All around the world parents are beginning to wake up to the fact that learning and schools are not synonymous and as such are moving towards homeschooling, unschooling and other alternative ways of learning outside of the traditional school model. Word about the The Class Dismissed movie has also been growing, which naturally we’re thrilled about.

In an effort to reach more people and to make the film easier to access, we’ve recently made it available in a couple of new ways.

Firstly, the DVD is now available for purchase on Amazon!

At the moment it’s just in the US, but we’re hoping to expand that soon and make it available worldwide as a DVD and streamable on Amazon Prime.

We’re also aware that for people overseas in countries like Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and other places in the world, the shipping costs for DVD’s or the long periods of waiting for customs clearance, has made owning the film cost-prohibitive and ineffective so we’ve also added a digital download option to our online streaming platform. So if you live outside the US and have been holding off, you can now purchase a digital download at just $14.99 and watch it as many times as you wish.

We hope that these options make it easier for people to experience the film and share it with others all over the world.

Thanks so much for your support.

Jeremy & Dustin

During the making of Class Dismissed, Common Core was a new initiative that started gaining widespread adoption due to $4.3 billion Race to the Top contest for education grants, and $2.3 billion to promote it from Bill Gates & his foundation.  Luckily, we did mention it in the movie, though the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law was a hotter topic at the time.

Common Core is getting the same amount of negative attention that NCLB received from both parents and teachers. One of the benefits of homeschooling is the freedom to customize a child’s education based on the way they learn best. It is no surprise that most homeschool families prefer not to follow Common Core and many try to avoid it.

Continue reading →

It’s been one year since Class Dismissed premiered and even longer since we ended principle photography.  Lately a lot of people have been asking us how the family featured in the film are doing. The most common question we get asked about them is: “ Are they still homeschooling and what are they doing now?” Good questions for sure, so recently, we reached out to them and they were kind enough to give us the following update.

“Yes we are still homeschooling,” Rachel told us, “But we are are rarely home!”

Since finishing the film, Ana has switched her primary focus from Marine Biology to professional stage and theatrical makeup and is considering a cosmetology program. She’s been practicing her techniques on herself and her family with great results. Here’s one of her designs.

Ana also passed her driving test and is now able to drive herself and her sister Lily to the various classes and activities they’re involved in.  Many of those classes take place at a fantastic Los Angeles resource for homeschoolers called Urban Homeschoolers.

At Urban Homeschoolers both she and Lily have been working on goal setting — Ana wants to start a YouTube Channel for her makeup designs and Lily has been studying social and political movements through the history of Rock n’Roll as well as getting very interested in literature and spending lots of time reading and writing. Both girls are taking Biology and are involved in lots of activities with the new friends they’ve met there.

Lily is still very passionate about gymnastics and recently tied for first place at a regional competition. Here’s a picture.

Both Ana and Lily have been babysitting to make money and Ana recently got a job at a fabric company which helps fund her interests and travel.  And of course, being homeschooled makes traveling easier, especially since you can travel off-season. Rachel recently traveled to China and the UK and the girls visited Montreal as well as various places in the US.

“As the girls get a little older, they’ve been considering their options for further education and college is still on the table if they choose to go,” Rachel told us. “With Ana in particular, we’ve been talking to Wes Beach who is an expert at helping teens put together college entrance transcripts for those who have not had a traditional high-school experience. But it will be up to her to decide if she wants to go.“

Now that Rachel doesn’t have to drive the girls everywhere, she’s had more time to follow some of her own passions too. In addition to working at Todd’s video game studio a few days a week, she’s taking a painting class, and studying CranioSacral Therapy and Polarity at a nearby massage school. And Todd? Todd is doing what he does best — drawing, drawing and drawing. If you haven’t seen his brilliant work check out his blog here: http://hog-heaven.blogspot.com/

“So that’s about it, lots of interesting things happening.  We’re loving life and learning all the time,” says Rachel.

We’ve said this before, but it bears saying again — Dustin and I are hugely grateful to Rachel and her family for allowing us into their lives to document their extraordinary journey from school to homeschool. We’ve heard from so many people all over the world whose lives have been changed by watching the film.

Thank you Rachel, Todd, Thomas, Ana and Lily.

Jeremy & Dustin

Today, October 15^th, marks the one-year anniversary of the world premiere of Class Dismissed! On that fateful day a year ago, we screened the film publicly for the very first time to a packed theater in Los Angeles, California.

It was an amazing night, although it didn’t begin that way.

Last minute preparations had kept us frantic, pre-purchased ticket sales had been slower than we had hoped for, we discovered we lacked proper permits for our photo-shoot with our red-carpet celebrity guests, and we barely even had time to check the master playback to make sure the film looked and sounded good. When the lights went down and we took our seats in the audience, we were exhausted and neither Dustin nor I had any idea what to expect.

But 90 minutes later when the lights came back up, the air was electric. Somehow we had pulled it off and the applause and comments from the audience during the Q&A validated everything we had gone through the four years leading up to it.

That night kicked off a whirlwind 32-city theater tour with more than half the dates selling out in advance. Combine that with over 275 community-organized screenings in 7 countries and we’ve come a long way since that first night!

