FEATURE: "Grace Unplugged" from Coram Deo Studios

Brandon Rice

Brandon Rice

Distributed Producer
Grace Campbell is the ideal American teen who is also phenomenal singer/songwriter. But at the tender age of eighteen, after she gets the music break of a lifetime and is thrust into the "real world" - her faith is put to the test.


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The next film we are working on at Coram Deo Studios.

We are currently in the writing phase on this film. I wrote the initial story and script back in 2008.

I will update with info/tidbits as we go. We are going to begin the marketing campaign on this a lot earlier as well. We're shooting for a limited theatrical release, sometime in 2012.
 
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PRODUCTION DIARY

6/28/2011
Started designing a BTS blog for the film. I'll keep updates here as well, but mostly on the blog. http://www.graceunplugged.com/blog

6/27/2011
We have begun accepting submissions for casting through our website http://www.graceunplugged.com and also through LA Casting. Hundreds of submissions poured in over the last few days and we've been narrowing down to search as we look through everything.

6/17/2011
After months of revising and working on the script, Brad has finished draft 6. The script is extremely tight, at around 100 pages (down from over 120 at the beginning). It has gotten better and more rich with each draft. We are about ready to start casting and the major heavy lifting of pre-production.

6/14/2011
We have launched our official website and begun a nationwide casting search for the lead role of Grace Trey! http://www.graceunplugged.com. Still looking to shoot sometime in the Fall.

4/20/2011
What a roller-coaster ride this has been. The story itself has taken nearly a dozen different shapes, and we've finally got a draft everyone is happy with structurally. We are now hard at work to begin making the scenes richer, and more realistic, which is the fun part. We are still hopeful to shoot this summer, but casting will be a big job on this one, as currently we have over 20 speaking roles.

8/4/2010
We have the story pretty well hashed out and structured. It is the same core story that I wrote two years ago, but some great plot points, characters, and twists have been added to get us to the conclusion! I can't wait to get the first draft of the script out, and subsequent drafts as we polish it up. Things on the business side are coming along very well, and hopefully I'll be able to say more soon!

6/24/2010
Today Russ and Brad met with a very large Christian music company to talk about Grace Unplugged. I can't give out any details, but it's pretty huge.

6/18/2010
Brad and I have been working hard on the story synopsis for the film. We are trying to write a very detailed complete synopsis and write the script from there. Russ (Executive Producer) has also been giving his input on some of the general details of the story.

5/27/2010
As we embark on this new story, and begin writing the screenplay, we have completely restructured the original story. Recently Brad and I had the privilege of sitting in on a short story workshop from Stan Williams. We have been working on using a lot of his theories in constructing this story. I highly recommend his book "The Moral Premise" and reading through his blog as well http://moralpremise.blogspot.com/.

5/27/2010
One of the MOST important things in releasing a successful film is marketing. We have already begun SOME marketing, and will be ramping up as we head into production later this year. We have marketed NO GREATER LOVE heavily through Facebook, and have about 15,000 fans on our page. We have recently started a page for GRACE but haven't yet promoted it widely. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Grace-Unplugged/117497471610463
 
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Now this sounds like a great idea for a flick! I just hope it's not one of those films where she has to give up her dreams to be a good little Christian and sing in Church and be poor because that what God wants. I get so sick of platitude BS where there's no in between point. The person either has to decide to have a career or be Christian, versus being a Christian who just happens to be a singer/actor/filmmaker etc. I think you know where I'm coming from.

-Nate
 
Looks promising; glad you guys are already working on another feature. One suggestion, that has to do with something you posted on Facebook a little while back (that had to do with your attempts to not alienate non-Christians).

I think your logline/summary's use of "ideal Christian teen" would immediately turn away non-Christians, because it contains the proposition that the best way to be is a non-conflicted Christian. So since the non-Christian knows the filmmakers already believe that, they might reject the film as a whole before giving it a chance.

I wouldn't have commented had you not expressed the desire to reach non-Christians. Just trying to help.
 
I get where Drew is coming from. Knowing your work I just thought, "Oh, okay Christian flick. Cool story.", but if it's aimed at getting some secular play then I would also consider removing "Christian" from any story element the public may see. This was kind of the idea behind "Hollywood Backlots" when I was going to make that a few years ago. Although my Christian character was kinda shady, he was generally a good guy whose faith would be tested based on what Hollywood wanted versus what he believed. I will say in the logline or story I never said that he was Christian only that there would be a chance of him "selling out". We do find out he is Christian in the script though.

-Nate
 
Brandon Rice wrote: Grace Campbell is the ideal Christian teen who is also phenomenal singer/songwriter. But at the tender age of eighteen, after she gets the music break of a lifetime and is thrust into the "real world" - her faith is put to the test.
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It will be a pleasure following this thread, as it fits the guidelines of how to start a thread and also how to do another Christian Genre movie.

I will pray for your success in achieving your goals with this movie. I love rock-n-roll movies. In fact, THE RED QUEEN is a felliniesque rock-n-roll musical itself.

I've never seen a Christian Genre movie based on a rock-n-roll theme. This will be interesting, because it's not felliniesque and probably won't be a musical either. That's what's so exciting about different people making movies about the same subject; each one makes it their own way.
 
Drew Ott said:
Looks promising; glad you guys are already working on another feature. One suggestion, that has to do with something you posted on Facebook a little while back (that had to do with your attempts to not alienate non-Christians).

I think your logline/summary's use of "ideal Christian teen" would immediately turn away non-Christians, because it contains the proposition that the best way to be is a non-conflicted Christian. So since the non-Christian knows the filmmakers already believe that, they might reject the film as a whole before giving it a chance.

I wouldn't have commented had you not expressed the desire to reach non-Christians. Just trying to help.
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Great comment! This is obviously not our final synopsis but I have made a slight edit you may want to check out.
 
Hey all, it has been FOREVER since I've updated this thread, but hopefully that won't be the case much longer.

We are in the final stages of writing, and this has been a beast of a story! I'll keep more updates coming in the coming weeks as we launch our website, and talent search for casting. Some exciting things hopefully coming soon!
 
You should check out Nicole Serrano. She is in MN and unbelievably talented. She may be abit older then you want, but could pull off younger (they do it in Hollywood all the time).
 
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