Local filmmaker Joe Scott wants to put Dallas music in the movies. No, really.
"I want people to be able to see all these great Dallas bands and, for that matter, venues up on the big screen all over the country," he says.
He's committed to it, too: About this time last year, Scott, who, in 2004, released a film called Ocean Front Property to the indie film circuit and even garnered some awards, finished up the script on a movie he's calling The Debut. And the premise for the script centers all around the Dallas music scene...
Recently, Scott's been making some waves with the idea, raising over $6,000 to get his movie idea in line legally, thanks to a successful month-and-a-half-long campaign on Kickstarter.The story centers around a guy named Charlie, whose best friend Tom is about to play his first big show with his band, Love in Vain, and Charlie plans to use the event to propose to his girlfriend, Heather. But his big night begins falling apart when he and Heather have an epic fight over her ex, a guy named Mace who she has remained friends with but Charlie can't stand, and whom Heather has invited to the show tonight. And to make things even worse, Tom goes missing and nobody can find him.
Now, Charlie finds himself in a search party of three, including his nemesis, Mace, and Jackie, Tom's lesbian manager. What follows is a series of wrong turns and misadventures as they scour the bars and clubs of Dallas, including stolen police cars, biker gangs, roller derby girls, rogue community activists, a mob of angry hipsters, a club fire, a famous media mogul, a maniacal tow truck driver, and several live band performances as they piece together the clues to find their friend and get him to the show on time. And in the process, discover some essential truths about themselves.
It's all part of an attempt, Scott says, to produce a movie that he says will be a sort of "The Hangover-meets-Singles" ode to the Dallas music scene -- something that Scott, who works as an ad copywriter at the Morning News and admits that he doesn't get out much, was inspired to do upon witnessing a number of local bands when volunteering at Quick's (now-defunct?) Big Thing awards a few years ago.
The idea, he continues, is to present the local music scene to the world by showing people "a vision of Dallas that no one has seen before" and one that "people in Baltimore or New Orleans can watch and say, 'Whoa, that was Dallas?'"
It's early in the process -- no actors have yet signed on, and only a few Dallas-area bands have yet been committed to appearing in the project -- but Scott plans to keep moving forward with his idea, in hopes of a) making another film, and b) getting the Dallas music community some shine.
People interested in contributing to his cause are encouraged to visit The Debut's campaign on Kickstarter competitor IndieGoGo, where he's raising funds for "signing bands and artwork to bring on personnel and attract investors to cover the rest of the budget."
