I have good news in this update: On Dec 13 we recorded the voice actors
for the film – the ones who spoke the words of St. Elizabeth, Ludwig, the
testifying handmaids, Master Conrad and other historical figures. On Feb
9, after a delay for Christmas vacation and to search for just the right
person, we recorded the final narration track with a wonderful voice
actress. Earlier this month, I also received a CD with the very beautiful
music composed and recorded by Peter Vamos. My brother is still finishing
his part – but very soon all the major work for the film will be done.
I had no idea there would be this many delays, and once again I must
apologize to everyone, especially all the people who donated – but rest
assured, all of your contributions have been put to good use. So far, no
date has been set for the Quebec and New York premieres, but I will keep
you posted. I hope also to redo one of our trailers with the Vamos music,
but until then, you can enjoy the earlier versions here and here:
More of the bills for video and photo rights and stock shots are coming
due. Perhaps the biggest item is the $600 we owe to the Vatican Television
Center for the rights to a video of John Paul II speaking about St.
Elizabeth in Hungary. And we still have a music clearance of $200 to deal
with. (All the other music has been donated). So once again, I’d like to
urge people who are interested in the film to make a donation. You can
donate here, using your Paypal account or credit or debit card.
Or you can send a check or money order to Lori Pieper, Tau Cross Books and
Media, 30 W. 190th St., Apt. 6N, Bronx, NY 10468. If you donate $10 or
more, you will get a copy of the DVD. Please be sure to include your name
and mailing address. As soon as the film is actually completed, I will
start taking pre-orders, but you will have to pay full price, so donating
is still a bargain!
Please keep reading these updates to learn of future showings. If you are
in the New York area and are interested in having a showing in your
church, school, SFO fraternity, etc. — anywhere that has a TV or screen
and DVD player, please let me know, and I will supply you wisth a DVD and
try to be on hand for it. The final cut will be around 1 hr 45 ssssmin.
Because of the need for funds to complete the film, I want to either
charge admission or take up a collection for these showings.
Thanks you for your patience, especially all those who have donated so
generously. May God, St. Francis and St. Elizabeth bless you.
Here’s what I wrote in my most recent newsletter, sent today:
Dear Friends of St. Elizabeth,
Many of you have been sending inquiries about the documentary on St. Elizabeth; my apologies for my delay in responding. In fact, things have really been moving.
The picture editing is complete, and the score for the movie is now being written by Patrick Pieper (yes, my brother, who is quite talented); we also have the cooperation of a gifted Hungarian composer named Peter Vamos, who now resides in the U.S., and who is supplying some pieces of music for the early portion of the film set in Hungary.
The writing of the film narration is completely finished and the subtitles have gone out to be translated; and I will soon be set to record the final narration. Still, this takes time, and unfortunately I won’t be able to have the film done before the end of the year as I had hoped. But look for it very early in the new year.
The other great news is that I am now arranging for the Canadian premiere, probably in January, in a movie theater in Quebec, with the help of a dear friend of mine who approached the theater about it. I am still looking for a place for the New York premiere.
To this end, I am working on a short (3-min) theatrical trailer for the film, and have just posted a rough version to YouTube. You can see there some of the filmed recreations of Elizabeth’s life we worked so hard on, as well as some behind-the-scenes shots, and more pictures of the centenary celebrations.
The previous 10-min. trailer has been updated with some of these shots as well.
I would have loved to have a showing of the rough cut of the film this month at our own fraternity for Elizabeth’s feast day, but the parish’s high school cafeteria was all booked up. We’ve decided to have the showing early next year when the film is done. But there was a very successful showing at the Immaculate Conception fraternity in Norristown, PA. on November 7.
All of these showings, I hope, will help raise enough money for the distribution of the film on DVD. I have had some generous donations of late, and this helps, but there are still outstanding bills for picture
and video rights as well as narration, translation and other costs. Every little bit helps.
So once again, I’d like to urge people who are interested in the film to make a donation. You can donate here, using your Paypal account or credit or debit card.
Or you can send a check or money order to Lori Pieper, Tau Cross Books and Media, 30 W. 190th St., Apt. 6N, Bronx, NY 10468. If you donate $10 or more, you will get a free copy of the DVD. Please be sure to include your name and mailing address. I’m hoping this will give me the last push necessary to put the film out. Sometime in January, if not before, I will start taking pre-orders, and the cost will be higher.
