Sad news

My heart is a little heavy this week. Early Christmas Eve morning, a family that has become part of the Liken family over the past few episodes, was driving home after a cast party for a production they were in. Their car was broad-sided by a drunk driver. The mother and the 15-year-old son died at the scene. The younger daughter was airlifted to a hospital, where she later died. The other three family members in the car suffered injuries, but nothing life-threatening.

The father, Gary (who played one of King Noah's priests in V4, the innkeeper in V5, and a Nephite in V8), was released first and had to break the news to the other two surviving children, Clarissa (who played one of the dancers in V4) and Caleb (who played Jarom, the exceptionally bright meteorologist boy in V8), about the extent of what had happened.

The three surviving family members, led by Gary, are handling their loss with such dignity and even compassion for the driver who hit them, that it is an inspiration to all who know them or have come to know them by the many news reports on the tragic accident and its aftermath.

We spent this morning in a meeting at the studio working on plans for efforts to benefit the family. We hope to help organize a benefit concert and benefit CD, along with donating proceeds of sales of our titles in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, they are in my prayers. If anyone would like to make a contribution to the family, we have helped to set up a website to facilitate that. It can be found here: http://www.ceranfamilyfund.com.

'Tis the season

I have been devoting most of my time to various marketing elements, the side of the movie business they don't tell you about, but working for a small, independent company, is an important part of the process.

The company has installed "Lightstones," mall carts in 14 malls along the Wasatch Front. It was a gargantuan undertaking that I was only involved with in a limited way. We also launched a completely revamped website, called Likenit.com. (Liken.com, unfortunately, is used by a consulting company in the UK, which isn't interested in parting with the name.) While we are using an outside company on this, it still demanded a considerable time commitment on our part to get it up and running. This week, it went "live," and so far the bugs have been manageable, so that is a relief. I also spent some time drafting "An Appeal from the Producers of Liken," a letter to our mailing list. In it, I did my best to reinforce the connection between supporting Liken (whether by purchasing or spreading the word) and our ability to create more Likens. I think some people think that the series is already a solid success and that we are well in the black, when in reality we still have a ways to go.

We've also been meeting to discuss plans for 2007. I think it would be premature to discuss them here, but I am excited about the direction. I'll post more on that later.

Tonight, we're off to the Liken Family Christmas in Ogden, an event featuring Dan, Josh and Jared singing various songs, followed by a screening of "The First Christmas" in the lovely Peery's Egyptian Theater they have up there. Looking forward to it.

In the meantime, 'tis the season. Merry Christmas, everyone. But right now, I'm off to shovel snow.

Still alive

Haven't blogged in awhile. Been a little busy and a little gone. Finished revisiting "The First Christmas." Next, we revisited "Esther and the King." Both look and sound great. Currently, we are working on the revisit of "David & Goliath." This is a larger project, because we are re-doing the modern-day bookends to make them more ecumenical. We've finished revising the visual portion and are about to start work on the audio fixes.

Along the way, I took off some time to be with my family. We visited London and Paris. It was a quick trip, but great fun. While in London, we took in "Stomp" (useful research for our Ninevah scenes in our next show, "Jonah and the Great Fish"), "Mary Poppins" (great family show), and 'Wicked" (maybe -- no probably -- the best show I've ever seen; that's us on show night).

While in England, I had the opportunity to present a fireside to the St. Albans Stake at Stevenage. What a wonderful group of people to be among. They were so gracious and welcoming. I don't know how many were there, but the chapel was full and they opened the overflow. My presentation was on a subject near and dear to my heart -- our responsibilities regarding the media (including shunning the bad, seeking the good, spreading the news when we find something good, and doing our part to create or support uplifting media). When it was over, we had such a great time visiting with many old and new friends (this was the stake I attended as a university student when I first met my wife, Suzanne, who is from this area). The Liken series doesn't seem to be well-known in England, a situation we would like to change.