most cases if you pay with a credit or debit card through Paypal choosing U.S. currency as your option
they can convert to U.S. dollars as you pay, with a small fee charged to you, while the fee is charged to me if you pay in foreign currency and it’s converted on my end. However, I’m not sure about that, so if anyone really knows exactly how this works, please let me know. (Paypal is not very forthcoming about this kind of detail).
As for ordering large quantities (more than 5-6) for a fraternity or region, please contact me by e-mail or phone at (646) 938-0432 with details about your order, so I can get you the best shipping deal. For foreign distribution, remember there are customs costs involved if the contents are worth over a certain amount.
I have also started the Amazon page for the DVD, and I think they are taking pre-orders, but I prefer people to pre-order from my site – I get more of the total paid, and too many orders might trigger an order for DVDS from them before I am ready.
I still need funds to cover expenses on the film and to have people pre-ordering will be a great help.
I am also happy to announce that we are working on a “gala” premiere of the film in . . . Scottsdale Arizona, at the Franciscan Renewal Center. This is close to where the composer, Peter Vamos, lives, and he plans to come and play some of his score on the piano. He will also be selling his compositions for the film on CD. I will be speaking as well. No news yet on whether there will be a red carpet! The showing will probably take place in November, around St. Elizabeth’s feast day. I am still looking for a place for the New York premiere. A premiere in LA would be nice too! If anyone knows of suitable venues for these, please contact me.
I am still trying to finish the final editing details, but am having a difficult time since the screen on the laptop I use for video editing got cracked and spins all sorts of crazy colors (and nothing else) when I try to use it. I can use my external monitor, no big problem, but trouble with my legs means I can only work at a desk for short periods of time. I hope this does not slow things down too much. I can certainly use your prayers.
Keep watching the documentary website for further details.
www.stelizabethdocumentary.com
If you don’t want to keep receiving these updates, please send me an e-mail and say so. If you know anyone who would like to know more about the film or receive updates, forward this e-mail to them. They can e-mail me and be put on the list.
Here is the latest news about my documentary on St. Elizabeth, which went out by e-mail a few days ago.
May 31, 2011
Dear Friends of St. Elizabeth,
Just a quick word, because I am anxious to give you the latest news on the progress of the documentary. I know you must be anxious to hear it.
I am still waiting for part of the score and subtitles to be done but the film is otherwise ready. This gives me a little time to work on other aspects, including DVD extras, the web site and publicity.
There will be at least one “extra” on the DVD in addition to the trailers. That is the meditation on St. Elizabeth and the Beatitudes by Anne Mulqueen, which you can see on the long trailer. I thought it was
wonderful, but it is quite long and holds up the film, even when abbreviated. So I have made it into an extra, so I can have the whole thing with some new, wonderful music and expanded images. It should give viewers many ideas for imitating St. Elizabeth.
Because of the great expense required for reproduction, I have decided that the promised study guide, instead of being a printed booklet, will be in a pdf file format to save printing costs. I believe this will actually make it easier for fraternities and formation directors to use, since printouts of any size and number can be easily made from it. I expect to be able to include the file on the DVD; but I will also put it up for download on the film’s web site. In fact, this will allow room for expanding the study materials as necessary. If anyone out there comes up with some good supplementary formation material on their own, I will be glad to put it up as well.
I will also be expanding the documentary’s website to include more extras that wouldn’t fit on the DVD; I hope to put up some greatly expanded footage of the two beautiful Masses for the centenary of 2007 in Assisi and 2008 in Esztergom. We shot a large part of each Mass, but could use only a tiny but of them in the film. I also hope to put up expanded versions of some of the interviews we did; unfortunately time prevented us from using all of those as well. There is also some behind-the-scenes footage I can put up.
The item I most need to do right now is the listing of the DVD for purchase on the Tau Cross Books website and Amazon. I hope to be able to do that shortly, along with announcing the publication date and list price.
I am happy to say that Peter Vamos, our Hungarian composer, has a new director of marketing, Dan Bickel, who is going to be working at promoting A Woman for Our Time, and of course, Peter’s music. He may have some ideas for helping to arrange showings of the film.
You can find out more here:
www.stelizabethdocumentary.com
As always, be sure and spread the word! Forward this e-mail to your friends, and if they are interested, they can contact me to be put on the mailing list.
Pausing to look at all the sights on our way to Jerusalem. . . Mainly about faith, the Church, film, writing, famous Christian authors, and anything else I'm interested in at the moment.
The photo above was taken at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome in March 2007.
Quote of the Month
"The conviction that there is a Creator God is what gave rise to the idea of human rights, the idea of the equality of all people before the law, the recognition of the inviolability of human dignity in every single person and the awareness of people’s responsibility for their actions. Our cultural memory is shaped by these rational insights. To ignore it or dismiss it as a thing of the past would be to dismember our culture totally and to rob it of its completeness. The culture of Europe arose from the encounter between Jerusalem, Athens and Rome – from the encounter between Israel’s monotheism, the philosophical reason of the Greeks and Roman law. This three-way encounter has shaped the inner identity of Europe. In the awareness of man’s responsibility before God and in the acknowledgment of the inviolable dignity of every single human person, it has established criteria of law: it is these criteria that we are called to defend at this moment in our history."
Pope Benedict XVI to the German Parliament, Sept 22, 2011.
