Life of Kyle

Today was a busy day.  Denise showed up in the morning to hang out before she had to work, because I wouldn’t see her again till Saturday.  We decided to go eat breakfast since we couldn’t think of anything to do before she would have to leave.  Syro’s in Lewiston was the choice today and man was it a good one!  Their pancakes were the best I’ve ever had (seriously) and the sausage was like a casaba it was so big.  A+ food…woot.

It was really nice out today.  Not as nice as the day before (it was 55 in Niagara Falls) when I put my window down for the first time in months…but it was nice enough to put the sunroof open.  I can’t wait for the nice weather, good riddens winter…don’t come back.

After Denise left I got to work right away on a bunch of things and really didn’t even stop until 9pm or so.  I had files to deliver for the Sperry DVD and BTS, some talking to do with my sound-mixer, a ton of emails back and forth all day, and the majority of my time was spent working on a new design for the Praise Pictures website.  I have a lot of work to do to make sure that this summer has us totally ready for church screenings and stuff.  I’m moving a lot of things on the current Praise Pictures site to KyleProhaska.com because they aren’t really related to the business itself or our films.  Articles, Interviews, Reviews, will all be moved to my personal website.  I also have some plans to make so I know exactly how I’m going to break down the plans available for churches, how much the materials will cost me, how many packages I can afford to have ready, how they pay (and what options they have), etc.  There is A TON to figure out.  This site is step 1.  We’ll see how things pan out.

I had some cool things happen promotion wise today and there is a lot I can see God doing behind the scenes that will help us when the time comes to release.  I can’t share all that with you but please just be in prayer that these opportunities come through and that more arrive.  Same goes for the foreign distribution opportunities.  Pray good deals would be made, that they would be financially beneficial (I have people to pay back…you know how it is), and all that jazz.  I have a lot of screeners to mail off in the next few days.

The sound-mix is coming along very nicely…I look forward to hearing Reel 3 and 4’s mix soon.

So yea, a lot on my plate…as always.  Prayers appreciated, the year is going to get busier and busier!

Wow I’m awful at naming these posts.  I go blank every time I try.

I listened to Reel 2 of Standing Firm’s sound-mix today…good stuff.  Nice and crisp and clean…I’m surprised.  It’s nice to know despite it’s faults, the film is going to be of decent quality…especially considering our budget and the way in which we had to shoot sometimes.  I’m very pleased.  Jurgen (composer) seems very excited to get started on the score, and I’ll be looking at the final cue sheet in the morning to give him the green light.  I worked on Heumoore’s new film site today…version 2.0.  It looks very nice, I’m liking it!  I’m setting up the email lists, twitter and facebook fan pages, etc. so we can get cracking on marketing this puppy out of the gate.  There isn’t much to see for the film since it’s not shot yet but I can make use of the current Heumoore fan base at first to build an awareness.  That’ll be step #1!

During the message at Vintage tonight I heard something that stuck out to me.  It’s something I spoke about at CORE last Friday when I raised my hand.  Wes said tonight “All I want to hear is ‘well done thy good and faithful servant.’”  Wes then went onto mention “notice it didn’t say ‘thy good and successful servant.’”  That’s a good truth that I think we glaze over far too often.  I had mentioned that at CORE so to hear it again felt good.  Our focus always seems far too “success” oriented and less “obedience” driven.  If God says jump we say how high right?  Well what if you can’t jump as high as he’s asking?  Or what if God says “go talk to that person over there.”  In talking to them and sharing the truth in love they get angry and walk away.  Is that a failure?  Did we do something wrong?  Not at all!  God wants our obedience, and the results are his.  Have you ever thought about the fact that God might ask you to do something for the purpose of failure?  I mean failure in the general sense, because no expression of obedience is a failure.  What if he just wanted to show you something?  To teach you?  Why must it always be about a score card.  2009 for me was nothing but a long string of disappointments and “failures.”  In the end however, I came out learning a lot about people, business, how I should operate in the future, how far my trust should extend and to whom, etc.  I see my trip to California that sent me back home a month later as nothing more than God showing me that I needed to realize NY was home for now.  I was dead set on leaving and he basically went “ok get out of here…and enjoy it while it lasts because I’m bringing you home.”  When I got home I felt good, and I think God knew I needed to leave and come back to feel at home again.

