from: PR Web [1]
SANTA AND SONS & daughter! continues Million Elf March on Public Access TV for Second Year.
Christmas movie musical "SANTA AND SONS & daughter!" reprises its Public Access Television awareness campaign with holiday showings of the rockin' Santa family in over one hundred cities across the US and internationally.
(PRWEB) November 27, 2006 -- GRTV in Grand Rapids, Michigan became the first public access station to kick-off the encore presentation of "SANTA AND SONS & daughter!" on Nov. 24th, the day after Thanksgiving. The station also plans to run it Dec. 23-25. Most of the other cities will run the show multiple times. The family event is designed to highlight public access television and the performing arts in schools.
Director/Producer Robert Battaile was truly happy at the success of last year's showings and the requests to run the program again. "We may be starting a Christmas tradition. We had lots of requests to run the show again, and many positive comments from station managers and viewers."
The movie introduces Santa's family including sons, Nicholas and Klaus along with daughter, Sandy who flies an Anti-gravity sleigh. Sandy falls for Zwerkin, the inventor of a Teleportation Device that lets Santa get into houses without chimneys. The villain wears a black, Santa-suit and sings a hilarious song about "deer kabobs and antler soup."
It's a comedy musical with nine original songs.
"SANTA AND SONS & daughter! was recently nominated for "Best Movie for 8-12 Year Olds" by the KidsFirst Film/Video Festival. The movie appeared at three festivals and is available for downloads on akimbo, AT&T Home Zone and other IPTV systems - accessible in some 8 million+ homes and all Media Center equipped personal computers.
Besides their own site at www.santaandsons.com - there are movie clips online at youtube.com, google.com and myspace.com. iTunes.com for the songs and amazon.com for the dvd's and audio-cd's. Ah, the potential power of the internet.
"Of course as artists, we want to reach a wide audience - but it's also a 'give back' and a present for kids and families to share." Battaile continues. "Since PEG stations are always dealing with legislation and fund-raising issues, some extra visibility and awareness always helps. Theatre arts in the schools, and musicals are both endangered species - extra efforts are sometimes required to bring these types of productions to both young and old audiences.
Part of the reason for last year's effort was the negative legislation that is still pending to transform the funding for Public-Education-Government (PEG) television. Now that the Democrats have gained control of the legislature, Battaile sees a window of opportunity. "We need to rally the elves to make people aware of the benefits and necessity of Public Access television."
Battaile continues, "I got my start by attending workshops and checking out the video equipment from Austin Community Television. It helped me get my job at the Austin School District where we created a variety of programs for kids, educators and the community." That was twenty-some years ago, when the movie was originally written. Other good news is that even now, the Austin school district channel is vigorous and the City's Public Access network has three channels.
"Our show is approachable, hand-crafted." Battaile challenges the big-name directors "anyone can make a movie with $50 million. Our feature length fantasy musical was shot for two-tenths of one percent of that. I would think this movie will help reassure and challenge filmmakers, musicians and young people that it can be done, after a fashion." Actors and crew own nearly a third of show in exchange for deferring a portion of their pay. Two arts groups share in the eventual revenues. It's grass-roots dramatic filmmaking production with a communal twist.
Actors were selected from entire North Bay area, from Sacramento to San Francisco. Walnut Creek to Calistoga. The first magical auditions at the Rutherford Grange Hall produced Kimberly Jensen of San Francisco to play the part Sandy Claus, Santa's winsome daughter, who just happens to be a great singer (as are the rest of the family). "We really lucked out in the casting," says the Director, "and with our locations."
That same audition delivered the elves, in the form of VOENA - a choir of talented young people that has performed internationally and at the White House. One of their group, Holly Stell plays a Christmas Sprite, Deidl and sings a song in the show. She also appeared later that year in a duet with Andrea Bocelli on his NBC Christmas Special.
"SANTA AND SONS & daughter!" was also family filmmaking. Two of the kids in the movie, and the Anti-gravity sleigh were named after Battaile's own children when they were little. "When we finally shot the movie - they were big and an important part of the final product. Silvin was the Director of Photography and Bethany provided the animation for Blaise, Sandy Claus' talking anti-gravity sleigh. Watch a movie clip of Blaise at www.calexas.com/media/blaise1.mov.
There are stations in about twenty states currently planning to run the show over the holidays. The diverse group of cities include Santa Cruz, Napa, Healdsburg and San Francisco, California; Tampa, Florida; Bismarck, North Dakota; Covington, Kentucky; Sandwich, Chelmsford, Massachusetts; Missoula, Montana; Hibbing, Minnesota; Certerville, Ohio and Enid, Oklahoma. And, there's Belfast, Ireland; Auckland and Wellington, New Zealand. The 2006 participants will be on the website as the dates are confirmed. www.santaandsons.com
If you think this would be fun and beneficial for your community, ask your Public Access or Educational TV station to contact Robert Battaile. There are high-resolution photos for press at www.santaandsons.com/press.html.
Here are two organizations to further research the issue of PEG Television funding:
www.saveaccess.org - and - Alliance for Community Media whose position is that "The Senate should postpone voting on HR5252 until they have had enough time to consider and fix the potentially negative consequences of some provisions. If the act is voted out of the Senate, the PEG provisions must not be weakened -- nor should they be stripped-out in Conference Committee."