After our most difficult year, with stories that hit dead ends, podcast episodes that hit walls, and sporadic up and down production of necessary work, the reasons for this are coming to a head— we are leaving Florida and moving to new opportunities that can thrust us into a new era of new change and new ideas.
More space to grow.
We are Floridians, and we love the state, but a rut was created for us that we could not escape.
Insular & circular creative back-n-forths are not interesting, in my view. We need new blood and new visual backdrops. New stories, and new productions. New business ventures and new creative endeavors.
Ultimately, this project started with me, Jon Croft, but I pledge to not let it end with me. It was not meant to lie stagnant and to refuse to grow. It was meant to implore, impress, and coax good people into action. Action which can inspire a passing of the torch— not the idea of some physical or commercial product, but a torch of belief and mission.
A torch of social change.
A torch of engagement. Not just with us, but with culture itself.
Was this happening where we were at before? I’d say no.
I do not seek to inspire visual recall of the similarly titled Angel Studios call to action, the proof of concept called the “Torch”, which their filmmakers would produce first in order to get the support necessary to make the final product.
Instead, our torch is meant to be a moment of inspiration, a glimmer of hope for lost vessels out at sea who understand that our Media Moses harbor means safety for them and their family.
It isn’t just a call to raise money for a product that you might or might not like later, after the money has been collected. Teaching this difference is what may end up making this company great, or redundant, if we fail. But there is a difference.
The entire culture is at stake, not just one filmmaker’s fun new idea, and we know this. I remember "having fun new ideas" to share in Hollywood at AFM and with fellow filmmakers working in the biz.
This propositioning happened for years. Scriptwriting, collaborating, pitching, and meeting for beer or lunch happened for years. But instead of buying into the vision, others gave me their vision, and decided the whole project was really about them.
One thing I didn’t get was that while I was offended by this, I was literally propositioning them on that very thing— the thing I was bothered by, and I didn’t even know it. I was asking them to be in charge of my project by watering down my film ideas to meet them in the middle, not knowing that they knew that I’d give them everything they wanted, then.
I never really understood that, because while I thought I was just doing what was expected of me in the industry, I didn’t realize that what this conformity signaled was that Hollywood was really setting the agenda, and they were, therefore, the cultural masters of my ship. I thought I was. But because, in reality, I was letting them set the ideological tone of my stories, I was complicit in the same cultural watering down that 99% of Hollywood is currently engaged in doing.
“Hollywood” are the self-proclaimed masters of worldwide culture because they set the agenda, ideologically. It’s not because they have all the best studios, craftsmen, and technical prowess, as many assume, but as stated, it is because they demand to seize ideological leadership. And we allow that by going along with it.
We write the scripts they like and we buy the streamers that offer pant-loads of “content”— not art.
You see, as filmmakers, we think all we need to do is play the game. Proposition the investors. Make it neat and clean and ideologically inoffensive for them. Then our career can start and THEN we will run the ship. But no. You’ve already given up the ship to them, by letting them into your head. By letting them change the story. By following along in their activist agenda, we enslave ourselves to their chain gang.
We sit down, shut up, and stop rocking the boat.
That’s exactly what mental and spiritual slaves do.
So, what is the next step if you’re looking for the Underground Railroad out of Hollywood’s golden handcuff prison cells? It’s to remove— too purge Hollywood’s social influence over you. Then, trek yourself out of the blooming propaganda fields and take the night train.
The night train may be unseen by others, momentarily, but this doesn’t mean you won’t have to openly and loudly proclaim your new allyship with anti-Hollywood forces.
You will.
Because social castigation must be risked if you seek to have a new life that is about pursuing true integrity and freedom. We always think “the next guy” has to do that work for us, but no. We have to do that work.
So, who are these new anti-Hollywood forces? That’s why we are here. That’s what we do. We promote these warriors.
And, in addition, those who speak loudly against Hollywood are the very ones who should be most aggressively promoted by us. Especially if you have a good reason to speak against Hollywood.
A story.
So, when you join these ranks you become somebody that is of higher value to us. Someone with a powerful message.
But, without that quality message, without that talent that we believe will subsume and replace Hollywood one day— what is the value?
We need to bring these truths out.
So, Florida has to be in our past because not only was the message not getting out, but the people who we seek to promote weren’t connecting with us there. They were just living life.
“Salt Life” as they call it there.
But we think that living salty isn’t about working to benefit self, but to benefit others. The self-indulgence we often saw there was inconsistent with what we think being salt and light to the world should really be about… challenging the world with truth & purity and sacrificing self to the benefit of others.
When I was working “for Hollywood” and letting others “drive the agenda” I was being taught that eventually good would come from this “partnership.” But this advice was severely wrong. I ignored (just as others did) the fact that truth and purity was NOT being promoted any longer in Hollywood, and that “the producers” who I was supposed to let drive the ship were taking the ship to bad places.
I was just supposed to trust them, in order to benefit everyone, but it was becoming evident that extending this trust was really bad for everyone. My ideas weren’t listened to.
