The Plain White T’s Story

The story.

You guys are a rock band with a great catalog, awesome live show, and hit songs, that not a lot of people know about. Hey There Delilah and 1,2,3,4 were hits that everyone knows but people don’t know a lot about you. This film would tell your story, using Delilah as a thread that ties things together. It’s about showing the success that song brought to you, but how it was really the hard work and years of grinding that made you the band you are today.

The film will open on the late night shows and Grammys and all that, then will transition to the start of the band. The VFW halls and church basements, writing songs not knowing if anyone would hear them, and putting it all on the line to follow the dream. The story will build through the history and then to the release of Delilah where we’ll reach the conflict of the story. What do you do after a major hit and how do you keep it going. Act three will follow that journey and leave the viewer feeling that as long as you’re doing what you love, that’s all that matters.

The viewer will walk away from the film knowing that it wasn’t a fluke that the Plain White T’s found success, it was years of hard work and dedication. And that after success, there’s uncertainty, but if you follow your dreams, things will work out.

Why me?

I’m sure you’re wondering why I feel suited to doing a film like this. And there’s a few reasons. First and foremost I love interesting stories and I think this has the possibility of being a classic music documentary. One that’s telling a human story through the band and song. It’s a story that needs to be told.

I come from a corporate video background where I specialize in “brand stories” and helping agencies and brands engage with their audience in an authentic way. That sort of work is fine and has given me a lot of successes and awards, but it’s not engaging for everyone. This is an opportunity for me to use the corporate work to fund a story that I think could be inspiring for musicians and creatives everywhere.

I’ve also got the time and equipment. I’ve built a very robust gear, computer, server set up through my corporate work and that can be put to use on a project like this to keep the costs low and create an amazing film. Oh, and I was around. I was at the church basements, Villa Park VFW, Metros. I even heard the tracking of Stop because I grew up in the house next door to Wes and Nate Kosakowski.

What does success look like.

So, hopefully you’re liking where this is going so far and you’re asking yourself “this is awesome, we’d love to do this, but what does success look like?” And that’s a fair question that I ask myself before any project I do. For me, success is telling an engaging story that people connect with and enjoy. It sounds simple enough, but I think there are a lot of musicians, creatives, crafters, whatever that see someone else’s success and it can inspire them to keep pursuing their dreams. I think this film can be that inspiration for a lot of people. For you guys, I would hope it would increase the spotlight on the music you have put out and will put out in the future and rejuvenate an interest in one of the best bands to come out of the Chicago Scene.

From a release or commercial standpoint. I would hope that the film could draw interest from a streaming platform. I think it’s a perfect fit for some festivals like SXSW, where a showing could be easily paired with a showcase. But we’re in the golden age of documentary film and I think there would be interest from a streaming platform. I have some contacts with agencies that can help with that placement and opening doors to have those sorts of meetings.

What I’d need from you.

Hopefully you’re on board so far, if you’re not, let me know. I’ve started some pre-production on this just to get a feel for where things might go, how many shoot days I’d anticipate, who I need help with on what. And what I’d need from you would be a few things. Most importantly, your blessing and willingness to participate in the film. Your participation meaning being on camera for interviews and helping identify the right people to talk to and helping to connect me with them. I know some of the people to talk to but would need to have your help with anyone I didn’t know and helping to connect me with the people we’d need.

The people.

There’s no story without the people. Here’s who I think would make a great starting point for interviews, but I’m open to anyone you might think we need to add…

• Tom Higgenson

• Tim Lopez

• Mike Retando

• De’Mar Hamilton

• Dave Tirio

• Steve Mast

• Ken Fletcher

• Tom’s parents

• James Van Osdel

• People from the scene…

  • Stubhy

  • Eric Vorel

  • Darren Vorel

  • Pete Wentz

• People from Fearless Records (round 1)

• People from Hollywood Records

• People from Fearless (round 2)

That’s a lot of words so far, here’s a brief video interlude to show you some of my work...

Challenges.

With any project there are potential challenges and it’s important to identify as many of those as we can up front so that we can plan for them. The biggest difference between me and other filmmakers is my experience and ability to adapt. I’ve done photo/video shoots in dozens of countries and cities around the world. I’ve worked on some of the biggest brands in the world and know what it takes to execute amazing content when challenges arise. Here are some of the challenges I foresee coming and how we might handle them…

• Scheduling - this is a big one because we want to talk to as many people as we can, the more people we can do in one day the better it is for everyone’s time and the overall project timeline. We’ll work to identify each person we know we want to talk to and their location so we can be as efficient as possible with time and costs.

• Getting the right people - not everyone is great on camera but we’ll have a breadth of people so that we’re sure we can tell the story in an effective way

• Music Licensing - this is a challenge in a few ways, first getting the appropriate releases and second in the cost aspect. We’ll have to be judicious about this so that we can use the music we need without spending a crazy amount of money

• Historical footage - hopefully you have an archive of sorts (even just a box of tapes) of historical content, but we’ll also put out a call through social media for content

• Cost - this is probably the biggest challenge in a self funded project like this and broken down in more depth below

Costs and how we’ll handle them

The hope is that we can find a streaming platform that would buy the film for distribution in the end and recoup the costs. If everyone is on board with moving forward, I’d offset my costs until that point and I’d front the money for the hard costs we’d encounter. This isn’t to say I expect any sort of funding from you guys, I just want you to be aware of the level of planning for costs we’ve thought of and that we take this project seriously and want to deliver a top tier film. I envision those costs being…

• Travel - We’ve gotta go to where the right people are, and that costs money. We’d be judicious with scheduling but still, it costs money.

• Assistant for the shoots - I can put off my costs, but I’d have to hire someone to help out on shoots. My hope would be I could find someone to give a small percentage of what we make from the film but otherwise it would be a daily rate

• My time - like I said above, this would be recouped upon release (hopefully)

• Hair & Makeup - everyone has to look good on camera

• Music Licensing - I’ve reached out to get some rough idea on costs. We will go with high end stock music for as much as we can, but we certainly will need some of the PWTS tracks.

• Color Correction - The film will need a color pass by a professional colorist.

• Audio Mix - Similar to color, this should be done by an expert.

• Legal - Nobody wants to get sued

• Marketing - We’ve gotta get the word out there.

• Miscellaneous - Festival fees, insurance, etc etc.

That’s a lot, so we’ll leave it there for now.

This is a lot of information. I’ve wanted to make this film for a long time and finally have a window in my corporate work to make it happen. I’m hoping you see how great a film this could be and are on board. I’d love to hop on a call with you and just chat about it. No commitments or anything yet, let’s just talk through what I’m thinking, your interest level and what success looks like for everyone.