Donald L. Vasicek | Donald L. Vasicek

December 30, 2012December 30, 2012

How To Manifest a Miracle
by
From the Heart Productions

Many filmmakers might consider it a miracle if their film got nominated for an Oscar or Golden Globe or a Spirit Award. They might consider it a miracle if their film got made! Miracles can happen. But, creating miracles like this don’t just begin with a good story or a great director. Creating miracles starts with understanding the universal law of manifesting.

The age of miracles has not passed. We all have an immense power that allows us create. Creating miracles is identifying with the universal laws to create your future. This power is not outside you, it is inside. You are in charge.

You are eternal and infinite. The universal law for manifesting is impartial. It has no way of knowing what you want. It is pure energy and takes the thoughts you send out and returns them to you unemotionally and in the form you asked for.

I meditated on the films fiscally sponsored through From The Heart Productions and asked for abundance. I asked for hundreds of donations before the holidays. Right after my request, we received over 100 donations in a matter of days. However, they were mostly $10 and $20. So you see, I did not ask for LARGE donations for my filmmakers. It’s a learning process.

This law will give you what you believe in. If you think it won’t work or that you don’t deserve it, you are seriously limiting yourself. So, trust me when I say the beliefs you express as your thoughts and feelings are what you are sending to the universe. You need to think like you did when you were a kid, i.e., that you can do anything, your powers are limitless. Go back to your thinking before people began to say, “You can’t do that!”

We are not our bodies; we are spirit living in a body. We came to this earth as spirit. Remembering that is part of creating miracles. You came in with a goal and that goal is part of you. It may be as simple as learning to love you.

To manifest you need to be sending thoughts and feelings of the highest caliber about yourself. Always know that “you are the greatest.” Muhammad Ali tapped into this miracle manifestation on a daily basis. We can learn from him as we daily say to ourselves how great we are.

The power of the universal law is always with you. It will fulfill your thoughts and feelings.

The next step is look at the nature of your beliefs. You may have established belief about what can and cannot be done. You may believe that people can lift a certain weight and no more, run at a certain speed and no faster.

It is a matter of perception and belief. Your ability to work miracles is predicated on how easily and quickly you can move away from world belief patterns and step above them. You need to mentally leave where you are now and step into the unknown.

Imagine the universal law as a shipping clerk in a factory.

It gets your order and he sends out what you ask for, a request for a size 12 gets a size 12. This energy is there to send you what you ask for. Be aware that your thoughts and feelings are sending requests daily to the universal mind and it responds by delivering the same. You need to be sure of what you want and make a strong “ask” with your intentions clearly defined. The power is within you. Use it to manifest miracles daily.

More filmmaker blogs are here http://wordpress.i2net.com/fth

December 22, 2012

SAND CREEK MASSACRE MOVIE POSTER- — Donald L. Vasicek’s Award-Winning Documentary Film, “The Sand Creek Massacre”

Ghost Story Magazine

“The Sand Creek Massacre”
An interview with Donald Vasicek, award winning Film Director

From all of the staff here at Ghost Story Magazine we would like to congratulate you on the success of your award winning film documentary, The Sand Creek Massacre. We also want to thank you for taking the time to answer a few questions for all the readers of Ghost Story Magazine.

Thank you. It is thoughtful and meaningful to me that you want to interview me. I am very appreciative of this opportunity to share with your readers.

1.) Can you please give us an overview of this film project and describe what you were trying to achieve as the director and film creator?

On November 29, 1864, 700 Colorado 1st & 3rd Regiment troops slaughtered over 160 Cheyenne and Arapaho men, women and children under protection of the United States flag and a white cloth of truce. This event became known as the Sand Creek Massacre.

The Sand Creek Massacre Documentary Film Project consists of eight parts. They are:

1. Trailer (completed) (http://michaelc.nextmp.net/wordpress/video.html)
2. Documentary Short Film (http://michaelc.nextmp.net/wordpress/DVD-VHS.htm)
3. Educational Video (in production)
4. Full-length documentary film (will go into production when money is raised)
5. Book (will be written when money is raised)
6. Interactive Media (will be created when money is raised)
7. Curriculum/Lesson Plans (being written)
8. Study Guide (being written)

The goal of the Sand Creek Massacre Documentary Film Project is to create a teaching mechanism to help others, particularly young people, on how to solve problems non-violently and to learn about the Cheyenne and Arapaho people to help combat racism.

2.) What are some of the awards this film has been nominated for or has won to date?