Just some thoughts on what I heard tonight, take it for what you will.

I had no idea what to name this post…can you tell?  Ok on with what matters…

Well I guess I’ll start off with some news that is happy/sad.  I won’t be able to go to Texas this Spring.  For those of you who don’t know I was going to work on Heumoore Productions new film on-set for 6 weeks.  Unfortunately, that isn’t possible anymore.  I’ll still be working on the marketing/web/etc. for the film, but I won’t be on-set to work on it physically.  It just isn’t wise for me to take 6 weeks out of my Spring to work on this film when I have so much to do on Standing Firm.  A little bit ago I went along with the idea I was going because I wasn’t completely sure whether or not this would be a problem, and now I can see it will be.  There is too much to do, and not enough time to get it all done.  Six weeks of time off would be foolish and poor decision making on my part.  So…that’s that.

I will however be taking a trip down south for a week or so to see my parents in GA and hopefully due to some recent developments go somewhere else while I’m there…I won’t say where yet lol.  I’ll just wait and see what God does.  So I am going to get out of NY, but not for that amount of time, I just can’t afford it.  When your finishing up a feature film alone, distributing it, marketing it, etc. 6 weeks off is ludicrous lol.

Speaking of Standing Firm I listened to the first mix of Reel 1 today from Mark Stocker.  It sounded great! A few notes but it was all piddly stuff.  The mix was awesome, and besides the balancing of the final score later on with the final sound, it’s pretty darn close to what it’ll be when it’s done.  Very cool The score is also moving along, and I’ll be looking at what hopefully will be the final cue sheet very soon.  Then the actual music creation will begin!

I have a lot of work to do…phew.  It’s all going to pay off though.  That first email that comes in “God used your film to X in my life, or my friends, etc.”  That’s the pay off…I can’t wait.  I’m looking forward to that day.

So yea life is moving along.  My Spring is now open and free for me to finish the film.  That means I’ll be home for my birthday this year (last year I spent it in my new apartment in Los Angeles…alone lol).  I have lots to pray for, sin to weed out, projects to work on, a girlfriend to spend time with :), etc. etc.  Busy year

That’s what making a film is…baby steps.  You get an idea, you start writing little by little, you prepare little by little, you shoot day by day with 10,000 decisions to make all day.  Then you edit, one shot and one cut at a time.  It’s all multiple, slow, tedious steps, and all for that wonderful moment someday in the future (hopefully) where the lights go down in a packed room…the film fades in, the music swells, and your audience enjoys as you hide in the back biting your nails (at least I would be).  It’s been a long haul making this film, and today I completed another task Color-correction on the film is now completed.  That means the image from the very start of the film until the end fade out (before the credits) is 100% done.  No more VFX, no more color-grading, nothing.  It’s done, it’s locked, and it feels GOOD.  The only thing left in regards to the video of the film is to finish the credits and complete those, although that’ll probably hang in the balance until the last possible moment depending on the songs we put in the film, find out names we missed, etc.

There is still so much left to do, I really need to make a giant list.  Besides the sound-mix and the score, I’m pretty much done with the film itself.  Now I need to move more into the business end of things.  I need to get new screeners made with the color-corrected picture so I can get those sent off to a handful of people.  You’ll be happy to know that there is interest for the film (distribution) in South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.  I’ve gotten requests for the film in the UK but I’ll likely have to provide those requests individually.  I have to make deals, get the film pre-pared for the markets in the US, develop a marketing plan, finish the items for the DVD, etc.  The next big project I think video wise is the Making Of documentary of the film.  I have a ton of great footage but I need to make sense of it all.  I really need to film my interview soon, and Kevin’s.  I don’t think I’ll be able to do the doc. without our footage first.

Denise came over the past two days and we just hung out and watched movies or chatted.  She’s able to come over a lot and I’m very thankful for that.  I’m Blessed to not have a normal job, so my schedule is always open to change/shifting most of the time.  We walked around Lewiston a bit yesterday night and then went to go eat.  I love walking in Lewiston

I might be forced to make a tough decision soon regarding this year and a job I might/might not take.  I’ve sorta made up my mind already but I’m just giving myself time to settle on it.  I need to decide soon or risk putting my friends in a tight situation.  We’ll see what happens.  It’ll cause a few financial complications if I vote no so that’s something to consider.  Making a film is so darn expensive, even when it’s low-budget.  I need another grand and a half that I don’t really have for the subtitles.  I really do need them done, English and Spanish at a minimum.  So I’ll have to save and come up with that.  I’m looking forward to having a budget next time around, LOL.  It’ll be nice…we’ll be crawling across the finish line.  As long as we get there that’s all I care about.

