Calls for Encore Heard at EWTN!

Thanks to your tremendously positive feedback, EWTN will encore "Where Heaven Meets Earth" on Wednesday, July 31 at 3am & 6:30pm Eastern / 2am & 5:30pm Central.

“Where Heaven Meets Earth” has earned an abundance of praise and many noteworthy accolades from the general public, priests, sisters, other religious and of course wonderful people like yourself.

EWTN viewers have been emailing and calling-in to compliment our documentary and ask when it will air again. Normally, EWTN waits a year before re-broadcasting a production, but by popular demand, they've decided to encore “Where Heaven Meets Earth” only three months after its premiere!(check EWTN's channel finder for the station in your area)

DVDs, trailers, and millions of viewers!

StoryTel and Saint Peter Church have been receiving hundreds of DVD requests for this production from all over the US, Canada, Australia, and even from the United Kingdom; over 20 thousand unique visitors have seen the "Where Heaven Meets Earth" trailer online, and -- of course -- millions of people watched the EWTN premiere on April 30, 2013. 

We've always encouraged On Assignment viewers to request DVDs from the organization highlighted in the film after the credits roll because we believe these organizations deserve support from viewers. Now, EWTN also wants to offer "Where Heaven Meets Earth" on DVD in the EWTN Religious Catalogue because the program received so much praise, and so many requests for DVDs after airing the program for only one day.

Building Anticipation

Requests for DVDs and anticipation for the program began to build in the days leading up the EWTN broadcast largely due to the success of our first-ever marketing initiative for an On Assignment film.

We made tremendous efforts to foster healthy relationships with the Catholic (and non-Catholic) press, bloggers and other influentials to spread the word about this film, which proved to be a fantastic success as we've received great coverage from many sources in the Catholic media world. Notably, Dan Burke the Executive Director of National Catholic Register, remarked over Register Radio airwaves that "Where Heaven Meets Earth" is,

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EWTN Premiere Tonight of "Where Heaven Meets Earth, Restoring the Sacred at Saint Peter Church"

Reminder to watch EWTN tonight at 6:30ET, 5:30CT for the world-wide television premiere of "Where Heaven Meets Earth, Restoring the Sacred at St. Peter Church"

EWTN Channel Finder

We've had considerable traffic to the WHME microsite recently. In fact in two short weeks, we received over 2.6K Facebook Likes for our trailer and thousands more people watching it across the globe. So, thank you to those who have so graciously shared the story of St. Peter Church in Omaha and helped to promote "Where Heaven Meets Earth" to Catholics all over the world!

If you know someone who hasn't seen the trailer or heard of the documentary yet, consider sharing this uplifting story by sending them to www.heavenmeetsearth.tv or sharing a copy of "Where Heaven Meets Earth" on DVD.

You can order the full 30-minunte documentary on DVD by:

1. Visiting storytel.org/order where we give away DVDs for a free-will, tax-deductible donation.
2. Click the PayPal donate button and fill out your payment information.
3. On the second page of the payment process, type "Where Heaven Meets Earth DVD" and the quantity you'd like into the "Special Instructions to the Seller" section.

StoryTel and St. Peter's have been blessed to receive widespread press coverage and promotion for "Where Heaven Meets Earth" the highlights are below:

• Featured 4 times by National Catholic Register: www.ncregister.com, Dan Burke's blog post, Daily Register, and Register Radio
• Featured 2 times on EWTN: EWTN News Article, EWTN Facebook & Twitter promo
• Catholic News Agency: Carl Bunderson's article, seen on CNA, EWTN News, and NC Register
• New Advent: Omar Gutierrez' blog advert
• WDTPRS: Fr. Z's glowing review
• Omaha World Herald: Mike O'Connor's in-depth article
• Omaha's Catholic Voice: Lisa Maxson's article
• Radio Interviews: Relevant Radio, KVSS Spirit Catholic Radio, Register Radio

'What About Me?' The Hearing Impaired Audience

Behind the Decision to Close Caption ON ASSIGNMENT Documentaries

It was Christmas time, 2008. We had just completed the new master for Saint John Cantius, Restoring the Sacred and I was eager to show it.

I was sitting in the living room with my best friend from high school, John Caton, at his house in Kansas city. I put St. John Cantius, Restoring the Sacred in the DVD player and pressed play as John’s daughter, Megan, sat down at the end of the couch to watch.

After two minutes, she was asking enough questions that I paused the program. “What’s the matter?” I said. John turned to me to explain,

John Caton and his daughter Megan as Santa and his elf.“Megan’s asking, ‘What about me?’ because she’s hearing impaired and can’t understand what it’s about.”

My excitement turned to guilt. I had never considered that a hearing impaired person would miss out on the message in our film.

That day motivated me to adapt StoryTel productions for those with hearing loss by adding closed captions.

Nearly 14% of the people in the U.S. have some amount of hearing loss, with a large share being at least 65 years old (Gallaudet Research Institute).

That is a large group of people who could benefit from our programs. Networks like EWTN, expect third party programming, such as our ON ASSIGNMENT documentaries, to arrive with closed captioning already encoded on the video.

