Standing Firm : Blog

We are shooting again tomorrow.  Should be the majority of the day from about 9am (get there earlier to unpack), and go until dinner time.  We have a lot to shoot and there are some factors still left that I hope work out.  One of them includes a short sequence I came up with a few months ago.  I don’t have every shot 100% planned (yet) and I can’t afford to come back to this house or use Eric (playing Steven) again.  This puts the pressure on to forget absolutely nothing and make sure I have it properly planned.  This whole time we’ve been prepping the week of things or the days before.  Once we started behind in prep, your always in catch up mode and never have enough time to really get ahead of yourself.  Prep might be my least favorite part of the process just because the way we’ve shot this film the prep almost never really helps the day too much.  We’re dealing with factors that might normally be under someone’s control.  We are working with a new actor tomorrow as well and I need him to pull this off, I really need him to work.  If he doesn’t, there really isn’t anyone else to do it.  I also chose him because the lines he has to say he said to me in real life with the kind of fatherly tone that I”m looking for…so I hope God gives him a nudge and helps him pull it off.  I think he can do it, but more often than not on this film, thinking something will work often ends in disaster.  Not always so we’ll see what happens.

I think the hardest part about making this film on top of everything else is making it alone.  Yes I have a few crew members, yes I have actors for every scene and locations to use and everything that I could ask for.  What I don’t have is a second person to help with the meat of the producing.  Or someone to just run things by and get second opinions.  Not that I can really trust of course.  Some people I know online have been the biggest help and really given me a leg up in certain situations but while I’ve been cutting the film for instance…certain things you think are OK aren’t and I need someone to concur with.  To tell me “that sucks, fix it.”  I do have people like that but not here with me.  Especially when it comes to designing scenes and making a shot list.  Someone with fresh ideas really helps get the juices flowing.  I come up with ideas simply by re-explaining my own and boom something hits me and I run with it.  So that has made it difficult.  Just having someone as a bounce board (in person) would be great and I look forward to having that on the next film.  I don’t think I’ll work on another project unless I have another producer or something of the sort.  It’s way too much to do alone lol.

Writer/Director/DP/Producer/Editor/Marketing&PR/etc. ????  What was I thinking! LOL.

We only have a page and a half of dialog but the rest of the day is full of shots (most of them for that sequence I told you about).  Cross your fingers, we don’t have many shooting days after this…we really need to finish this stuff!

Today was a good day.  We shot at a house we hadn’t been in since last July (talk about a blast from the past).  We needed to reshoot one side of a conversation because of some issues so we bagged that first 

during the day.  Then there was just one additional shot we needed to add to better tie up a scene later in the film.  I’m glad we were able to grab this one because it was the period at the end of the sentence you might say.  Either way it went off without a hitch and we sat down and did the interview for Joan Golda who is playing Sarah in the film.  It was another fantastic interview and she did very well.  There was lots of great information for her to share and I think you all will really enjoy listening to her.  We will be shooting on Saturday which should be our last FULL day of shooting.  The rest are just half days and shorter from now until completion.  We are really close to finishing things, I’m very excited.

Today was an interesting day.  There was a scheduling conflict that forced us to dump anything we planned on shooting today and we had to fill the day somehow.  The day itself and every other day this week and next will be short except Saturday.  So we couldn’t figure out what we could do and just decided to do one of the Behind the Scenes interviews we were going to need.  We shot Rob Reismans interview today and it went very well.  I ended up with over an hour and a half of footage to sort through of really excellent content.  It will be very useful for promotion of the film and the documentary of making the film.  I was really excited to watch Rob talk about stuff he remembers, the hardships on set, the support of his family and church during the whole process, and overall what the film really means to him.

I’ll work on a small 3 minute overview of the interview and release it soon.  Keep an eye out!

I wrote in the last blog post about eating the elephant bit by bit. Now is the time for us to take a big whopping chomp out of this thing. There is STILL content left to shoot on the film. Yes we know its been 10 months, if anyone has been counting…it’s us. Some opportunities have possibly come up, and no I can’t tell you what they are yet as they aren’t for sure. However it does put us in a bit of a bind. Schedules are starting to get extremely tight for everyone and we are getting forced into corners. We really need all of you out there to pray for everyone involved in the project. Pray for schedules to open and become available, pray for babysitters for cast/crew members so they can arrive on the days required, pray for safe travels to and from the set, pray for guidance in the creation of the prep lists (we can’t afford mistakes any longer), and pray that the film would COMPLETELY wrap up in the next few weeks.

