![A Growing Year6](https://tylerslawson.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/a-growing-year6.jpg?w=329&h=323)
Image taken from here.*
“From Duncan to Durant,” the article headlined. It was above my section of the article published in The Oklahoman this time last year, in which I was interviewed about “Consecrated” and my expectations at the Trail Dance Film Festival in Duncan, Oklahoma. The article was a highlight of my career so far. A statewide newspaper interviewing me about a little short film I made. Again this year, I made the trek to Duncan.
It seems clear in my previous two posts that life was challenging last year. But as I arrived at Trail Dance this year, I understood just how much of a growing year it really was. I drove to Trail Dance with hesitations. Earlier in the week, an advisor and friend in the industry who was planning to audition for my new short film, advised me to postpone production due to financial reasons. I wrote the screenplay in November based on the story given to me by Rebecca Kiessling, and my goal was to have saved a solid amount of money by January to produce the film. As Bill Brewer put it this weekend, “before long you’ll be known as Mr. Postpone,” a legitimate fear. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to hardly save any for the production and due to my lack of a solid production since 2012, I was ready to put anything and everything into the production in order to produce something. After I explained the plot to a group of friends in the hotel lobby on Friday night, Bill said “It’s something special.” My advisor, Ken McCall, had said earlier in the week that it was a good script and was deserving of an equally good production.
It’s true that God is always right there with us, and if we allow Him to lead us, we’ll never be without. I spent Monday evening and Tuesday, mulling over my phone conversation with Ken, and to be honest, I was discouraged. It seemed I spent 2014 fighting a brick wall, and I didn’t want 2015 to be the same. I sent a respectful email to Ken to advise him that should I choose to produce the project now rather than later it would be for my own self-esteem, and not out of arrogance or youthful pride. So I went to life group with a heavy heart, expressing my concerns. What I received was an overflow of encouragement from some great people. “You are experiencing what every Christian experiences at some point, that realization that you know you are called to something, and having the faith to continue even if it doesn’t seem like anything is unfolding before you,” Sherry told me. “You and I know that you are supposed to make epic motion pictures,” Richard reminded me, “and you have been walking alongside me and Pastor Lee, and have we ever told you that you were stepping in the wrong direction?” The answer was no, of course. All I could do was smile at the encouragement.
I arrived in Duncan on Friday evening around 8pm, and after going to the wrong hotel (I swear he said the Holiday Inn Express!), I met Bunee and we headed off to catch some of the festival. We walked through the front double-doors where I was immediately greeted by a familiar face: Bonnie Foreman, who started the festival with her husband. She smiled and pointed me in the direction of her mother to fetch me a pass. “He’s not a filmmaker,” Bunee directed her as she sorted through the VIP passes. “I mean he is a filmmaker, but he doesn’t have a film.” “You’re a filmmaker without a film?” Nancy Mefford asked. The reason Trail Dance didn’t seem like a overly positive place for me to be. “Where are you from?” she asked. I spoke through my hoarse voice to the best of my ability (I spent the entire trip up, praying over my body and speaking scripture over it!). “Durant.” “Doo-rant?,” she asked. “Pretty country around Doo-rant. A lot of hillbillies too.” I smiled. “Yes, there are.” They gave me my pass for $10 since much of the night was over, a tab that Bunee jumped ahead and covered.
After settling into the hotel that evening, I checked my Facebook messages to see an unexpected message from a friend studying at Bethel School of Ministry in California. He had something on his heart that he wanted to share. It was a prophetic word from God. And it spoke into my heart about my calling. And it came at the right time. And on Saturday, I was content with not having a film. Everything was going to be okay. As Richard said, you don’t want to run ahead of God, or as Danny mentioned, you don’t want to kill an Egyptian (a reference to Moses).
It wasn’t long after I received my lanyard on Friday night that I began to see more faces. Nathan and Keenan had a film submitted for Friday night. Before their screening, I saw Briana, Jill, and Dan. After the screenings that night, Bunee and I sat in the lobby until 1am talking to Bill Brewer, Jill and her husband, and Ben. Saturday morning after checking out we saw Laurie in our hotel in addition to the others. Throughout Saturday, those faces were joined with Ken McCall, Brady, Daniel Bottoms, Wendy, Sha’ree, Alissa, and Al Mertens. There were many others in fact. It was like a family reunion. Which would be fitting, as Ken described it as a family. When I met Bunee at this event last year, he made mention that the Oklahoma industry is small enough that everyone knows everyone, and this year I have discovered that. All of these people were there last year. We saw each other in passing. But I was just another face in the crowd. This year I knew them all. Last year, my friends and I absent-mindedly wandered to different films that sounded interesting. This year was a strategic plan to see this film and that film because we knew who made it or who was in it. Even though last year was hard, last year was a growing year, and this weekend, I finally got that.
Myself, Bunee Tomlinson, Daniel Bottoms, and Nathan Edwards during the Q&A following the screening of “Love is a Circus,” a film which I assisted with, and was submitted for the 48 Hour Film Project.
Photo courtesy of Mr. Edwards.
*The websites in which these photos are found are not necessarily an endorsement from me, but mostly those photos found during a routine image search.