HOLLYWOOD TOWN - The Harriet Schock Story
I was enjoying songwriter/recording artist Harriet Schock in live performance a few weeks ago and noticing the impact it was having on me. Her songwriting expresses such personal truth that I sensed I was in the presence of an open spirit, a soul, who was letting us partake of her innermost thoughts and feelings. It was extremely moving and I thought that the world should be experiencing this and not just the audience in this small cabaret.
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Harriet Schock is renowned in the music industry for decades of creativity--songs, albums, film scores, film appearances, live performances, creative collaborations. But there's a generation of music lovers who might not know who she is. They're missing out on the whole experience. How can this be remedied on a grand scale?
Being a professional Film/Video Producer and Screenwriter, it was obvious to me that a film had to be made that would capture the full essence of Harriet Schock and her work and release it in a form that has no bounds in terms of reaching a worldwide public.
If you don't know the work of Harriet Schock, let me refer you to what is considered by many to be the most romantic love song of all time, First Time on a Ferris Wheel. Co-written by Harriet Schock and Misha Segal, here is the Carl Anderson hit recording of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7DQ6ZGwTg4
Highly recommended that you give a listen.
And there is the Grammy-nominated number one hit, Ain't No Way To Treat A Lady, written and recorded by Harriet on her Hollywood Town album and famously covered by Helen Reddy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQ1SSxmuFLg (Helen Reddy recording)
INITIAL FUNDING
The reason we're here on Indiegogo is to raise $13,500 in initial funding from fans and friends of Harriet and music lovers everywhere. This is to begin major photography. We start with a documentary approach but the film ends up being quite innovative and unique. It WON'T be a typical documentary.
THE PROCESS
The film will be funded and produced in three phases:
Phase 1 will cover filming Extensive Interviews with Harriet and some key people associated with her life, her music and her career. We will also film the recording of a new album by Harriet and her band.
Select footage from these initial interviews and recording sessions will be edited into a "trailer," showing the quality and effectiveness of what we're doing. This will then be used for a second campaign to fund Phase 2, the Completion of Major Photography
With the success of Phase 2 funding and the Completion of Major Photography, we will then embark on a third campaign to fund Phase 3, which is the Post-production Phase, involving editing, sound mixing and all of the final steps to finish the film.
During the Post-Production Phase, we will already be planning our Festival Roll-Out, which will get the film and its quality known far and wide, so that it can be effectively distributed.
A fourth and final campaign will be embarked upon to fund this Festival Roll-Out. But that is down the line. Right now it's about funding Phase 1 and getting a start on the interviews which comprise the core of this production.
CAMPAIGN GOAL
The funding goal of this campaign to begin Phase 1 is $13,500. That covers planning, set-ups, direction, crew and equipment for 4-5 days of professional-quality production, followed by approximately 10 days of footage management/colorization, interview transcribing, cataloging and editing of the quality-demonstration “trailer” for use in the next funding campaign.
We are determined to succeed in this campaign and so we are proceeding on an all-or-nothing, fixed funding basis, which means, if we fail to reach our goal, all contributions are returned to our backers.
BACKER PERKS
We have designed perks that will have great value to friends and fans of Harriet, as well as the music-loving public who are just now being introduced to her work.
The Impact
Art and aesthetics are as important to a culture as food and water, the difference being that food and water are nourishment for a body and art and aesthetics provide nourishment for the living spirit or soul. Music lovers understand this.
We hear music all the time, of one kind or another. Sometimes it serves as background to whatever we're doing. Other times it grabs us and moves us into another universe where our innermost being is affected and, in some instances, our lives are changed by the experience. (Scroll to the bottom of Harriet's website Collaborations page to read an extraordinary example of two lives being changed by one of her songs: https://harrietschock.com/collaboration/)
Harriet Schock's music is known to profoundly affect listeners and it has been doing so since the release of her first album Hollywood Town in 1974. She has not stopped writing, performing and recording since then, with a total of seven albums, numerous songs and scores for TV & film and countless live performances. Her reach into the hearts of audiences is enormous but now there is a generation who might have missed the joy and inspiration she brings to her fans.