Named Best Film of 2004 by the Philip S. Miller Library’s Bull Theater Film Project

2005 Winner – Best Documentary Short The Indie Gathering Film Festival

2005 Semi-Finalist – Best Documentary Moondance International Film Festival

2005 Winner – The American Indian Film Festival

2005 Finalist – Haydenfilms Film Festival

2006 Archived into Heard Museum

2007 Archive into Billy Baguley Museum

2008 Winner – Golden Drover Award – Best Native American Film Trail Dance Film Festival

2011 Catalogued into Smithsonian Institute Libraries
2011 Catalogued into 42 American Tribal Libraries
2011 Catalogued into University of California at Berkley

3.) What inspired you to make a documentary about such a controversial subject in the dark annals of American history?

The overt attention given to Territorial Governor John Evans and Colonel John M. Chivington regarding their involvement regarding the Sand Creek Massacre got my interest. Not to say Governor Evans did not do well for his fellowman, Evanston, Illinois is named after him for his educational and medical (he was a medical doctor) accomplishments and contributions in Illinois, Evans, Colorado, Evans Avenue in Denver, and Mount Evans in Colorado (was originally-named Mount Rosalie) are named after him, and he played an integral role in establishing railroads in Colorado (some call him the first 19th century real estate developer) after many decisions he made as Governor of the Colorado Territory that helped lead to causing the Sand Creek Massacre, left me with questions about why he has the notoriety he has, when so many Cheyenne and Arapaho people butchered at Sand Creek are indistinct, unknown, and unrecognized. Colonel John M. Chivington was a Methodist minister. He was anti-slavery and for statehood, but yet he was driven to be responsible for the brutal murders and mutilations at Sand Creek. I simply felt that we need to learn about the Cheyenne and Arapaho people, that we need to learn that the Cheyenne and Arapaho people are the fabric of American history, of who we are as Americans, and that they should be recognized for it without being blinded by racism.

4.) The Sand Creek Massacre site is said to be very haunted and physically draining location because of the extreme human emotions that have occurred there both before and after the massacre. Did you or anyone else you worked with on this project ever experience anything paranormal or unexplainable during the filming or editing of this documentary?

The closet paranormal experience I had at Sand Creek was the first time I visited there. I was given a tour by a local rancher who had lived there for 38 years. When we drove through the cottonwoods and across Sand Creek (mostly a bog-like stream), I saw a huge male deer with a beautiful rack staring at us in the trees. We got out of the rancher’s truck at top of Dawson’s Bend where the memorial slab set there in 1950 still resides, like a sentinel overlooking the ill-fated Cheyenne and Arapaho village below.

The rancher said that this is where Lt. Silas Soule stood with his men and a 12-pound mountain canon (there were four 12-pound mountain canons at Sand Creek, this was the only time in Colorado history that canons were used in what some people call a battle, others, like myself, refer to Sand Creek as a massacre) looking out over the 500 Cheyenne and Arapaho lodges. He refused to “unlimber” his canon, the rancher said. The rancher pointed to his right, Chivington led some of the men from down there while Lt. Wilson attacked from the east up there. The rancher turned around and we faced south, southwest. He pointed and said that’s where the troops came from. To some Indian boys watching the ponies at the time, the line of troops looked like buffalo to them. He turned to the southeast and pointed, down there close to where his house was (it was about a mile or so away) is where the troops unloaded all of their equipment in preparation to make the attack.

I looked at each location. I studied each location. At that moment, I saw Colonel John M. Chivington, on a dark-colored horse, with his saber drawn, thrashing down this butte into Sand Creek leading a charge right into the heart of the Cheyenne and Arapaho village. I saw his flaming eyes, orbs of hatred and terror. It was at that point, I felt coldness penetrate my body. I shivered, I rubbed the back of my neck. It was rigid. I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to look anymore. I could hear gunshots, the thud of rifle butts colliding with human heads, sabers slashing through the air, people screaming, and I could smell globs gun powder.

Inside, my mind was racing, I wanted to do something. I wanted to help the people who were being killed. I felt guilty. I felt sad. I felt sorrow. I felt weak and horrified. I was afraid to open my eyes. Suddenly, I heard, “Don, Don…” The words echoed and hammered at me like an intrusion, something that was trying to mask the terror and horror that was being unveiled before me. Finally, I felt a hand on my shoulder. My eyes popped open. I almost ducked from what I thought was a rifle butt coming straight at my head.

I blinked. It was Pati Decesaro, a professional photographer, who had driven with me to Sand Creek that day, to take photos. She stroked my face. She said, “It’s all right, Don. I know how you feel.” I looked deeply into her eyes. The pain and sadness in them pointed me in the direction of her. I looked at the rancher. He was looking down at the ground, studying it like it was an archaeological find, but really, I saw the sadness there.

