Posts Tagged Friends
Prepping For San Antonio – SAICFF 2010
Well tomorrow I head to San Antonio for the 2010 San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival. The first three days will be for the academy they have there which I’m looking forward I think more than the festival itself. I can’t wait to see so many friends and hang out, talk, geek out about different things, etc. If you’ve read my blog at all you probably know I don’t really have any friends here with similar interests, not to the degree that I do online that I’ve met and keep contact with. I think more than 90% of the folks I talk to online now on a daily basis are contacts through the SAICFF from 2009. Last year I hung out with Rich Christiano while I was there and met John Moore, both of whom I work for now on a contractual basis. The others have become some of my closest friends I think which should tell you just how life changing this festival can be for a person.
This year will be special because STANDING FIRM is screening there along with some other really high quality work from lots of filmmakers around the country. I remember showing some footage from the film to people at the festival in 2009. The film was pretty new into the editing phase at the time. Stephen Kendrick and Justin Tolley whom I also met at the festival gave the first five minutes of the film a look and offered some advice I ended up working into the final cut. I’m excited to see friends, hear some good speakers, meet some new friends, screen the film (it’s showing twice), and visit with my mom and dad, Denise, and my lead actor Rob Reisman and his wife who will all be attending for the festival (not the academy). It’s going to be an amazing time.
If the 2009 SAICFF was the greatest week of my life, I wonder how 2010 will measure up with all that’s happened since then? Will it be a week I’ll remember forever? I think so, and it won’t have a thing to do with coming home with a prize or not, but much more than that. The prize of the festival isn’t the awards, it’s the people that are there. Call me sentimental but I’m dead serious. There is nothing like meeting together with a large group of folks with a similar vision and mindset, let alone brothers and sisters in Christ. I can hardly wait!
I’ll be getting everything ready and packing up tonight and tomorrow. I hate to travel so I’ll be checking and re-checking everything and keeping myself calm. I’m a nutcase when it comes to this kind of thing, I say it without shame LOL. Pray all goes well, the flights are on time, and I get in OK.
Here’s hoping for an absolutely wonderful time! I’ll be updating the blog each night as the festival progresses so be sure to bookmark and follow along!
Hands to the plow,
Kyle Prohaska
For more information about the festival visit http://www.saicff.org
Taking Stock
Today had a lot of tears in it. I listened to a lot of preaching today and some segments from last years SAICFF which STANDING FIRM was accepted into for this year. I called 2009′s festival and academy the “best week of my life” and I meant it. Today I listened and remembered some of the things that happened last year and it got me thinking about how God has changed me since that time. I’m such a different man, and a different Christian. My theology isn’t the same, my outlook on life isn’t the same, my goals aren’t the same, my passion isn’t for the same things, and so much more. It really got me worked up.
At the same time I have so much to work on still, and always will. Past bitterness from the last few years to work through and deal with, old habits to break and get rid of, people skills to continue developing, business skills that need to be strengthened if I ever hope to continue working for myself at home, etc. God has a lot of work to do on me but PRAISE GOD that it’s God doing the work. I can’t imagine not having Christ in my life!
I purchased a bunch of Christian movies I’ve been waiting to buy for a while. I like to support the others out there and I love the research. I love hearing how some of these films have done over the years. It gives me hope and shows me what’s really possible in this market. Unfortunately I think most up and coming filmmakers ignore the business side more than anything else. They just want to make films and make a living but they don’t want to learn nor do they have an interest in how it financially works to get there. You can’t have one and not the other. I can say that now with absolute confidence after almost 4 years of research, phone calls, emails, and keeping my eye on 100 things at once. I know how to go about this at least now and be successful (as best as I can, that’s up to the Lord ultimately). Perhaps I’ll take some of this knowledge and put it into some blog posts in time. I’ve had many conversations with friends on some of these topics and I think it’s been helpful to dispel some of the common misconceptions about how things REALLY are in this industry. That blog post about money and filmmaking was sorta a first effort to throw the brick of reality into some of your windows. I want to see us all excel and improve in our craft but also build a viable option to live and take care of our families. It’s a balancing act, and not an easy one.