We also have the issue of ADR/Looping to take care of. This is re-recording of actors for specific lines that may have been ruined by bumps in the background, car horns, audio noise, or anything of the sort. All of this must be completed swiftly and with quality. None of us have done this before and we are going to be scrambling to get everything setup properly. I’m revamping my bedroom, removing my closet door, cleaning out the closet (it’s an old house so the closet is larger) and turning it into a location adequate for quality sound recording. This is one of our last major technical hurdles to jump. Pray that this is setup and completed properly. It will require funding…so pray that any funds that are needed would arrive promptly as time is short. (not like God doesn’t know that but I figured I would mention it lol).

Time to get a move-on…keep us in your thoughts and prayers!

Today was an excellent shooting day.  We accomplished more than we ever have in one day as far as I know.  The first scenes of the day were intense having both our leads yelling and arguing with each other.  Both went off without a hitch.  This week seems to have both Eric and Rob pulling out some of their best work, at critical points in the film.  God has really had his hand on these past 2 days of shooting, especially today.  The other scenes were completed without problems, one of them having a LONG setup time.  I can’t/won’t tell you why because it’ll spoil the film.  Either way it was difficult but we pulled it off.  Thank you to everyone for praying for this week of shooting.  The next days shoot had to be cancelled for a scheduling problem out of our control.  It’s unknown when our next day of shooting will be to continue completing the rest of the needed portions of the film.  Don’t worry, we’ll be fine.  Just the past two days has accounted for the majority of what is left, and the most difficult.  It’s all downhill from here, and we’re already rolling along quickly.

The edit will continue to be pulled together and the movie is still moving along.  We look forward to the end of the month where we will hopefully be employing a name you might not be familiar with but you absolutely have seen his work.  More information on that will come in the future.

Praise God for these past two days, and thank you to all who were in prayer.

We started reshoots and pickups today.  We were in Dave Giffords house today (Dave is playing John Corwin, Dave Corwins father).  The room we were in all day was the living room.  It had lots of texture and things on the walls, lots of wood furniture and other things.  We shot a conversation between Dave and his father first.  It was really good.  Rob (playing Dave) did a fantastic job.  In a very emotional moment in their 

conversation we stopped to pray over Rob and make sure God’s anointing was on the performance.  It was awesome, Rob did his best work to date.  Dave Gifford did a great job as well, his unique voice really packs a punch.  We were also in the unique situation of recycling lighting setups.  If we needed to point in one direction of the room for different pieces of the film that might be spread out by a half hour or more.  We just put on a different lens, had actors change shirts, and move some furniture.  Then off we went.

Eric Stevenson (playing Steven), drove up from Houghton, NY for just one shot.  The shot was a good one.  It might be one of my favorites of the film.  Nothing like beautiful color and a nice camera movement to brighten my mood!  Unfortunately in the end we did run out of time and had a few small things to get.  We even got down to just me on crew in the end because my Gaffer had to leave.  But that’s ok, me and 

Dave Gifford did just fine for that last hour.  Nothing like flying solo

We’ll be back sometimes later in the month to get the last stuff in this house, and it’ll be fine.  Our Gaffer will be out of town the majority of the month so we’ll be shooting by ourselves that time.  It’ll be my first all day solo experience, definitely need prayer for that.

We have a break in-between today and Fridays shoot.  Friday will be the longest and arguably toughest day of the entire shoot.  We’ll be very economical in our shooting order, including the amount of lighting setups we are required to do.  We will be starting an hour earlier too to make sure we are ready to go over the days plans and pray around sunrise.  This will be interesting.

Reshoots/Pickups have started as of this morning.  Be in prayer that all goes well and we are productive and in the spirit.  Pray that God would move through out cast/crew today as we work and for the rest of the week.  It’s all for him…God Bless.

Kyle Prohaska

Writer/Director

The last seven days have been a combination of things. Exhausting and exciting, but above all Blessed. We can’t give all the hairy details because nothing is set in stone (yet). But we hopefully have some big things to share with all of you soon involving post-production and the completion of the film as a whole.Last weekend, myself (Kyle), Rob Reisman (playing Dave), and Kevin Michael (Co Writer/Producer), set out to LA to meet some folks who had seen a Promo DVD we sent. To make a long story short, things look good I know that isn’t a lot of information and as stated nothing is for sure, but I do want everyone to be rest assured we are moving along and God is moving big time. Once the time comes and things are more solidified I can share more information, but for now I’m asking everyone to pray. Pray that whatever is going on (I’m driving you nuts aren’t I?), that it would be the Hand of God and nothing more, that the decisions being made are of the Lord and of no other influence, and that leading up to when we can make a full announcement, everything would go smoothly.



”Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” - (Philippians 4:6-7)

On a different note as you noticed by the title of the Blog, THAT’S A WRAP. Yea you heard me, we are done with principle photography. 25 Weeks, 44 Shooting Days, 600 hours on set with people you care about, a church with volunteers, a new company, time away from families and jobs, miracles on set, miracles off the set, a cast/crew growing stronger in Christ, 8+ deaths in relation to local church families and people involved, a local community and internet fan-base in prayer, and a little story called Standing Firm. My o my has God brought us a long way, and we have a ways to travel still! Weighing out all the pain and frustration, the headaches and pitfalls, nothing can compare to what is without a doubt the greatest year of my life. Praise God for his Faithfulness in answering his children’s prayers, and may He continue to be lifted up as we move along. He gets bigger, we get smaller…what a beautiful thing.

The stage we are at now is getting the edit together as best we can before we evaluate what needs to be included in pick ups, or reshot. The nature of this project allows reshoots in a way that no other project would allow. Having full access to all locations (as long as we are indoors, it is about 20 degrees here right now), and having everyone on board is obviously a great Blessing to the project and insures the best product possible. Could God have given us a more Blessed situation?

This means we will all be taking a bit of a break while we begin to iron out this “big thing” going on (I can feel it, you hate that I can’t tell you), and also do what is stated above. This also means its time to move the blog to another location. Where will be specified soon and you can move yourself there. It will be setup a lot better than this blog and allow more functionality for those of you out there who enjoy keeping up with our updates!

We are so grateful that all of you out there have continued supporting us after such a long time. This is a great hurdle for all of us to be jumping, in more ways than one. We are extremely grateful for the encouragement we have received from all of you, especially your prayers as each problem presented has been solved in God’s timing. This is something that requires you, all of you.

“This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us - whatever we ask - we know that we have what we asked of him.” - (1 John 5:14-15)

God Bless & MERRY CHRISTMAS,
Kyle Prohaska

Today was another day where we needed to get remaining pieces of scenes previously shot. Some of the more complicated scenes in the film involve scenes at church, with different angles and cutaways needed. Most church days we ran out of time to get everything needed, and we were forced to wait a long time down the road to come back. This involves matching lighting from previously shot footage. Luckily we have a laptop on set with the entire film on it. It has come in handy for a number of things, including continuity checks. There is very little left to film, and the current first cut is at about 90%. Things are coming along nicely.

Today we shot a scene in the pastors office and the pulpit footage needed for our church scenes. Pastor Billy Crone, our local pastor at Niagara Frontier Bible Church did a great job. He was a natural at the pulpit (obviously) and when it came to shooting in his office, everything went smoothly. This scene is probably one of the most important OF THE ENTIRE FILM. After we filmed everything we “needed” for the scene, I told Rob that I was just going to roll it and he could say whatever he wanted. What would his character say at this point in the story? What kind of feelings would be bubbling inside? We hit the record button and the result was amazing. God really worked through Robby as he started talking about so many relatable things to the common Christian. My eyes lit up as I watched the monitor, knowing that this footage was going to be a really impacting moment of the film for a non-Christian viewer. It’s remarkable what kind of stuff you can get out of someone sometimes if your loose on what you want their character to say and let them speak from the heart. It’s not always Shakespeare but it’s genuine. Things come out you couldn’t have written down or put on paper. God showed up big time today, PRAISE HIM.Happy Thanksgiving to all out there who are keeping up with the Blog! Have a great time with your family and friends!

Oh but wait there’s more! What would a day of shooting be without bloopers? Pastor Billy is one of the funniest guys you’ll ever meet and his humor is WELL KNOWN in our congregation. I figured I would share a few of them with you (and a few from past shoots). He’s the only guy I know who can flip from serious to ridiculous so quickly. ENJOY! Oh and just for the record, Pastor Billy despises chicken and loves beef, hopefully that’ll clear up a thing or two.

Today was interesting. We only had one small thing to shoot, the second piece to a scene which was filmed over 2 months ago when the sun was shining and the grass was green. Right now its 20 degrees and that annoying white stuff covers the ground, one of the joys of Western New York (I’m kidding of course). Regardless we only needed this one other piece of a scene and we got it done very quickly. I didn’t have someone to boom sound so I grabbed my mom (Deb Prohaska playing Jen in the film) to hold the boom for us. 5 minutes of instruction on operating procedure and she had it down. We didn’t have lights either, I had a reflector and natural light. I moved the camera to different places in the house to try and find the proper place. The area I picked ended up working great because there was light from both windows behind the subject giving a nice contrast on his face and a rim on his backside. The problem with the winter is things also tend to get a bit blue outside because of the sunlight reflecting off snow. A gold reflector gave it some warmth (propped up on a chair with a piece of duct tape to keep it from falling) and the right white balance setting gave it the proper look. Aaron Slack playing Shawn in the film is officially wrapped! Thanks Aaron!