As the rancher drove us back to our car, he crossed Sand Creek again. I saw the buck deer again. Based on what I had learned on the butte overlooking Dawson’s Bend earlier, I knew the location where the buck deer was now reclining. It was the exact trail that Chivington had from where he had led to the charge. Another chill, this time. The rancher commented that it was unusual to see deer there. Pati said, “He’s the appointed guardian for the Indian people. That is why he is there. He wants to make sure they aren’t attacked again.”

Cheyenne Chief Laird Cometsevah, Chief of the Council of 44 Cheyenne Chiefs, which include former Colorado United States Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell, and a descendant of Sand Creek (his great grandfather survived Sand Creek, survived Washita, was arrested at Palo Duro, and imprisoned in Florida for three years as a criminal if you can imagine that) told me that the first time he came to Sand Creek in 1978, 114 years after the Sand Creek Massacre, he heard women screaming and children crying. He said he lit his pipe, sat down, and began praying. He said he knew that he had come to the right place.

A National Park Service person who has been helpful to the Cheyenne and Arapaho people and to me regarding the Sand Creek Massacre Documentary Film Project was driving me through the site one October afternoon. I was doing some taping (to note, I’ve been the Sand Creek Massacre Site at least ten times, maybe more, but I always have same feeling, “tread carefully, tread with respect, tread with gratitude, take each step as though you were walking on ice that was about to break any second) It was quiet, peaceful and calm. However, each time I have been at the site, I have always experienced a foreboding feeling. I feel chilled. I feel that I should not step on the ground (bodies of many of the Cheyenne and Arapaho people who were murdered there were left to rot on the bare ground). I look at the Tamarisk, the Canadian thistle, the blue sage, the cottonwood trees there, and I believe, that they were nourished and grew to the sizes they are because of the dead Cheyenne and Arapaho people there. I don’t want to step on the plants because of this reason. I asked the Park Service woman if she ever had any paranormal experiences there. She said no, “…but I never come out here at night.” I asked her why. She said, “I’m not sure.”

Today, I am somewhat fearful of visiting Washita (George Armstrong Custer and the United States Seventh Calvary attacked the Cheyenne people at the Washita River. Cheyenne Chief Black Kettle, who had survived Sand Creek along with his wife, who was shot nine times at Sand Creek, were killed), and the Little Big Horn in Montana. I’ve driven by both places, within a mile and a half from the highway, but I’ve drive by them each time. I have a fear of having similar experiences that I had at Sand Creek the first time I visited there, and a similar experience I had at Ground Zero in New York two weeks after 9/11. I sat on curb there. I smelled burning flesh. I heard screams. I craned my head up, up, and up and saw human beings coming down at me out of the sky. I saw the terror, the disbelief in their eyes. I tasted the rancid air. I felt the pain, the horror, the terror. I wanted to help the victims of 9/11. I want to help the victims at Sand Creek, at Washita, at Little Big Horn, but I cannot. They are gone and I am here.

When I stood up from the curb at Ground Zero, I noticed white ash covered the buildings, the parking lots, the cars, everything, even the curb on which I had been sitting. I saw the imprint of my butt on the curb. I looked at my butt. It had white ash on it. I brushed it off onto a piece of paper. I took a vitamin bottle out of my pocket, dumped out the vitamins, and poured the white ash into the vitamin bottle. When I looked up, I noticed a couple staring at me. Then, I went home to Centennial and buried the vitamin bottle in the back yard under a cherry tree.

5.) How can our readers catch a glimpse of this powerful documentary?

The documentary short is being periodically aired on DCTV Denver Community Television, Channels 58 and 59

A copy can be purchased at http://michaelc.nextmp.net/wordpress/DVD-VHS.htm or BuyIndies.com.

We understand you are seeking donations to assist the American Indian Genocide Museum, and to help you finish the educational version of the film for use in the Colorado and Texas public school systems. How can we help contribute to this good cause?

You can send a check to:

Steve Melendez
President
American Indian Genocide Museum

Cheryl Melendez
Executive Director
American Indian Genocide Museum

11013 FUGUA PMB #178
Houston, TX 77089-210
713-928-2440
www.aigenom.com
indmuseum@yahoo.com

You can also go to PayPal and send a donation to indmuseum@yahoo.com .

Be sure and note that your donation is for the Sand Creek Massacre Documentary Film Project.

6.) What are the next steps for both you and your film company?

