Corpus Christi Procession - A StoryTel Short

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Our latest "short", one-minute, video briefly describes Omaha's annual Corpus Christi Procession, as organized by Fr. Damian Cook and many others in the St. Peter and Our Lady of Lourdes parishes of Omaha. This is excerpted from our documentary "St. Peter: Restoring the Sacred in Omaha" but will later be expanded into it's own full documentary about the Real Presence.

 

StoryTel Announces "StoryTel Shorts"

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We're pleased to announce, StoryTel Shorts. Storytel's mission is to distribute to as wide an audience as possible stories of ordinary people doing God's work. StoryTel Shorts are one-to-five minute videos that can be easily shared across the Internet and the social networks. They are often segments from within our longer documentaries, but also are sometimes stand-alone original videos.

These videos can be seen on StoryTel's youtube channel or on our screening room page. 

Check out our first short on Confession.

And check out our second short on the Corpus Christi Procession in Omaha.

Filming Update From Argentina - The Miracle at Customs

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We made it safely to Argentina late last night after a bumpy ride with some passengers getting ill because of it. There were complications with Customs entering the country. Seems there was some sort of "formal presentation" that should have been prepared ahead of time by us or Miles Christi about the whole project simply because we are bringing in $40,000 worth of equipment. We did not know we needed to do this. Miles Christi did not know either.

The Customs agents were nice to us but they were going to hold our equipment for 24 hours or more until we or Miles Christi accomplished this step properly. The priests who came to meet us were talking to the man for us and it was friendly but serious and not looking good. In the midst of their trying to explain their religious order to the man who had not heard of them, one of the priests mentioned their founder Father Yanuzzi.

The customs agent said, "Father Yanuzzi?"

The priests said, "Yes."

The man said, "Father Roberto Yannuzi?"

The priests said, "Yes."

The man said, "Father Roberto Yanuzzi was my confessor when I was 18 years old! So he has started an order of priests?" Well Good for him! I love Father Roberto! How is he doing?"

He pulled out his cell phone and called his boss who was in the parking lot just getting into his car to go home for the night. Five minutes later the boss came back in to the airport and talked with the agent and the priests for a couple of minutes and then said, "fine, whatever the agent here says is fine with me."

And so the customs waters parted for us and we were waved through without even having them look at any of our stuff or filling out any paper work at all. The priests only had to give him Father Yanuzzi's mailing address and promise to say hello for him and give him his best wishes. And so it seems God wants us here for sure.

Shooting is going very well thus far. We still have not had enough sleep and it's 11 pm now. We just finished dinner about 45 minutes ago. They eat dinner very late here.

StoryTel Goes International

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We're excited to announce that in January we're planning to do some more major filming for our long term documentary about Miles Christi. We will be traveling to Argentina to capture footage about the formation of the priests that work in America, which takes place in Argentina. We have also been given the oppurtunity for a rare interview with the founder of the order, Fr. Roberto Yannuzzi. 

This marks the first time StoryTel has done any International filming. However, our Dirctor of Photography from our first two On assigment Episodes, Bob Barwegen, has international expereince and he has been wonderful in helping us with all the prerparations. 

So, we're busy with production planning and equipment and travel arrangements. It should make for some amazing footage.

A Major Grand Slam Home Run for StoryTel Foundation!!!

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Our latest video premiered this weekend. On Friday it played at a fund raising dinner, and Saturday it played as part of an event with Fr. John Corapi at the Qwest Center.

After Father John Corapi's 3rd talk of the day on the topic of "Spiritual Warfare," 9,000 people watched "ON ASSIGNMENT: St. Peter Catholic Church, Restoring the Sacred in Omaha" (A 15 minute program that is now a fundraising film soon to be expanded into a documentary for EWTN) on 2 big screens down front and 3 jumbotron screens dead center arena today!

The crowd was tired after three one hour talks by this great preacher but they watched and listened closely, became emotionally involved when we hoped they would, and at the very end they laughed when we wanted them to laugh, and they followed up that laugh with a big round of enthusiastic applause! A collection was taken up, from this crowd (who had already paid $30 a ticket to get in) during our the showing of our new film and the ushers who did the collecting credit our film with keeping people in their seats long enough to donate and inspiring them to give big time to give more. 

No final report on the collection but one supervisor is estimating in the neighborhood of $20,000 right now.

On Friday night we showed the new film at a $500 a plate VIP Fundraising Dinner attended by 160 VIPs, including Father Corapi in the audience. It was a huge hit at this event as well.

All proceeds from ticket sales for the entire event go to help Saint Peter Parish with the interior renewal of this great old church. There is so much more to report on this but there simply hasn't been time to get to you with information because we've been too busy editing to meet this deadline. Here's the video and we'll post pictures from the event soon.

THANK YOU to our all of our StoryTel Foundation donors for helping to make this happen!

New Video to be Played to Crowd of 9000!

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We're excited to be wrapping up a ten minute video this week that will be played at the Qwest Center in Omaha on Saturday September 11th, as part of the event at which Fr. John Corapi will be the key speaker.

The event is to raise money for renovating St. Peter Catholic Church in Omaha and the video is a celebration of the parish, called "Restoring the Sacred in Omaha."

When complete we'll be sure to post the video on our youtube channel and in the screening room on this web site.

St. John Cantius Program Continues to Inspire on EWTN

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Don just told me a cool story about how our St. John Cantius video touched one of our viewers.

There was this nice lady in NJ who was having trouble sleeping last week and got up to watch some EWTN. It turns out that they rebroadcasted our episode at 3 am or so, and she told Don that it really lifted her spirits. Their pastor was trying to restore the sacred in their parish and feeling frustrated so she called us and asked for 2 copies of the DVD, one for them and one for the priest.

Don sent her four copies, and asked her to say a prayer to her guardian angel and then give the third and fourth away to whoever she felt inspired to give them to. 

Pretty cool.

UPDATE:As it turns out EWTN re-aired the program the next day at the more reasonable time of 6:30 pm ET. We received many calls and e-mails all requesting a copy of the program and offering donations, and we have been responding to those requests and sending out DVDs for several days now, more than 25 mailed already, with more to go. Thanks everyone for responding so favorably to our documentary on Saint John Cantius yet again.

By the way, Fr. Scott Haynes, CRSJC of Saint John Cantius calls this work of StoryTel, “a powerful tool for our parish’s revitalization and the work of our religious community! Fr. Haynes also called our documentary, “a decisive tool for attracting vocations, a video that clearly proclaims, who we are and what we do!” Excitedly, he also praised the documentary for its monetary contributions to their ministry.
More episodes on many more topics are in the works.