Now I realize this wasn’t coincidental. Nor was it a momentary hiccup. It was the sign of our fundamental ideological difference.
There’s is to disrespect others. While mine is to give respect.
But I failed. I should have realized long ago that whether I am in charge or whether others are, this doesn’t matter. What matters is that truth & goodness reigns over both of us. If they let truth reign better than me, so be it.
But the problem was, they did not. So, I must go and find another way, even if it means I must learn to captain my own vessel.
So be it.
As the paid subscriber now knows, we have pulled the trigger on moving to find studio space in the midwest, currently focused on the lower midwest, including Missouri and Oklahoma. These areas have far more affordable commercial space that is often larger. With smaller populations than Florida they can’t often justify the extra space, but with an internet media business, maybe we can.
We also feel that keeping real inventory of great classical western literature is valuable. So, a bookstore is in order as well. Combining that store with studio space may also be a viable choice, if utilized off-hours.
Then, all that is left is specialized studio space that can take up a few extra rooms in our house. All of this becomes possible at a fraction of the price in the midwest. Not to mention, some midwest (or lower mid-west) states have great conservative communities. Ones that are even more conservative than Florida, to boot.
Now we’ve got something.
Community and a culture-building force at cheaper cost.
These kinds of decisions are what can make or break a company, so we ask for your prayers and support in this hard time of moving. We have three kids and are looking for a thriving community of homeschoolers and a church community of loving families.
So far it’s looking good.
We are already having discussions with chamber of commerce presidents and scoping out locations to do documentaries and films. Much of the area we are looking at looks like a western or a southern California landscape. So, it’s already far more cinematic than what we saw in Florida everyday. But more than that, the buildings we are scoping out are fixer-uppers that make room for us to build out a studio, though it may take time and sweat-equity.
That’s what we’re here for.
Not running away in fear from challenges but meeting them, and becoming a fixture in the battle for culture. Which is where the true battle is right now— just like it was twenty years ago, but conservatives decided to leave the battlefield. And now it is looking more and more dire, and people are counting on us. Survival for America’s soul is far more important than our food supply chain issues or our petrodollar.
“Win the world but lose your soul.”
A more relevant statement could not be said on this. And good luck with making America “great” again while not making America “good” again. Our military might will only be used for even greater evil if in the hands of evil men.
So, we stand by our initial, and permanent mission, to preserve and promote western civilizational values by building western culture through discussions, through art, through good curation, and through building conservative and Christian communities that also work to build western civilizational values and culture.
The first work is to give the call to action to leave Hollywood. Our God demands that we worship him in the wilderness. So we go.
The second is to obey him once we get there. We learn to discipline ourselves. We learn to put God first. We learn to “be thou holy as God is holy” which means to understand and promote the gospel. This makes it possible for us to follow God’s law, instead of just pretending that we don’t need God and can follow the law through physical means. Which God says is impossible for us.
All along the way, this discussion on the truth of God and of “the golden thread of truth found in western civilization” gets to happen. Art accomplishes this very well if we allow it, but it must be allowed to offend and to be authentic art, if it’s to work.
We know this and we promote this offensive art by true Christians because we know that Christians must work to be unoffendable and slow to anger as the Bible says we must. To judge but not to judge badly. We promote and exhibit the fruits of the spirit instead of how worldly religion exhibits “pure” outward signs. This is “Pharisaical” gnostic thinking. Not how the first century church was exhibiting holiness, which is through worshipping God in spirit and in truth, whether in Samaria or in the ends of the earth.
The offense of the cross is that we put the holiest man on earth on that cross. It was the true message that "it is WE who are the offense" to all dignity and goodness when we place our own standard upon God. It’s absurd, but this is what bad judges do when they judge.
We can’t tell a child of God how "he ought to not worship God" the way God commands him to. A Christian artist worships God through making good but sometimes strange or hard to understand art— not by making socially acceptable works.
We ought to please God rather than men.
This is what so many in the conservative Christian world have done to our art— they've made it boring, uninteresting, and shallow as a five o’clock shadow. It will change no one’s mind and it will preserve no lasting values.
On the contrary, what they approve of will make those values look outdated and backwards. This is what most faith-based works do and they do it quite consistently.
But good artists know just how powerful real conservative art is. They know that conservative art is the most enduring art because it is the most popular, powerful, and universal art in the world. It hearkens to universal human values that will not go away, and to the kind of art that has an epic thousand-year lifespan.
Is this boring to you? I hope not.
And if not, then why don’t we talk about it, then?
That’s our primary mission, to inspire humanity again with what conservative art and culture-building stories REALLY look like. And with new studio space, editing space, and interview opportunities, we plan to unveil new projects soon! We hope to scratch that itch.
That is, we plan to do this once we can settle into that particular commercial property that fills our necessary requirements. This may take a few months, but expect it to come at Q2 2026!
Let us know your thoughts on this 2026 Yearly Address, engage with our plan and get to know others who share your same values!
See you in Q2!
Love God
Love others,
~Jon