We passed 10,000 fans on Facebook yesterday! That was awesome to see.  To my knowledge no film our size/budget has gotten that kind of attention in the faith-based arena.  No Greater Love, the recent release from Coram Deo Studios and Lionsgate that’s been selling like hotcakes has about 13,500.  They’ll always have more but their film is already out, ours still has a bit to go.  That gives me an incentive to build that fan base, our email list, etc. until release time.  I’ll also be setting up a second email list for churches to sign up to so when the time comes I can give them church screening information.

So much to do! Gah! It’s gonna be a crazy year (too late).  Just gotta take it one baby step at a time…

If you haven’t yet read this: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=353076585344 and sign up for the email updates and become a fan today!  Inviting your friends to the fan page couldn’t hurt either

Now that’s a guy’s blog title, you know it!

The past few days have been very cool.  Lots of little things going on, a ton to do on monday (a TON), and some good progress ahead of me.  I haven’t touched the film for 2 days almost, been too busy.  Standing Firm is a little over 2/3 color-corrected first-pass.  Because the film is so mild on correction I expect the second pass (basically checking over things) to take only a day or two.  I’ve gotten some quotes for subtitles on the film from a professional subtitling company.  I’ll likely be getting English and Spanish done.  I can’t really afford anymore, and I think those are essential, especially English.  One thing I need to start figuring out for myself is the behind the scenes content for the film.  I have all my interview footage except for mine and my co writer/producer Kevin.  We need to get those shot in the next month because when I go away to TX I’ll be gone about 8 weeks straight.  Odds are I’ll have to split up the BTS into large chapters on aspects of the film.  Development, Production, Post-Production, Music, Low-Budget, etc.  I’m going to focus the BTS on the personal journey and the indie style the film takes.  I hope at the very least for people to walk away after watching it understanding what it took to finish what they just watched, and especially make it useful for learning if other filmmakers end up watching it.  Some of you will be happy to know I’m talking with some foreign distributors that could possibly take the film to Christian bookstores in two other countries, so that’s exciting.  Even more exciting, they called me.  I never had to chase them down

My Beautiful GF :)

I spent Friday with Denise.  She went out to breakfast with my mom to chat.  I just sorta stayed at home and watched Batman: The Animated Series.  If your chuckling, don’t.  Go and find that show on DVD and give it a look.  Best superhero cartoon ever and my favorite stories about Batman.  The way they presented the show was great.  Awesome music, excellent animation, etc.  It’s all fantastic!  When she got home we just spent the day talking and hanging out, I got a cool picture of her with my camera (she was so nervous), and then we went to go walk in Lewiston and then to eat.  It was nice walking in the snow down Center Street…which is a beautiful part of that town, I love it.  When we got back we watched The Shawshank Redemption, on Blu-ray, she hadn’t seen the film in a long time.  I love that film so much, it’s very close to my heart.  If you haven’t seen the film, please do.  Beware of some of the content but if your able…see it.  In case you hadn’t read my review from a while back, here. I had seen the film many times but just decided to write a review for it randomly

Today we spent the day together as well, later in the day however.  We went to Tops and got junk food, came back to my place and hung out and talked, then watched Star Wars: A New Hope.  She hadn’t seen that in years either, since she was a kid.  Another great movie…iconic.  Many moments tonight I just found myself looking at her.  She’s so pretty, I love her She makes me so happy, I hate it when she has to leave.

Tomorrow I’m going to meet some more of her family, that’ll be interesting. :/ We’ll see how it goes, lol.  Gotta dive in sometime I guess right?  Till next time!

Life isn’t easy, it never is.  Jesus never said it was going to be, he just assured us that whatever was going on in life, he had overcome it already.  Comforting words, but far too often I forget and because of that I fail.  I’ve been in a bit of a depression the past few days.  Just bummed out, tired emotionally, spiritually, etc.  Sorta closed off, I’ve been pretty quiet.  Even at Vintage tonight during the message and my e-groups after I just felt really dead, like somebody had performed a lobotomy on me in my sleep…ugh.  I’m feeling a bit better now, nothing a good dose of JC can’t fix He fights for me when I or the enemy gets in the way…thank goodness or we’d all be toast.