So to celebrate our one-year anniversary, we’re having a special 3-day sale! For the next 72 hours you can get 30% off the cost of renting Class Dismissed and/or $25 off a screener pack. 
So if you haven’t seen the movie yet, now is the time. Or if you have seen it & enjoyed it, consider sharing it with your community (the screener pack comes with a license to screen the film).

To rent at a discount, simply visit http://rent.classdismissedmovie.com/ and enter the code: oneyearspecial into the coupon box upon checkout. Then grab some popcorn and enjoy the movie in the comfort of your own home.

To purchase a screener pack at a $25 discount, visit this page: http://classdismissedmovie.com/see-the-film/screener-pack/

Thank you for coming on this journey with us, enjoy the movie and as always thanks so much for your support.

Jeremy & Dustin

Dear friends and supporters,

It’s been a long journey….both in making this film and then with all the work arranging private screenings all over the country, flying out to many of them to promote the film, answer questions and meet so many of you…the people who made it all possible.

To say the response has been tremendous would be an understatement! Take a look here to see just a few of the comments that we’ve received from audience members.

Since Class Dismissed premiered in October 2014, we’ve had 28 official movie theater screenings and over 200 community organized screenings in 7 countries around the world and a large part of that success is due to people like you, who have stood behind the film and supported us on our journey.

So first off…a heart-felt thank you goes out to everyone who has supported us in one way or another, we are truly grateful and it’s made all the hard work so rewarding.

But despite our success, there are still many, many people who have not yet had an opportunity to see the film.

Which is why we are so excited to announce that:

Class Dismissed is now available on DVD!

With the release of the DVD, people everywhere can now see for themselves what  countless others have experienced in cities all across the country.

So if you were unable to join us or couldn’t make a screening in your town, now is your chance to see the film. And if you did happen to catch it and want to experience it again or know of friends who’d like to see it, please pass along this news.

Here’s the link to purchase copies:

http://classdismissedmovie.com/see-the-film/buy-the-dvd/

Jeremy & Dustin

As 2014 comes to a close, we wanted to give you a quick recap of all that’s happened for Class Dismissed over the past 3 months.

After more than 4 years of hard work, we finally finished the film and premiered it in Los Angeles in October to a sold out crowd. It was an incredible feeling to be finally sharing the film with so many people, many of them having contributed in various ways to get us to that point. We then embarked on our West Coast tour, making stops in San Francisco, Oakland, Portland, Seattle and Monroe, selling out all the screenings except Monroe. (Monroe has a very small population but we calculated that 1% of the population was actually at our screening that night!)

After a short break to recover, we continued on with screenings in Chicago, New York City, Boston, Charlotte, and Raleigh before circling back and finishing out the year in Santa Cruz, California. It was a crazy couple of months but we had a great time and learned a lot.

Here are some of the highlights:

• We met people from nearly every homeschool and Alt Ed method and it was fascinating to talk to them and hear about their experiences.
• In Charlotte we met several 2^nd and even 3^rd generation homeschoolers! Both new and longtime homeschoolers are enjoying the film and it’s been resonating with viewers on many different levels.
• Almost all of the key experts in the film have now seen it at one or other of the screenings.
• We received hundreds of positive comments and reactions to the film and it makes all the hard work we’ve put in so worth it! You can read some of those comments here.
• We heard from a number of families who pulled their kids out of school after seeing the film.
• We’ve had numerous teachers, educators, parents, homeschoolers and otherwise interested participants in our audiences and the questions and comments during the Q&A sessions have been great.

But getting the film out into the world has not been easy and we’ve had many challenges. Our schedule has been insane since launching the film. When we did our East Coast tour we did 4 screenings in 5 days in 3 states that took us through 7 airports! And to top it off we got rear-ended on the way to Boston during a very long post-thanksgiving drive from New York. (We were fine and so was the car, but it wasn’t fun.)

And being away from our own families has been tough, although getting to meet so many other families who are on this path has been very rewarding.

We’d like to thank everyone who came out to see the film and who have supported us in so many ways. As a special treat we’d like to share these videos highlighting what audiences on the West and East coast tours thought about the film.

We wish you all a Happy Holiday season and we hope to meet more of you in the coming months.

Jeremy & Dustin

Definition – Picture Lock.  This is when the editor and director of a movie have decided that the movie is visually done.  No more editing.  Once picture lock is declared, you hand off the production to the finishing folks for things like: musical scoring, color correction, and mastering.

Phew…I can finally say those words and it’s official. WE HAVE PICTURE LOCK!

Eight months ago when I really began editing in earnest, I never thought I’d ever reach this point. Editing can be overwhelming at times. You keep going over and over the cut and you keep digging into the footage in search of that little nugget of gold you’re sure is in there, the one that will make the whole film hang together.

You change your mind a lot, you go round in circles, you get lost a lot, and then eventually you find your way.

In the last few weeks since we made the announcement that the film will be releasing in October, I’ve been scrambling to get it to picture lock. Mostly, so I can get it off to our colorist.