This week is a big week, please pray for us. Wednesday finds us shooting one of the most crucial conversations of the entire film. Pray that all goes well and that the scene is of the Lord and not of ourselves. This is a major scene where the context can speak to the viewer in a deep relatable way.

Tonight was our last night shoot, and it was a tough one. We had quite a bit to do and not a lot of time to do it in but God was faithful. We ended up having plenty of time in the end to do what was needed. The scene we shot tonight was extremely hard for Rob (playing Dave) because the performance had to be dead on. Before we shot the scene we specifically prayed that God would work through him to speak to the viewers. This is a moment in the film where many will relate to what is being said, and it needed to be of the Lord and not of any of us. Even the lines we had written were totally up for changes if the Lord saw fit to change them in the moment. Rob did a great job and the scene looks like it’ll be powerful when it’s complete.Tonight was also another night where two crew members were present. Two crew (myself and my gaffer Shaun Smith), and one actor. How we have been able to pull off what we are with the amount of people we have is a true testament to God’s intervention and leading. We really feel he has his hand on this film and we can’t wait to see what he does with it.

We only have a few more days left until wrap time…we are so close.

Today we finished off pieces of the funeral we needed. We finished the funeral ceremony itself but we needed to collect what happens afterwards. Everyone did a wonderful job and I’m proud of them. Dave Gifford playing John Corwin was wrapped today so congratulations Dave! Your work on the film is awesome and we’ll miss having you around. The footage came out very nice today as well, we put everyone near windows which isn’t normally done but the bloom effect looks great on camera, and it matches the style of the funeral ceremony we previously shot. Everything came together well and editing the footage today I found it all fit together seamlessly. From the ceremony, to todays shooting, to what happens after. All flows together well and I think the opening of the film is going to be something that really sets you up well for the mood of the film. It’s not an exploding house sequence or car chase, but it’ll still pull you in. That’s our hope at least.

Also if you haven’t caught it yet, the radio broadcast that played on KKLA in LA last night is available on the podcast feed for Last Words Radio Click Here. Visit LastWordsRadio.com for other broadcasts and information about their radio ministry.

Click on Nov 1st. to download that days broadcast…we are mentioned about 6mins in. Special thanks to Greg for his thoughts about the film! We’re glad your excited as much as we are!

Today was a fun shooting day. The amount to shoot was minimal but it was great because it was our last of shooting in our main house location (in the day at least). The footage looks great, we keep getting better and better. It was nice because Kevin Michael (Co-Writ, Prod, Prod. Sound) was able to stay home today to assist, something that has changed since Sept. because of Kevin’s job as a teacher. So we had 4 people on set today (including Robby as Dave), a number we haven’t seen in a little while. We’ve been shooting a lot of days lately with 2 crew and 1 actor on set. Sounds impossible? Not for this tight group of Christian folk.

Also an interview was done with ChristianCinema.com today. The interview went extremely well and I look forward to seeing the finished article. We will be sure to let you know when its there. Best part about this is other news sites use their news and syndicate it, so this article and interview might be our best publicity for quite sometime. I’m extremely excited to see what God does, because I spilled my guts in the interview.

Only a little farther to move the ball, 4th Down, 10 yard line, our defense is strong and our offense is stronger…here we go.

Today we got back to work after a week or so hiatus. It was tough because the location was beautiful but choosing a spot within it to shoot that didn’t give us lighting problems made things difficult. Eventually we got it but lost the sun quickly. One thing that is also stressful during every shooting day no matter how planned things are is being 100% sure you got what you need. Anyone can get a bunch of great shots but whether or not they cut together properly is a different story. A handful of great shots that don’t edit together is useless. So it’s always tough when I say those infamous words for the day “that’s a wrap.” I always feel like I’m spelling doom for myself and I’ll find out when I get home and log the footage that there was one shot I needed I didn’t get. Things seem to be ok though (after looking at the footage) so thats good. We’ll find out soon enough.The first cut of the film is coming along very well, we are close. I can’t wait to be done shooting, finishing a first cut, and watch it beginning to end and see what we really have. I think we have something special and I’m not even sure what it is yet. There is always hopes and dreams of what it could be but what it actually is…..we’ll time will tell.

Thanks again to all who have been supporting us. We are almost there