Work and such is moving along fine.  There are some quibbles about some things, but I’ll keep my mouth shut.  Things are fine, and working at home is a Blessing so I have no right to complain.  I’m looking at my bank account and I’m pretty amazed at what God has done to help me financially since Dec.  It’s amazing, and it’s going to help me finish Standing Firm which is even more amazing.  I’ll be taking a chunk out of the investment money soon here as I get a new G-Raid for my computer.  I own a 1TB version of it already that holds the Standing Firm files, but I need a new 4TB version…yes you heard me, FOUR TB.  I’ll need it for when I go to Texas in a month or two so I can continue to work on any stuff if I have to or get to any critical files.  That 4TB will allow me to backup all my files on my computer, then take it with me, then when I get back, replace what’s on my computer here via the backup and switch to using the files on my home computer.  Sound confusing?  O well, lol.  Either way it’ll make me feel better to know I can backup EVERYTHING and stick this thing in a drawer every week or so.  It’ll also free up HD space on my computer itself so I don’t have to use my other TB drive in here as a backup anymore.  Yay!

Standing Firm’s color-correction is going very well.  It took me a while to get my monitors all setup properly today to keep on going but that’s ok.  I’ve gone back through the first reel and fine tuned things.  Basically I have 4 places to view the film at one time.  I have my computer LCD, a CRT Production Monitor, a normal SD TV, and my 50in Plasma for HD viewing when I feel like it.  I plugged in the normal SD TV because I need to see it as an in-between for the Production Monitor and Plasma.  Color-correction isn’t so much a “get it right” process…it’s more of a “get it close/satisfying” process.  There is no way to know that what your looking at will work for every persons TV, so you have to strike a good balance of levels, rely on your scopes, and be conservative.  My Production Monitor even when properly calibrated as well looks a little off so I’m glad I have these other sources to judge between as a point of reference.  Some of the CC is pretty difficult, particularly the church interiors.  The walls are a creme color that has all sorts of different light on it like tungsten, fluorescent, and daylight…all of which have different color-temps so getting the walls to match has been a challenge.  The church scenes above all are a nightmare because the pieces to them were shot in different days/months/years/seasons.  It’s all over the place.  But with the magic of editing, everything looks like one place/time Awesome…

Please be in prayer for the film and it’s completion.  Pray for promotion of the film, that all the stuff I got cooking (and that God has cooking that I don’t know about) would go along smoothly and be helpful to the films success and sales.  Also pray we strike a deal sometime in the next few months with a vendor that can take the film to the CBA, CBD, etc. markets (nationwide bookstores).  This would be our ticket to securing a release date and likely doing well financially.  We’ll see what God does!  I gotta get a disc in the mail to the one guy I have in mind.  Also there is a guy named Benji who is going to try and write a song for the middle montage of the film.  There was a Third Day song in there but the cost is just too great to use.  I need something powerful and of quality.  I also need music for the end credits possibly and another portion of the film so please pray that I find music that is good and cheap to use.  Money isn’t exactly growing on trees for this film, never was, lol.  One last thing, my sound-mixer and composer have a lot going on in their lives and need as much prayer as they can get.  Pray their efforts on the film are done with the utmost dedication to the Lord yielding a powerful result.  Thanks everyone!  There is much to pray for!

Lots going on…your support is appreciated.

Also if you read this and haven’t become a fan of Standing Firm on Facebook please do and read this.  I need your help folks.  Also sign up for the email updates.

So lots going on in the “life of kyle.”  Today specifically showed much getting done with Standing Firm.  The past few days has had me conversing with my composer a little bit and my sound-mixer but today things really progressed quite a bit in my opinion.  It took me a day or so but I now have the entire films audio separated into a more logical order throughout the cut.  This means I was able to finally render out the OMF files for my sound-mixer to get started on the film.  OMF is basically a file that he can open and see all the individual files in a given track or number of tracks.  They’re relatively large since all the audio is 48khz, 24bit.