In 2008, we were not a foundation and we had very little in the way of production funding. Today, we are still very small by industry standards, but we are now able to make it possible for Megan, and others like her, to be inspired by StoryTel productions.

We’ve just begun utilizing technology, which allows us to encode the closed captioning directly onto our videos before they reach EWTN or DVD, making it possible to view the closed captions on any television made after 1993.

From now on all ON ASSIGNMENT programs will offer closed captions.

I am happy to announce that the ON ASSIGNMENT programs, St. John Cantius: Restoring the Sacred, St. Peters: Where Heaven Meets Earth, and Miles Christi: In the Mission Fields of America, will also inspire the hearing impaired across the United States and around the world.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: StoryTel Productions to Reach New Audience of Millions

EWTN to Air Saint John Cantius Documentary in Spanish, October 2012

OMAHA, NE — July 26, 2012 — The investigative documentary, ON ASSIGNMENT: St. John Cantius Restoring the Sacred, by StoryTel Productions, has been adapted for Spanish audiences, renamed San Juan Cancio, La Restauración de lo Sagrado, and will soon premier to millions of Spanish speaking viewers in EWTN’s global television network during the month of October, 2012, a new audience for StoryTel productions.

ON ASSIGNMENT: San Juan Cancio, La Restauración de lo SagradoSpanish-speaking viewers across the United States and throughout the Latin American world will soon be able to see the inspiring and hopeful, true-life story of the spiritual revival of St. John Cantius church in Chicago. This timeless ON ASSIGNMENT classic has been expertly dubbed into Español for StoryTel’s new international viewing audience.

“What’s so exciting about this documentary,” says Don Carney, the film’s producer and director, “is that viewers are transformed and inspired by watching the stunning changes that took place, the way people came out of nowhere to participate, overcoming setbacks along the way, and all because one person said ‘yes’ to God.”

This inspiring parish revival story of St. John Cantius church in Chicago, was captured by StoryTel Productions’ ON ASSIGNMENT, an investigative made-for-television documentary series uncovering dramatic, transformative and true stories of the Divine at work in the world.

ON ASSIGNMENT: St. John Cantius, Restoring the Sacred, has continued to air internationally on EWTN in English, since its premier in 2009. “The program has been well received,” says Rebecca Amos, of EWTN Programming, “particularly by those Catholics who wish to preserve our historic churches.”

StoryTel’s audio engineer, Tom Krol of Level 10 Sound, spent many hours meticulously translating and dubbing the voices to create an authentic experience for the audience. Krol created an extremely accurate Spanish translation for the film, even accounting for language nuance and assigning a different voiceover artist for each person in the story.

The Spanish program, appropriately renamed ON ASSIGNMENT: San Juan Cancio, La Restauración de lo Sagrado, will premier in the month of October, 2012 as part of EWTN’s International Fall Line-up.

EWTN will promote the StoryTel production, during the month of October, in their programming guides targeting the Spanish market. The documentary will air throughout North and South America as well as Spain.

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StoryTel to Release Music CD Performed by Miles Christi Religious Order

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

StoryTel to Release Music CD Performed by Miles Christi Religious Order

CD will be folk music debut for international religious order

StoryTel Productions, will release an album of traditional Argentinean folk music performed by the priests and seminarians of Miles Christi, an international religious order founded in Argentina.

Order the CD

OMAHA, NE — May 9, 2012 —StoryTel Productions, a non-profit foundation that “inspires reverence to God,” is set to release an album of traditional folk music from Argentina performed by priests and seminarians of the Miles Christi Religious Order.

In their upcoming film on Miles Christi, StoryTel cameras follow two young seminarians from Michigan to Argentina to document daily life during their formation to become priests of Miles Christi, a growing religious order which offers silent Ignatium retreats in the U.S. and abroad.

While on location in Argentina, the StoryTel production crew learned that the Miles Christi priests and seminarians enjoy singing and playing traditional South American folk music. Recognizing the opportunity to share their heartwarming sounds, StoryTel Producer/Director Don Carney organized an impromptu recording of the musical performance.

Carney said: “They were so good, we just had to record them! I plan to incorporate some of the songs into our documentary Miles Christi: In The Mission Fields of America, which will premier on EWTN in 2013.”

Since the recording in 2011, StoryTel’s go-to audio production guru Tom Krol of Level 10 Sound, enhanced the CD audio and added a lyric book with an English translation that maintains the poetic nuances of the original Spanish.

StoryTel plans to donate the album, free of any royalties, to Miles Christi so they can sell copies and promote their mission: the sanctification of the laity, particularly of college students.

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StoryTel Foundation is a 501c3 non-profit dedicated to producing compelling media works to restore the sacred and inspire reverence to God.

StoryTel serves Christian non-profit organizations by enabling them to broadcast and distribute their story at a fraction of the production cost and sometimes even for free. StoryTel's media works provide Christian organizations an emotional and compelling tool to be used for their own fundraising. Support StoryTel Foundation as we restore the sacred.

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