Each week, the Shreveport-Bossier Journal’s Tony Taglavore takes to lunch a local person – someone who is well-known, successful, and/or influential, and asks, “What’s Your Story?”
By TONY TAGLAVORE, Journal Services
Back around 2010, it seemed like every town – big and small – had a film festival.
Every town except Shreveport.
What was then the Shreveport-Bossier Convention and Tourist Bureau wanted in on the action. For guidance, the organization met with a man who grew up in Shreveport, moved away, and was now back. He was a filmmaker, getting national praise for his documentary on the Haynesville Shale.
“I literally said, ‘I think your idea about having a Shreveport international film festival is a terrible idea,’” he told the group, sticking a needle in their enthusiasm-filled balloon.
“I shouldn’t have said what I said, honestly,” he remembers. “But I did.”
In the room, you could have heard a pin drop.
“When I got total silence, I was like, ‘Well, let me think about this and see what it could be.’”
But first, there was a moment of self-reflection.
“I was like, ‘Holy Shi*, what did I just do?’”
Weeks later, the man was again in front of the people he had disappointed.
“I went back and said, ‘I’ve got the idea – a short-film competition. We’re going to make it so that the only way you can qualify is that you have to make the film here in Shreveport or Bossier . . . . The cool thing is, we are going to do judging in a way it’s never been done before. We’re going to bring in film industry professionals and they will do half the judging. We are going to let the audience do the other half.’”
Then, he described the climactic scene.
“Only one winner is going to get $50,000 cash.”
Applause filled the room. The excitement was back. But there was one problem, which the man kept to himself.
“I swear, the first thought in my mind was, ‘Where am I going to get $50,000?’ I had no money, and I had not raised money for this. They were like, ‘Oh great!’ I was like, ‘Oh my God, what have I done?’”
Gregory Kallenberg, Executive Director and Founder of Prize Foundation, told me that story, and his story, during lunch at a place he chose, Ki Mexico. Gregory had a Poblano taco, rice and beans, and Hibiscus Tea. I enjoyed the House Salad with grilled chicken, and water with lemon to drink.
What Gregory, the 58-year-old who was born in New York City, has done is build the Prize Foundation into a nationally respected entertainment entity. The Foundation’s yearly event, Prize Fest, is October 16th-19th. Filmmakers will compete for that $50,000 cash prize. But Prize Fest is more than movies. It’s food, music, and comedy competitions.
“The organization that’s been built with the Prize Foundation, and the people who work there, come in every day believing they are contributing to shining a brighter spotlight on the community. That’s what it’s all about.”
For as long as Gregory can remember, he has had an affinity for the big screen.
“I wanted to be a filmmaker from when I was born. I just loved movies . . . . When I was a kid, I had a video recorder, and I would get my friends and make movies in the neighborhood. There was always a crisis that, when it ended, there was another crisis, so it was a never-ending sequel of action movies.”
Gregory’s family moved to Shreveport when he was three or four years old. After attending Southfield School from kindergarten through high school, Gregory, the oldest of three children, went to the University of Texas. He studied radio, television, and film.
“To say I studied at UT is a tiny bit of an understatement.”
Then it was on to the University of Southern California, to learn more about filmmaking. After graduation, Gregory stayed in Los Angeles for a couple of years.
“I always like to say I was there for two earthquakes and a riot.”
After working as a production assistant and producer’s assistant, Gregory, for personal reasons, moved to Dallas. That’s where he found a new love – writing. Gregory helped start a weekly Arts & Entertainment publication, and freelanced for the New York Times.
“I was a full-on journalist.”
That occupation led Gregory and his wife, Heidi, to Austin, where Gregory wrote about Tech and Culture for the Austin American-Statesman newspaper.
“She was a schoolteacher. I was a writer. We were dirt poor. Dirt poor . . . . It was hot as shi*. We moved down there in the summer. We literally moved into a house a guy was working on. So, the deal with the guy was that he could come in anytime. Now, we’re married, it’s the beginning of our marriage, and imagine this: a guy with a key could walk in any time he wants and start working on your shower. That’s the only way we could afford a house.”
Eventually, Gregory and Heidi’s bank account grew. During his 14 years in Texas’ capital, Gregory worked for a tech start-up, and in real estate development. But he still had a longing for filmmaking. In particular, Documentaries.
On a visit to Shreveport where his parents still lived, Gregory had a life-changing lunch.
“I was at Strawn’s and heard two farmers talking about crawling under a wire and checking a pressure gauge or something. My dad was in oil and gas and knew nothing about it. No one really knew what was going on.”
Except the people in DeSoto Parish, who “bought their land for $40 an acre, and all of the sudden were offered $500 an acre. That’s what you heard.”
Gregory grabbed some video equipment, drove to the newfound fertile area for natural gas, and asked people if what “you heard” was true. It was, and his award-winning documentary, Haynesville, was born.
“Honestly, it was me and a tripod. I barely knew how to use a camera. I definitely didn’t level my tripod like I should. Lighting was a challenge for me, but I did it.”
Gregory eventually had help from others. After 16 months of production, Gregory sold the documentary to NBC Universal Media. It aired on CNBC.
“We all made money. We all made money off our investments, which for a film unto itself is a minor miracle . . . . Everyone got back a check, and I’m very proud of that.”
Gregory is also very proud of what the Prize Foundation has become.
“I wanted to find a reason for my cool friends to visit me in Shreveport, because they never came to Shreveport. The other reason was that I deeply desired to help build a city that enabled my kids to consider Shreveport as a place to move back. In the same way my kids and my friends’ kids all wanted to be in Austin – a lot of my friends there, their kids had moved back – I wanted to help build a city that would enable my children to want to do the same.”
As our conversation neared the end, there was still one loose end to tie up. Where did Gregory get that $50,000 to give the first Flim Prize winner?
“Embarrassingly, I took the prize money out of my kids’ college fund. Thank God they’re smart. They got scholarships.”
With all Gregory has going on – he still makes documentaries – I thought it was time to ask my final question. As always, what is it about his life story that might be helpful to you? Gregory offered two pieces of advice.
“Embrace and learn from failure. I’ve failed a lot. Like, all capital FAILED a lot . . . . Prize Fest is a series of attempts, failures, and successes. Those things grow and the failures go away.”
“Be nice to everybody. I say this from the perspective of somebody who wasn’t always the nice person. I was a smart ass. I was, by my own definition, hard to be around. I remember what that was like, compared to being nice and trying to help everyone as much as I can.”
Like successfully helping execute an idea he once thought was “terrible.”
Do you know someone with a story? Email SBJTonyT@gmail.com.
The Journal’s weekly “What’s Your Story?” series is sponsored by Morris & Dewett Injury Lawyers.