Global Horizon Entertainment, Inc. has seven film and television projects in development. We are raising money to produce these projects. One of the first projects that we will put into production when money is raised is “Haunted World.” We shot a screener with your founder and editor, Kevin Sampron that television distributors found compelling. They want us to develop the screener into a television pilot with 13 episodes. Once that is accomplished, we are hopeful of getting distribution for it.

We want to thank you again Don for sharing all your thoughts, insights, and comments with the readers of Ghost Story Magazine. We look forward to talking with you again in the future.

Thank you very much for interviewing me. It was my pleasure. Keep up your good work and good luck with your launch!

The Staff
Ghost Story Magazine

You can find out more information about Don Vasicek and his creative film projects at the following two websites:

www.ghentertainment.com
www.donvasicek.com

December 22, 2012January 15, 2016

Raising Your Game (Screenwriting) To A Higher Level

RABBITEARSPASS — Award-Winning Writer/Filmmaker Donald L. Vasicek on Rabbit Ears Pass in Colorado

RAISING YOUR GAME TO A HIGHER LEVEL
by: Don Vasicek (credits: “Warriors of Virtue”, “The Crown”, “The Sand Creek Massacre”, “Faces”)

The first time I raised my game to a higher level in my screenwriting career scared the shit out of me.

As part of my networking scheme a few years ago, I went to the Sundance Producer’s Conference in Sundance, Utah. Even though I live in Colorado and the majestic Rockies are always visible from my window, Sundance was equally as beautiful. Three days and three nights there was more than anyone could wish for even though it’s damn safer here than in the wilds of networking in the film industry. Saddam Hussein, you never know who means what. It’s all subtextual, you know, like reading between the lines.

It was solid meetings, workshops, panels, screenings and parties. I met a multitude of people who work in independents and mainstream Hollywood folk. Many of them chaired workshops and led meetings. I learned a great deal about producing movies from some of the top people in the film industry.

Just like layering your scripts with subtextual material, the Sundance Producer’s Conference was also layered with subtextual material. Besides the business at hand, people showed an interest in meeting each other. And there were over 300 of them at the conference.

I focused my attention on mainstream Hollywood people. The reason for this is that I believed at the time and still do that in order to succeed in this business, I have to continue to move deeper into Hollywood even though my heart beats for the independents. We need each other if all of us are to succeed.

This movement, if it is that, is to meet and link up with as many people as possible. I want to get to know them and I want them to get to know me even though it causes me to sweat in the dead of winter and lose weight even though I stuffing myself with fat.

So, even though I am basically shy and quiet, I sucked it up and pushed myself into introducing myself to everyone. I knew this was it, I either did it, or I had to go back to sitting with dead bodies and writing (I still haven’t decided whether funeral homes or cemeteries are quieter. I do know both places are excellent places to write. Dead bodies don’t move, or make any noise or want anything. They just repose like logs in a forest. They recycle.)

I met several top Hollywood executives, but none from a major studio. I even helped one exec who presently is one of the power kings in Hollywood use the pickle fork at our buffet dinner (best way I know of to meet others since the suits and the peasants dine together with this arrangement). He was trying to stab these small sweet pickles with his dinner fork to put on his plate, and they keep hopping away, and a couple of times, jumped to the floor.

I said (my heart beating wildly), gawking at his name tag, “Here, Skeezix, use this pickle fork.” He looked up at me (he has eyebrows looked like Groucho Marx’s, you know, big, dark and bushy). He took the fork and successfully stabbed about a dozen and put them on his plate.

He said, “Thanks, my name is Skeezix.” He held out his hand to shake. His plate tipped and a couple of pickles rolled off his plate and plunked on the floor.

I said, “Yes, I know, I saw it on your name tag.” He glanced at mine. It was amazing how fast his eyes moved.

“Don Vahsicheck?”

“No, Don Vasicek. Nice to meet you, Skeezix.”

“I don’t know why they make these damn pickles so small.”

“You don’t suppose whoever makes them is a small person?”

He looked at me; puzzled. I thought, oh, shit, he took me wrong, no sense of humor, and no writer’s imagination either. “I’ve always been impressed with your movies, Skeezix,” I said in an attempt to divert him.

“I don’t blame you, even if I have to say so for myself. What films have you produced?”

“Well, actually, I’m a writer/filmmaker. I just finished writing, directing and producing “Faces.”

The rest of the pickles tumbled to the floor like minature logs rolling down a hill. Both of us watched them fall. It was like slow motion. We scrambled and picked them up.

“I have some projects that just might fit you.” I handed him my business card.

He looked at the pickles in the palm of his hand, then at the card. “Wasn’t “Faces” a John Cassavettes film?”