No, I’m not dying my hair, the colorist is the guy that’s going to make it all look awesome! The film was shot over 3 years in 6 states and with multiple different cameras, so the colorist’s job is go through it shot by shot and balance all the lighting and color so that it looks as good as it can. It’s an important job and one that I particularly love because (a) I don’t have to do the work and (b) I can’t keep changing my mind and tweaking things. Once we have picture lock I can’t make any more changes.

So that’s it for me, at least as far as the editing goes. There are still the thousand and one things that need to be done to get the film out in the world but now that I can finally put the intense focus of editing aside, I can put my full attention towards those things.

October is right around the corner!

Jeremy

We’re thrilled to announce that after eight long months we are finally done with the editing of the film. There are a few tweaks to make here and there but essentially that part of the process is complete! If you’ve been following us on Facebook you’ll also know that we recorded the narration last week and that music scoring is well under way.

We are currently locking down dates for color-correction and sound mixing which means that we are on track to have the film ready for release in October of this this year!

It’s been a long wait and we’re certainly as relieved as you probably are that we are this close to releasing the film. We don’t have an actual date for the world premiere just yet, but can tell you that it will be in Los Angeles sometime in October. We still have to work out details, but as soon as we have an actual date, we’ll let you know.

After we open in LA we’ll be working our way up the West coast doing screenings in as many independent theaters as we can manage. At this point we’re  planning to screen the film in Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle. 

After that we’ll try a similar thing on the East Coast and in other parts of the country.

We’ve got a lot to do to get all this organized and we’ll share more details about our plans for distribution and marketing as soon as we have them.

Thank you so much for your patience and support and we look forward to seeing you at the movies soon!

Jeremy, Dustin and the Class Dismissed team.

We’re thrilled to announce that the music scoring process of the film is well underway. We just got some music tracks delivered by our composer Jonas Friedman and they’re awesome! Over the next month, we’ll be working closely with Jonas to fine tune the music and work it into the film. We’re so lucky to have him on board and we feel confident his contributions to the film will take it to a whole new level.

Here’s some background information about Jonas and his work.

Jonas Friedman is an innovative composer, music producer and sound designer of sound tracks for feature films, dramatic television series, video games and national events. He has worked on projects for Academy Award winning directors, multiple Emmy Award winning producers and he has collaborated on productions from all over the world including the United States, Canada and United Kingdom.

Jonas Friedman started his career as a musician and music producer, playing guitar, producing records and co-writing with rock and pop artists both independently and on record labels. He quickly transitioned into producing and writing scores for film and television after being asked to score to the documentary film “Eleven – From WWII To Present Day”.

After composing for a number of other projects, in the summer of 2012, Jonas was brought on by Grammy and four time Emmy winning composer Brian Keane to do the musical sound design for the score to the upcoming television series Copper by Academy Award winner Barry Levinson and Emmy Award winner Tom Fontana. The BBC America series aired in June of 2012 and was the highest rated premiere in the networks history. Jonas continued working on Copper’s second season as an additional music composer and lead ambient sound designer and in the fall of 2013 the show was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award.

http://jonasfriedman.com/

June was a whirlwind of a month. We’re just catching our breath!

We did two appearances at homeschooling conferences, the first in Los Angeles at the California Homeschool Network Family Expo (CHN) and the second in Portland at the Oregon Home Education Network Conference (OHEN). Both events, were well attended and we got great reactions to the sample film clips we showed. It was wonderful to put faces to names and meet some of you in person. We really appreciate you coming out to see us and show your support and we look forward to meeting many more of you soon.

Jeremy also was a guest on the Roadschool Mom’s homeschool radio network. If you missed it, you can listen to that interview here. It was great to connect with those of you who choose to learn while on the road. The world really is your classroom!

In the midst of all that, we also put out a homeschooling survey, in the hopes of gathering data and statistics about homeschoolers that we can use in the film as well as in other ways that might be helpful to those interested in homeschooling. We had hoped to get 1,000 responses, but thanks to our diligent group of volunteers and everyone else who filled it out and passed it on, we’ll soon have 5,000 responses!

Not only has the survey given us huge amounts of interesting data to sift through and absorb, but it’s also drawn attention to the film and alerted many people who might not have otherwise known about it. As a result, our page likes on Facebook increased by 8% and the post about the survey was seen by an astonishing 23,904 people! We’ve had a number of new signups to our email newsletter and a marked increase in our YouTube views. So a big thank you to everyone who participated!

We’ll be sharing some of the results of the survey soon, but now that we’re back home, it’s on to the thousand and one things we still have to do to get the film finished. Jeremy is busy with last minute revisions and tweaks on the editing. (We got some great feedback and suggestions from a recent early screening group, so those notes are being addressed now), and Dustin is busy sifting through all the data from the survey and working hard on planning our marketing and distribution strategy. We’ll have more news on that later.

So stay tuned. We have lots of exciting milestones coming up.

Thanks for all your support,

Jeremy & Dustin

P.S – Can you help us across the finish line? Our funds are running low so if you’d like to donate, please click the donate button on the top right of this page. Any amount helps!