This is a concept that’s been bouncing around in my head for a few months, ever since an old discussion we had concerning the sometimes obtrusive use of rock songs in movie soundtracks. The degree of difficulty is high, but I have faith in us. What if a movie was composed solely around a soundtrack selected by members of Rock Town Hall?
Perhaps some movies have been developed on the bare bones of a soundtrack, such as that Beatles-based movie from a couple of years ago, Across the Universe, which I still haven’t had the nerve to see. But that’s just a movie pieced together around a soundtrack from a single band. Similarly, that old Ralph Bakshi animated turd, Heavy Metal, may have been developed according to as suspect a plan as I propose, but that was an animated film. I think we could put together a cinematic masterpiece (or disaster, if that’s what the job calls for) by using a rock soundtrack to construct the guts of a film.
Can we work together to develop the feature-length film Soundtrack: The Movie, using a 3-act structure, as described here, by the legendary and recently deceased television screenwriter and producer Stephen J. Cannell (The Rockford Files, 21 Jump Street, Silk Stalkings, The Commish)?
- In Act 1 we should be introduced to the main characters and learn what the problem of the story is.
- In Act 2 we introduce the complication, that point in the plot that makes the problem even trickier than expected. By the end of Act 2 the protagonist should be nearly defeated in his or her plight.
- In Act 3 the protagonist rises from the ashes and achieves a resolution, or what you may be more familiar with as The Healing, in Rock Town Hall terms.
Think about this. See if we can’t piece together a coherent film that is told almost entirely through a rock soundtrack.