I also had a pretty lengthy discussion with my composer Jurgen Beck today via Skype.  We talked about the score, where to go from here, what kind of themes I might want and associated with what elements of the film, etc.  A score is like telling your story all over again, but with music.  How many different keys are we going to have, how many specific themes will we create and callback at which moments of the film.  Standing Firm has a lot of relationships in it, and each is a different kind but some can be grouped by kind and therefore might have a common thread of music.  As a filmmaker you need to think about these things.  Working with a composer is like working with an actor, they need direction and insight into their “character” in the film, but in this case they’re taking on the entire film, not just a specific moment, line, scene, etc.  That’s why they’re so important because they bring it all together emotionally.  This film is highly visual and will need a powerful score to compliment the camera work.  If we get it right, it should be something very special…especially at this budget range.  Who knows!

I got a quote for what it might cost to subtitle the film into English and Spanish.  It’ll be a couple thousand easy…so I gotta think about that.  I don’t think I can really afford it, but I’ll give it thought.  It really might depend on making a deal for the film before release to a vendor.  The money we get from that might be enough to get that completed for the film before release time.  Some might say it’s overkill, especially if we added a few other languages, but part of my reasoning is I don’t know where the film could go and I would much rather get a single edition of the film done, and not have to make a completely different format to go into the market…it would be nice to have one.  We’ll see though, there are options and ways to probably get this done.  Color correction is also moving along as I’m about 17 minutes into the film. (first pass not final, I’ll look through it again to check everything).

Me and Denise are doing amazing.  This is the woman for me folks, plain and simple.  I cried a little today (sorta laughing at the same time) just thinking about her, and how thankful I am that she’s in my life.  Real men cry, lol I get like that when I’m really feeling thankful and overwhelmed by the wonderful future I know we could have.  I can’t wait!

Other than that I’m just working along with Rich Christiano on ChristianMovies.com and getting ready to move along with Heumoore and marketing/web for their new film.  That’ll be interesting to get started on, new territory for me marketing to a pretty difficult market.  This should be fun, lol.

God is doing great things…!

I locked the Standing Firm edit yesterday…woo Seems like a small woo but seriously I’m happy.  The edit of Standing Firm has been in progress for (seriously…I mean it) almost 2 years.  I started editing on Day 1 of shooting, after I got home each day logging and putting together the footage.  It’s taken a long time to get to this point for various reasons I won’t mention but I’m just glad the time is here.  I’m working on getting the deliverable files to my composer Jurgen.  The computer has been rendering for a long time as I get the full HD files ready for him, and organize the music/sound so he can have no-music and temp-music versions of the soundtrack.  This is going to be fun

Color-correction starts pretty much as soon as I feel like it.  I’ve already color-corrected pieces of the film as time has gone on, but now it’ll be legitimately started.  This will probably take a few weeks to complete with some diligent work every day.  I’m glad I bought that Blackmagic Intensity Card recently for output to my monitors, it’s going to help a lot.  I have a 15in CRT production monitor to monitor critical color on, and I can see it on my Plasma at the same time as well as my canvas in FCP.  That combined with my scopes should give me a good gauge on where to push the levels of color/contrast/balance, etc.

I’ll also be working on organizing the timeline and getting it streamlined as I go.  Some audio can be thrown away, other shots that are disabled and under other footage can now be discarded, and other things of that sort.  It’ll make the process that much better.  The greatest challenge I have right now is securing the rights to use a song I want for the end credits, and getting a song for two places in the film.  One of which really needs to be original (not score but vocals).  The song we original had in there was a Third Day song that would’ve cost tens of thousands to use (because of the publishing rights).  For those of you who don’t know, that’s close to our budget for the whole film LOL…so unfortunately it has to go.  I’m really bummed to see that as it fits perfectly in content/lyrics/etc., but I guess we can’t.  Finding somebody who can give me something good is going to be a big challenge, and one I’m concerned about the most I think.  We’ll see how God helps us out there, pray about that if you could.

I’m going to be finishing up some other projects from Jan soon here like the Sperry menus.  I’m looking forward to getting all the dough from the side jobs the past two months into the bank account.  I suspect I’ll see a number there I never have before so Praise God for that.  That’s going to give me some ease about finishing the film on a financial level and taking care of myself too.  He’s really providing here, and it’s awesome to see.

There isn’t a ton else going on, just work/friends/Denise really…and that’s enough busy-ness for one guy.  I hope this year flies by…it is already to some degree!

Lookie what I found while visiting my Profile on Facebook…LOL.