Standing Firm : Blog

It has been a while since our last update.  I appologize, much has transpired lately that has kept me busy.  I’m happy to report it is a good busy, a busy that is prosperous. 

So what is the status of Standing Firm?  We are currently doing preparation and scheduling for the reshoots and pickups we need.  They will be filmed in the beginning of Feb. with others being forced until early March (my Gaffer is taking a well deserved vacation, bon voyage).  We will be prepping a lot more accurately and with more care than was present last year, something that hurt us in the long run.  However, we now know things we couldn’t have known last year since it was a new experience for everyone.  How long does it take to shoot something based on its length?  What is the best order to shoot things in?  What is realistic, what isn’t?  Much needed to be learned and I’m glad to say we wont be making those mistakes a second time around. *knock on wood*

There have been adjustments to the film and other changes that require some of these reshoots and pickups.  Some of the shots are also inserts that we have put off for a long time knowing we would come back to them, so here we are.  There is snow on the ground and its freezing outside so obviously there wont be any reshoots going on outside, luckily we are confident of what we have from last year and scrambled to get what we needed then knowing we couldn’t get it now.

So your probably wondering what was going on when we hadn’t started prepping yet.  Well technically we WERE prepping things, but not in the traditional Pre-Production sense.  We took some time to continue editing the film and getting it together so we could get a better handle on where we were and what we would need.  The best part about this project that God really Blessed us with are local volunteers, one of them technically being myself.  We knew we could come back and get what we needed, something traditional shoots would deny and without these advantages we would dead in the water (so thank you God).

I’m happy to report myself and Kevin Michael (President of Praise Pictures & Co Writer/Producer on the film) had a long meeting last Sunday and hammered out the finishing details on what is needed to get the film to a level we are happy with.  I was very excited to see things from A-Z, left to right on the timeline in a more complete way.  I have been nervously editing from the very start of shooting slowly working towards that goal and that night I’m happy to say we met it.  The film isn’t complete, not by any means…but for the first time you could start from the beginning and go all the way through till the end explaining the story within the edit and see the result that God has Blessed us with.  Praise God for that accomplishment!  It was truly an excited moment.  I had a hard time sleeping that night.

There was also a development that night that I wont share big details of for now.  I know I’m known for giving you things to pray about that you don’t necessarily know all the details for, but I’m going to do it again.  We will be having a man working with us at the end of February (Lord Willing) that you all might find familiar.  He worked on a film most of you have seen and we are glad to have him on board.  Pray that all goes well, and we are able to venture into that with hickups.

What is going on with Praise Pictures?  As you may have read, I recently attended the 2009 San Antonio International Film Festival and networked like a crazy person giving out a Praise Pictures business card to anyone who would take one, and gave out Promo Discs to choice folks explained here.  The new trailer I talked about a few months ago is on hold, sorry.  I wont go into why but you’ll just have to wait.  Hopefully all these updates and new content will keep you at bay. Here is one comment I received recently from Bob Christian (more famously known as Bro Bob, the first reviewer of our script last year, thanks Bob!):

 “Wow!  This time I was the one “blown away”!  The clips you had on the DVD you gifted me with at SAICFF, were outstanding.  You have Hollywood beat by a country mile.  The cinematography and production quality was awesome!  Even the acting was superb!  Great editing too!  You are a gifted and artistic individual.  I am getting so anxious to see the finished product.  If the rest of the film is as good as the clips you had on this demo disk, this film is going to be a successful blockbuster!” - Bob Christian

As soon as I got home I started revamping the Praise Pictures website for a new future.  I uploaded reviews to the most popular films of the festival, and discovered I was the first to do so.  This flooded the website with traffic and has continued to do so in the hundreds per day since the beginning of the month.  It is great to see people coming back to read the new things posted.  There will be Film Reviews, Interviews, Articles, etc. on all sorts of topics and with all sorts of people about all sorts of films.  We also have started a blog which will include the same information and such on the site but it’s a better way for you to be able to comment on our content.  Don’t be surprised if you see a special little snippet of info there every once in a while that you wont see anywhere else From now on any information about new Christian Films, Christian Film News, etc. will be pumped through that blog.  Please be sure to check there just as you do here.  Our hope is that the site will become a good resource and will be useful to other filmmakers.  We are excited to see not just what God does with Standing Firm and our company as a Production Company, but as an internet resource as well.

So as we near February in just over a week I ask all of you out there to pray for us, just as you did so faithfully last year.  Pray that the changes in planning would be beneficial and make things more efficient.  Pray that the actors would stay true to the quality they have shown during this whole process.  Pray for the camera work and lighting that it would also stay true to our current quality level.  Pray for humble attitudes and servants hearts of all that might help.  Above all pray for the souls of those who may see this movie and be impacted by it.  Just like the boy with five loaves and two fish, we want to see God take our film and use it for his Glory on a massive scale.

Hands to the plow…once again,
Kyle Prohaska
CEO, Praise Pictures
http://www.praisepictures.com
kyle@praisepictures.com

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 20th, 2009 at 10:46 pm and is filed under News/Press. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.