The mission of this film project is to capture the essence of Harriet Schock and her music. We will be delving deep into the episodes and people in her life that inspire her creations. We will reveal songwriting techniques that help other artists achieve their dreams. And this movie will provide an almost unheard of emotional impact to music-loving audiences everywhere.
Producer/Director
Tom Solari - Award Winning Screenwriter, Documentary Filmmaker, Marketing Video Producer.
Screenwriter & Co-Producer of In Search of Liberty, entertaining feature-length movie on the subject of the U.S. Constitution and Winner of Jury Award for Best Screenplay Feature Film - 2018, Hoboken International Film Festival.
Producer/Director of countless, effective Marketing Videos for Business, Industry, Education and the Arts.
Producer/Director of award-winning Film Documentary, The Measure of America.
Risks & Challenges
Anyone familiar with the film industry knows how difficult it is to successfully fund and produce a movie, documentary or otherwise. As far as this project is concerned, the main hurdle to overcome is the fundraising.
Once the funding is there, sufficient to do a professional job, Tom Solari never fails to deliver what is promised. And to back that up, he can demonstrate a lifetime of experience successfully producing and directing every kind of production, from Film to Video to Live Shows and Events.
Still, the making of a film is a major undertaking and there is no guarantee that the initial funding will be raised. On an all-or-nothing, Fixed Funding basis, if the goal is not reached, the money is returned in full to the backers, which eliminates the risk of partial funding resulting in less than a full result.
Once this campaign goal is achieved, we are assured that the work will be done to capture a large portion of the Harriet Schock story and the "trailer" will be produced to demonstrate the quality and worthiness of the production, thus setting the stage for the second round of funding for the Completion of Major Photography.
With the Major Photography complete, there will be ample material available to make a powerful visual case for funding the Post-Production Phase and completing the movie.
A major risk of any film production is that, once made, it might not achieve profitable distribution. Since this film is being financed by a crowd funding model, the understanding is that the backers are not doing it with a profit motive, but rather to see a worthwhile artistic project produced that has the potential to inspire and enlighten audiences with the sheer beauty of it.
Which brings us to one more point. Most documentaries follow a certain form and achieve a certain, well-known and expected result. It might tell someone's life story or cover a segment of history. Though Hollywood Town - The Harriet Schock Story will follow certain conventions in the collection of the material, the intention is to end up with an artistic breakthrough of a film.
It is completely unknown, at this juncture, what form this film will take to achieve that result. What is known is that Tom Solari, throughout his creative life, has, time and again, produced results that were way ahead of the time. Here are some examples.
In the very early 70s, Tom teamed up with Clark Carr and they performed a style of comedy that had never been seen before. It was so new and eye-catching that "Solari & Carr" were catapulted onto the major TV shows of the day, making regular appearances on The Andy Williams Show, The Ray Stevens Show and The Sonny & Cher Show, among others.
Later, when Tom and his wife, Cam, began a production business, their documentary-style marketing presentations were years ahead of the competition in style and effectiveness, resulting in commissions from large companies and institutions such as Toyota, McDonnell-Douglas, Carnation Company, Texaco, Jet Propulsion Lab and many more.
Again, being commissioned to write a screenplay on the subject of the U.S. Constitution, Tom succeeded in writing a dramatic and comedic movie that entertains while it effectively educates on this important subject. In all of time, education has never been done like this. And the proof of its effectiveness is the fact that Tom's script won the Jury Award for Best Screenplay Feature Film - 2018 at a major Film Festival. The film, In Search of Liberty, is in wide-scale release.
Which brings us back to the point - based on Tom Solari's proven record of being ahead of the creative curve, it is not an exaggeration to suggest that this film will have breakthrough characteristics to impact and delight audiences everywhere.
Other Ways You Can Help
Some people just can't contribute, but that doesn't mean they can't help:
- Help us get the word out and make some noise about our campaign.
- Forward our promotional emails and Share our Social Media posts as they happen.
- Let us know what ideas you might have to promote this.
