Our Production Designer and “Asha Sage,” Logan Howe, has gone into labor! We are all wishing her well and hope she recovers safely and quickly from the miracle of life. (For those of you who thought we couldn’t make this any crazier, we just proved you wrong.)

Annalisa Parent, owner of Parent Studios, Colchester, was recently selected by the Vermont Professional Photographers’ Association as Most Promising Newcomer at their annual convention. She was also awarded the Creativity Plus plaque, awarded to the image maker displaying the most creativity in any category at the discretion of the judges, for her print “Boston in the Rain.” All of her prints entered in this year’s photo competition earned a ribbon and the honor of being hung in the print gallery at the convention. She has operated Parent Studios since 2003, photographing weddings, portraits, and events. Parent’s award-winning work is available for view and purchase at www.parentstudios.com.

Annalisa will be the official Still Photographer for Champlain Motion Pictures’ feature film production, shooting in June. Please join us in congratulating her on her achievements!

Things are looking pretty busy for us in the upcoming months. Here’s a rough outline of the milestone goals we are currently targeting:

• Casting & crew hires for our Fear Itself¹ feature project starting in February
• Editing of the Nowhere Found music video, hopefully to start this week or next
• Final work on the Nowhere Found live DVD release
• Location hunts for the feature
• Principal photography on the feature to begin late May/early June
• Further work on our Cthulhu projects, including the serialization of the CC concept (more on that from Jayson in the next few days)
• Fundraising! Look for info on some fun events in the next few weeks.

If you’ve already sent in your cast/crew application for the feature, there’s no need to do so again. We are archiving everything and will be going through our selection process starting in February. If you haven’t yet submitted, please do so via email: talent@champlainpictures.com for casting; crew@champlainpictures.com for crew.

And regarding that last item, we happen to have a Nintendo Wii bundle still for sale. It is a two-player bundle with a few games included, and can be yours in support of our films for a reasonable price. Just drop us a line!

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It’s been a long time coming.

[singlepic=48,320,240,watermark,left]Maybe you started out on a lark, just messing around to have a little fun. Maybe you wanted to see what you can do with just your brain and a little technological help. Maybe you had one good idea that you couldn’t ignore, so you decided to create a little slice of reality, just for that. Somewhere along the way, though, you realize that the ideas keep coming, the drive doesn’t go away and you are thinking beyond the perspective of a hobbyist. You even start to understand a little bit of what you’re doing.

That is where we found ourselves this year – on the cusp of change. In truth, it was a simple question – do we step forward, or not? Yet, despite this, we found ourselves facing turmoil from all kinds of unexpected angles. Change, it seemed, was not an easy prospect.

Today, the situation has finally gotten over most of its growth pains, and we are looking forward to 2008 with nothing but excitement and determination. Stoneworks Entertainment has evolved: we are now Champlain Pictures. We have solid plans to shoot a feature film in the Spring and have already begun work on our first project (a music video for Nowhere Found). The number of connections we have made in the last several months is almost mind-boggling – especially when you consider that most of them came from little more effort on our part than a push for some community spirit among local filmmakers and a desire to make something great.

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Everything that has come before was a warm-up. A flexing of the thumbs before pressing Start and journeying on to our great quest.

Stay tuned. And welcome to the next level.