Making a Film at 50
By Kyle Jones | Contributing Editor
“Your mother recognized you today.”
It started with a phone call and those five words my father said to me about six years ago. I was shocked because my mom was in a nursing home, battling the last stages of Alzheimer’s. She never recognized me anymore.
But tha
t day, something triggered a memory…
My father was referring to a broken plastic photo clock with my smirking mug – my “present” to my mom on Mother’s Day a quarter of a century ago. She saw it, smiled and said “Robert.” That simple gesture not only made my day, but gave me the creative inspiration to finish a script I’d been stuck on.
Massachusetts native Bob Heske is a filmmaker, and it was a film that drew a young man to Bloomington, Ind. and to ultimately go Greek and join Lambda Chi Alpha.
After seeing the 1979 comedy Breaking Away and visiting the campus of Indiana University, Heske was sold. Over those next few years he would delve into everything the fraternity and the campus had to offer.
Though, twenty years later, it was another film that would bring Heske back to his Alpha-Omicron brothers, his own.
“I’d been a writer for quite sometime,” said Heske.
“I had some close calls but things fell through. I thought, if I didn’t do this now, then I would never would and wind up regretting it.”
With that and some funding from brothers, family, friends and strangers, Heske went to work on his first feature-length film.
“Basically, I started by writing the script,” he said.
From there the first-time filmmaker hired a reviewer to provide some input and give some observations. Finding that his material it was too dark, edits were made to make it more marketable.
Heske then hired a director, cast most of the cast himself, scouted locations and even gave up his own home to film part of the movie, but admits he mostly sat in the background once the cameras started rolling.
“I trusted my director and crew to be able to do the work,” Heske said.
From that trust, dedication and passion, Heske’s film “BLESSID” was finished.
“Sarah Duncliffe battles suicidal thoughts and disturbing hallucinations of her deceased sister (a victim of a tragic childhood accident), an abusive ex-boyfriend who continues to stalk her, and the banal existence of an empty marriage. Weeks away from delivering a child that she feels undeserving to parent, Sarah finds her life taking a surprising turn when she accidentally meets her new neighbor Jedediah Cross, who harbors an amazing life secret and shares a personal connection that will change her forever. Blessid is a dark preternatural tale about two strangers who come together to find the beauty and purpose of life, and that forgiveness begins within oneself.”
Watch BLESSID here.
Blessid on Amazon Prime: http://bit.ly/blessidmovie
Blessid on Vimeo on Demand: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/blessid
Blessid Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/BlessidTheMovie ]
After completing his first film, Heske shows no signs of slowing down. On the wake of promoting “BLESSID”, Brother Heske has begun working on an experimental documentary entitled, “Afraid of Nothing.”
“I have a daughter that’s autistic,” said Heske, “and there were some paranormal type things going on. Something interesting there. So I decided to do a documentary. Which got me thinking you know, half the people in the world think there is nothing and half think there is nothing to fear. We’re surrounded by people who look at the world differently, and thats what we’ve gone out to explore.”
Meeting with people who have glimpsed things beyond this material world – shamans, psychics, past life regressionists, Akashic records readers, and near death experiencer, etc. The film looks to gain a different insight than what’s been seen before.
“Really, the best thing I have to leave behind are stories.”
You can help Brother Heske continue his passion of storying telling by visiting the fundraising page for his latest project, “Afraid of Nothing” here.
Heske is also a graphic novelist whose anthologies include “The Night Projectionist,” “Bone Chiller,” “2012: Final Prayer” and the “Cold Blooded Chillers” indie horror comics series. He lives in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts with his wife Angela and daughters Carly and Emily, and a golden doodle named Tedy.
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