Please keep reading these updates to learn of future showings. If you are in the New York area and are interested in having a showing in your church, school, SFO fraternity, etc. — anywhere that has a TV or screen and DVD player, please let me know, and I will supply you with a DVD and try to be on hand for it. The film has grown, and is running at 100 minutes (1 hr, 40 min.), so plan enough time for a feature-length film.
Thanks you for your patience, especially all those who have donated so generously. May God, St. Francis and St. Elizabeth bless you.
Well, the time has come; I made the announcement to our regional chapter of the SFO yesterday, and plans are underway.
The “world premiere” — well, actually more like a “sneak preview” — of my documentary, A Woman for Our Time: St. Elizabeth of Hungary, will be held at St. Elizabeth of Hungary Catholic Church in Melville (Long Island) New York, on Tuesday June 1, 2010, at 7:30 p.m. The screening is free and all are welcome. The film will still be in a rough state, with temporary narration and music track. There will hopefully be time for questions and answers afterward.
Many thanks to the pastor, Fr. Frank Schneider, and Pauline and Ralph DiCicco for making this happen.
How to get there:
The address is 175 Wolf Hill Road Melville, NY 11747
From Points West
- Northern State Parkway East to exit 41 (Wolf Hill Rd.)
- Make a left turn onto Wolf Hill Rd.
- Go straight through 2 traffic lights.
- Parish grounds are immediately after St. Anthony’s High School on the right. Park in large rear lot.
- The screening will be held in the Hospitality Room.
Now that tax time is (whew!) over for another year, I want to catch up on a few things.
My two stories on the Pope’s (non)-scandal have gained a tremendous amount of interest for this blog, but because of all the time I had to spend on them a few other things suffered.
Here’s a roundup:
Documentary
One project that suffered was actually beyond my control. The work on the St. Elizabeth documentary, which I had hoped would soon be far enough along for me to show a fairly good amount of completed footage with a temporary narration and music track, has been stalled for almost a month. It started with the computer crash on March 20 that I’ve already mentioned. It was a week before the store would condescend to back up the files from disk, though I in fact had most of them backed up already. In the meantime, I was able to use my spare laptop, but it was useless to think of working on video there, because the hard drive was so small.
Well, the hard drive was defective, so the store allowed me to trade in my computer. Then when I got my new laptop (and 500GB hard drive!) home, and all the files had been painstakingly copied back to the right directories — the documentary project file would either refuse to open or would indicate it couldn’t find any of my files. Another frustrating couple of weeks. I first tried to do this on Holy Saturday, at the same time I was helping Jimmy with the famous article.
Right after Easter, I was online with the tech geeks at Adobe, but it was some time before I got the problem solved. And unfortunately, the solution was to re-link all the video in the edited project to the original files, one at a time. That took a lot of time, but fortunately, all my original editing decisions had been saved, and I didn’t have re-do any of that. All the same, a good amount of time has been lost. I feel that I really owe an explanation to everyone who has been waiting patiently for the documentary to be done.
I do expect to have more news soon, including the date(s) I will be showing the footage in the New York area, and some more interesting news I hope as well.
Find out more about the film and donate to its completion HERE
As a consolation, here are a couple of more stills, from the famous scene of the roses:
Book News
In other news, the original print run of The Greatest of These is Love, my biography of St. Elizabeth, has just officially sold out (except for maybe 3-4 copies on Amazon). Get the last ones while you can! I do hope, when I have time, to put out an updated digital edition for Kindle, E-Pub and the like.
Our Patron
And, in all my attention to scandals and taxes, I missed the feast day (in the old Church calendar at least) of the patron saint of this blog, St. Justin Martyr, on April 14. I’ve got to find a picture of him and put it up, but in the meantime here is my imaginary letter to him that serves as the blog’s mission statement:
Update: Here’s something even better — a video on him!
Here is the (more or less) final version of the trailer for A Woman for Our Time: St. Elizabeth of Hungary. With many thanks to Fr. Amando Trujillo-Cano for the use of his great song “Santa Isabel, Ensenanos a Amar.” (St. Elizabeth, Teach us to Love.”
Stay tuned for more news on the film as it takes shape.
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.
