Notes From The Whiskey

THE PITCH: Purple Rain meets Crazy Heart

NOTES FROM THE WHISKEY is a character-driven serialized drama that follows the rise and fall (and rise again) of Max Walker, lead singer of the rock and roll band, “Riddle.” 

Our series opens years earlier on the Sunset Strip, where Max and his band experience a life-altering event, brought upon by their devious manager. Max falls into a catatonic state and is institutionalized.  Years later, still in the institution, Max happens to hear a song he wrote in the past on a television commercial. The sound of his music pulls him out of his catatonic state, and he is abruptly released into the City of Angels.

Max, now lucid, quickly discovers how radically the world around him has changed. His band has dispersed. Many of the locals he once knew have moved on. Hollywood has dramatically evolved, and the recording industry has been transformed.

In Season One, Max picks up the pieces of his life and begins to come to terms with his staggering loss. The heart-breaking news that Amy, the love of his life was killed, is particularly hard to come to terms with. She was not only the love of his life, but also his muse, and the foundation he was building his entire future around.

Little by little, Max rebuilds his band and navigates the confusing world of Hollywood. On his journey to understand what happened to him that fateful night, Max forms new friendships, lets go of old ones, and unexpectedly finds love. Ultimately, his painful search for meaning in his life becomes the inspiration for his long-awaited first album -- destined to be both his debut and comeback.

WGA-WEST REGISTERED #2207328

Churchill Lane

THE PITCH: Bookie Nights meets Entourage

THE SYNOPSIS: Yaron is your typical teenager, in your typical suburban town, with a typical circle of close friends who has a “girl-next-door” girlfriend he’s been dating for over a year. Nothing is unusual about Yaron’s life. Until one night when a renowned plastic surgeon hits him in a head on collision. Yaron goes through the windshield of his Toyota Prius, doing catastrophic damage to his face.

 Distraught and over-whelmed with guilt, Dr. Frank puts all of his energy and talent to work to make Yaron look as good as new. In fact, better than new. Yaron recovers and emerges from reconstructive surgery with a look that we could find on the cover of GQ, on a heart-throb movie poster, or in a commercial for a luxury brand. And that’s exactly what happens.

 The ordinary young man now with super-model looks suddenly finds himself plucked from obscurity and into the bright hot spotlight of fame, fortune, and unimaginable wealth. At first the ride is glorious, and his friends and girlfriend are more than happy to come along. That is until Yaron gets pulled further and further from his small-town values and more and more into the shallow abyss of fame and debauchery. Then, all hell breaks loose.

WGA-WEST REGISTERED ##671808

The Death of Feziwig Zero

THE PITCH: The Talented Mr. Ripley meets Wall Street

THE SYNOPSIS: Following the death of his young wife twenty years earlier, Feziwig has lived a secluded and lonely life for decades as an anonymous best-selling author. Feziwig is a tortured soul, but with an unusual skill. In his quest to understand “character” Feziwig has spent years being the ultimate voyeur – and has become the master at understanding what makes people tick, their motives, their needs and their weaknesses.

 In what would be invisible nuances, glances and unconnected dots to the rest of the world, Feziwig is able to deduce insights into the world around him, all the while going virtually unnoticed.

 Our film begins with Feziwig Zero moving from one menial job (working at a small family farm where he was doing research for his novel “Life Harvest”) to taking a position in the mailroom of a major New York Hedge Fund where he is hoping to find inspiration for his next best-seller.

 Things take a dramatic turn when Feziwig is the only one at the firm to realize that the accidental death of one of the partners was actually a brutal murder over a secret billion dollar fraud scheme.

WGA-WEST REGISTERED #2201288

A Tribute To Emily

THE PITCH: The Great Gatsby meets Remains of the Day

THE SYNOPSIS: It’s the late 1950’s and Emily White is a beautiful and spoiled teenager on her way to spend the summer with her family at their ocean-side mansion on Cape Cod. Atticus Chase is a poor art student on his way to Cape Cod to do a series of paintings for his portfolio in hopes to become an illustrator like his heroes, N.C. Wyeth and Maxfield Parish. When their bus breaks down and the two find themselves on a weekend journey to get to Cape Cod, they strike up an unexpected friendship and form an inconvenient bond, given their wildly different backgrounds and social status.  

 Those few fleeting days are filled with beautiful moments, perfect sunsets, and youthful innocense. But their magical encounter ends almost as quickly as it started and the two never see each other again.

 Until present day. When an old wealthy woman who has lived an unexpectedly hard life finds herself at the steps of The Museum of Modern Art to see the incredible series of paintings that has taken the New York art world by storm. Titled, “A Tribute To Emily,” the series of over a hundred canvases that line the walls from one gallery room to the next, tell the story of their magical weekend painted from memory over decades by Atticus Chase.

Emily walks into the first gallery room and slips on her headphones to hear the story of the artist and the paintings and is quickly taken back to that magical long-lost weekend. Our story is told in flashback, weaving between the paintings she is viewing in present day and the memories they trigger that she shared with Atticus decades earlier. The painting show ends with the touching moment of their goodbye so long ago. But unbeknownst to Emily, Atticus is also at the gallery and greets her at the end, not quite ready to say goodbye for good.

WGA-WEST REGISTERED #2201292