"Santa and Sons & Daughter!" Has Movie Premier at Gloria Film Festival in Utah

(PRWEB) August 11, 2005

A mere twenty-five years in development, the movie musical, “Santa and Sons & daughter!,” will have its world premier at the Gloria Film Festival in Utah. The movie will be shown at 12 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 13, 2005.

Nine new songs are part of this live-action family musical movie introducing Santa's beautiful wife, Sara; his two sons, Nicholas and Klaus; and spunky daughter, Sandy who flies a talking anti-gravity sleigh. She falls for Zwerkin, the inventor of a Teleportation Device that helps Santa get into houses without chimneys. Unfortunately, bad-guy Snavely steals the Teleporter, puts on his black Santa-suit and beams up to confront Santa at his North Pole Estate.

For movie clips, songs and more - visit http://www.santaandsons.com

“It is the realization of a dream,” says Robert Battaile, Director and Co-writer “that was only made possible by the digital revolution which allowed us to be able to afford to make this movie.” (That, and a deferred portion to the cast and crew in exchange for a nice piece of the pie, as well it should be.)

Battaile is referring to the JVC mini-dv broadcast quality cameras, the Apple G5 and Final Cut Pro editing.

“I've spent the last seven months sitting at the computer watching seventy hours of raw footage turn into an entertaining Christmas present for the world. Editing is a difficult and tiring job, but it's where the magic really starts to sing.”

The program was shot in Napa Valley in 2004 by Calexas, the family video and audio production and editing company started in 2001. (http://www.calexas.com)

Post production was aided by Battaile's son, Silvin (also the Director of Photography) helping with the final editing; and daughter Bethany who created the computer animation for Blaise, Sandy Claus' talking anti-gravity Sleigh which was created in Maya software. Zwerkin's kids in the movie are named Silvin and Bethany. Blaise is named after the Director's other daughter.

“Blaise is studying accounting. I hope we can keep her busy when the show finally hits the public marketplace in November and December.”

Here again, the digital revolution is having a tremendous impact.

“I used to think about a time when the artist could reach the audience directly, without having to go through the bottlenecks of finding a giant company to distribute a physical product. Thanks to the internet, we expect our DVD, audio CD and songs to be on several e-tailer, audio and video download sites this Christmas, and in future years. The public and retailers can purchase them at our website as well.”

Battaile is proud of his evergreen kid product, “Christmas comes every year and children especially need good stories and music. It's a fun show. The acting is outstanding.” Tony Grisey and Michael Lucas (a producer with Calexas) also helped with the compositing and nearly endless greenscreens at the North Pole.

The Gloria Film Festival has a focus of family features and positive programming. Their website (http://www.gloriafilmfest.org) touts their mission to be “a showcase of films that stir the soul, heal the heart, & enrich the world”. The festival runs Aug. 9-13.

The Gloria International Film Festival has announced that a portion of the ticket sale proceeds for this year's event will go to The Christmas Box House, an organization which helps provide services for abused and neglected children who have been removed from their family environment. (http://www.thechristmasboxhouse.org)

A wonderful coincidence.

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