I have a few screenings coming up to go to, so that’ll be exciting to see what God does there. Also tomorrow is STAND which is the e-Group leader get together for Vintage. Vintage is the college ministry at my church where I’ll be starting to serve at this year. It’s been a long time coming. I’ll be leading a small group of guys after each Vintage on tuesdays. This is a big step for me and I’m excited to get started. I’m nervous as well, but this is something I need to do and I feel like God has called me to. I want to be available for these guys in whatever is going on in their lives. It’s going to be a big challenge but worth it I think. I’m also looking forward to getting to know my fellow e-Group leaders better as the months progress. Oct 1-3rd is the e-Group retreat too so that’ll be fun times. Oct 5 I move into my new apartment and furniture shows up Oct 6. This week I’ll be purchasing a new editing desk, and a new printer and various other things to make sure I’m ready when I move. I can’t afford to be down very long, there’s too much to do! So much going on and lots to pay for. Furniture to pay off, rent to pay now, utilities, and some other stuff that I’ll talk about sometime later. It’s going to be interesting!
Beyond Blessed
Tonight was the screening at Niagara Frontier Bible Church (my old home church, the one I grew up in). I had a headache all day and wasn’t really looking forward to later if the headache continued. It drifted in and out, but stuck with me all day. I think today is the day this week finally caught up with me and hit me hard. Every morning I’ve gotten just under the amount of sleep I needed so I’ve gotten progressively worse every day that continues. Tonight will be the night to sleep until I feel like getting out of bed, because my body doesn’t need it anywhere near as much as my mind does. After dinner I quickly got dressed and headed to the church early to make sure things were setup right and pray with some folks. Rob, Kevin, my mom, Shawn and a few others were there. We prayed for the night and weeped quite a bit. Rob was giving the Gospel after the film and we prayed over him as well, that he would speak the words the Lord would have for him.
After we were done praying the hallway was already full of some people waiting to get in. I paced around a lot, not sure how to feel. I wasn’t really nervous I just wanted to get it started. The only thing I was nervous about was going up before the film and publicly thanking certain people for working on the film. Before you knew it, the place was pretty full, maybe 200-250 there or so. That’s a lot for our little church! Kevin got up there and welcomed everyone, and then I went up and thanked everyone for coming and pointed out Rob, Shawn, and a few others. I felt terrible though because I was forgetting people and slowly got around to thanking them, but then at the end I forgot Kevin. If you’re reading this Kevin sorry!! My head was going crazy and I had my unsaved family up front staring right at me the whole time, I was freaking out a little. I had a lot of other things I had planned to say but just wimped out and started the film, LOL.
I’m surprised I sat through the whole thing. I had expected myself to get up and leave a time or two during a lot of the parts in the film I can’t stand, but I stuck around. I can’t believe how well the film played there. I had yet to see it with an audience before, and it was a home run I think. Like three minutes into the film I heard the sniffles starting all around the room. Grown men were crying, even the guy friends of mine who’re my age. It seemed like everyone was crying at some point during the film. When funny scenes came along the laughs were very loud, much better than I expected. As I watched the film I studied every single frame wincing at every mistake, every line I wasn’t happy with, every shot that was poorly filmed or blown out. Some of the color-correction could’ve been done better, and some of the sound-mix I found some things I didn’t catch, and some music things I wish I knew about. There was a ton going through my mind. I hadn’t seen my film in a month and a half, so it was interesting getting a pretty fresh viewing of it. I’m shocked that it even works, I really am. That film is a miracle for more reasons than one. I really think that calling this film my “Flywheel” wouldn’t be an understatement at all. So much that shouldn’t work…works. The budget definitely shows it’s ugly head at times, but even regarding that the film looks more expensive than it is so I praise God for that. Overall I was absolutely thrilled with how the film was being received, and when the credits began to roll I felt like my heart was going to explode because I was waiting for the moment when people would start clapping. When they started, they didn’t stop for quite a while, lol. It was awesome!
Afterwards there were a ton of handshakes and hugs, everyone seemed very pleased and blown away by the film. I’m so incredibly thankful for all that everyone did to help bring the film together, it was a team effort. The fact that the film played that well there makes the results I read about the Costa Mesa screening even easier to believe. That’s an encouraging thought. The more positive reviews and comments come in, the less worried I am about the film being enjoyed. I think I would be comfortable showing the film to almost anyone now, and not worry too much about their response.
Some people went forward after Rob spoke, although I didn’t get to confirm if there were any souls saved that night, just a few folks that I knew of that had some junk to work through. Either way I found out that my grandparents were moved and cried which threw me for a loop. To hear that was very surprising and I’m thrilled to see what kind of doors this could open to witness to them.
Tonight was a great time of closure for this project, especially concerning my church family and those involved. Since I’ve moved on from NFBC and God is moving me to new things and has moved me to a new home church, it was a great way to end out my history with NFBC and begin anew. God is good, and he showed up in a big way tonight. He gets the Glory! Thank you Jesus.