I slipped the card in his shirt pocket (another daring move and my heart told me so as it leaped into my throat). “I’m sure he’d embrace my “Faces”, Skeezix. I’ll be in touch.” I took off like a comet.

Well, life went on after that in spite of the pickles and the fact that I had overlooked Mr. Cassavettes’ “Faces” when I titled my film in addition that my 100% white cotton banded collar shirt was stuck to me like a wet towel. However, I was relieved. I had interacted with a big boy and had gotten away with it.

I even mixed with Samuel Goldwyn, Paramount, New Line Cinema, Miramax, October Films, Good Machine, Killer Films, 20th Century Fox, Polygram, Universal, and banking and investmenet people at a party the next night. I approached others always trying to find them alone so I could give them my best shot, and the most successful way I did that was to talk with them about their interests before I plugged my interests in. I learned that these people were people, just like I was a person.

A couple of weeks after the conference, I sent Skeezix a letter and pitched him several scripts of mine. I never heard back from him.

Time passed. I kept him updated with holiday greetings and blurbs on what I had accomplished in each past year. He moved on from the company he was with to a major studio and become a co-president of a newly created division. I sent him a congratulatory letter and a jar of Cosmic dill pickles.

The next holiday season I sent him my usual holiday greeting with the usual blurb on what I had accomplished during the past year. A couple of weeks later, his assistant, Archie, called me and asked to see a script I had mentioned in the holiday greeting. This was the first time I had heard back from him even though it was indirectly.

Bear in mind this was right in the middle of the holiday season. And nobody, particularly studio executives, do any business from November until the third week in January. I think they ride ballons over the Serengeti or something like that even though I know for a fact some of them go to the Hamptons. I told Archie that I was right in the middle of a rewrite on it and would get it to them as soon as I finished it. Archie asked me how long that would be, that he had to give Skeezix a timeline.

I swallowed. My throat was very dry and my water bottle was in another part of the house, about a thousand miles away. “About a month,” I said dryly (literally). I was damned if I was going to send Skeezix or Archie or anyone else any other copy of the script. What in the hell was I rewriting it for?

Archie said matter-of-factly that would be fine. I bet to myself at the time he was snacking on Palmetto caramels and washing them down with cola.

I hustled after that, but not really. You know, it was like, okay, so Skeezix wants to see my script. He had Archie call me. So, I thought, let them wait. Why in the hell should I cancel my vacation plans?

My wife and I travelled to Ecuador and rode in a truck. The Chevrolet logo was on the odometer, but the steering wheel had the Ford logo, (go figure) over a mountain pass returning from the Cloud Forest with Hector. I taught Hector how to say cow in English. He taught me how to say tree in Spanish although I already knew that and I’ll bet he already knew how to say cow in English.

I gave him some Cliff bars for a tip since he was thin. He laughed and told me about how he and his brothers get drunk every Saturday night as he rounded a precipitous and precarious curve on a dirt road about 10,000 feet up. He pounded and pounded on the horn. As we rounded the curve, a bus made in the 1950’s full of people, chickens, pigs and dogs and that included on top, the sides and the hood of the bus as well as inside of the bus, stopped. It backed up until it found a small place off the road so that we could get by. When we drove by, several people spit at us.

I did finish the script even though no one told me to wear long pants in the Cloud Forest. I counted 43 mosquito bites on my legs and had to scratch and write and write and scratch. And it didn’t help any when I went to bed at night. We had a wool blanket, compliments of the cool nights.

I got the script off to Veronica, Skeezix’s story editor. About eight days later, Archie called me.

He told me that Veronica thought the story was a good story and it was a fine read. He said it wasn’t quite right for them, that they’re passing on it. I asked him why. He said they had trouble with a couple of the subplots. I asked him what it would take to bring the script back to them. He said, “attachments, strong attachments.” I said okay, give my best to Skeezix and Veronica, and I’ll be back.

So, I had my agent call Skeezix. He pushed her off onto Archie. Archie told her to bring back strong attachments and they’ll talk. So, we’re still working on that even though I had gotten rid of the mosquito bites by then. And the more I expose the script to others, the more I hear about how much they like it and they aren’t giving me any shit about my wanting to direct the movie.

Well, suffice to say, I did write a couple of dozen more scripts. I worked on another major studio picture as a writer/consultant and sold another screenplay which was produced. And I still send Skeezix updates on what I am doing along with Archie and Veronica. And I just heard that Skeezix was made president of one of the major studios. My, my and I taught him how to use a pickle fork.

The fine point of all this is that raising your game to a higher level gets you places even if it scares the shit out of you, but you’re the one who has to do it. See, Michael Jordan.