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)?

1. In Act 1 we should be introduced to the main characters and learn what the problem of the story is.
2. 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.
3. 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.