Striking a Chord
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Images
Nell Bryden & her band perform for deployed troops in Iraq. Photo by Nara Garber.
Nell Bryden rocks out for US troops in Iraq. Photo by Nara Garber.
Deployed US troops listen to Bryden and her band. Photo by Nara Garber.
Nell Bryden & her band on location. Photo by Nara Garber.
Troops line up to talk with Nell Bryden & her band. Photo by Nara Garber.
Traveling to the next base. Photo by Nara Garber.
Website
http://strikingachordthemovie.com/
Topics
Arts & Culture: Country , Rock Music
Peace and Conflict: Arms & Military, Conflict
Project Geography
US: National
Budget
Raised to date: $12,695,439.00
Estimate to complete: $83,606.00
Total Estimated Budget: $12,779,045.00
The budget numbers above are accurate as of 08/13/2010
Status
Distribution
Media Type
Video
Project End Use
TV
Key Personnel
Susan Cohn Rockefeller
Director & Producer
Susan is a documentary filmmaker whose projects have won top prizes at many film festivals. Her most recent projects include Making the Crooked Straight, which debuted on HBO in April 2010, and co-producing the multi-award-winning film A Sea Change, the first feature-length documentary about ocean acidification.
Jackie French
Editor
Jackie has a gift for creating a compelling story, and combines a strong sense of narrative with a love of documentary filmmaking. She has been a highly regarded producer and editor for 20 years, bringing her unique visual style to many independent documentaries, as well as both scripted and verité TV. Her work has been seen on MTV, VH1, Oxygen, Lifetime, PBS, A&E, Nickelodeon, Style, and the Discovery Channel.
Nara Garber
Field Producer & Cinematographer
Nara has filmed stand-alone segments for NOW with Bill Moyers and award-winning projects of all genres, including The Quiet War, Drawing Angel, and After Roberto. She is co-director of Flat Daddy, a work-in-progess documentary about military families coping with deployment as combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan continue into a seventh year.
Outreach/Engagement Plan(s)
GOALS
We have four goals for Striking a Chord:
• Showcase the power of music to heal emotional wounds
• Increase civilian understanding of the soldier’s experience
• Support generous funding for Armed Forces Entertainment
• Help ensure public policy addresses troops’ and veterans’ mental well-being
OUTREACH STRATEGY
Audience
Striking a Chord’s core audience includes: United States Armed Forces, veterans and their families, mental health professionals, music enthusiasts, college students and fans of director Susan Cohn Rockefeller’s previous films.
The film’s core audience will be reached via traditional and social media. Traditional media will include film festivals, TV broadcast, micro-cinema and community screenings. A comprehensive social media plan will raise awareness about the film and ensure ongoing discussion about PTSD, stress, and the power of music.
Partnerships
We are developing partnerships with organizations and people that serve the film’s core audience, such as the National Center for PTSD, Military.com, Gift from Within, and Films that Support Our Troops.
A key partnership is already in place with the We Are Family Foundation (WAFF). Founded by music legend and co-writer of the well-known song “We Are Family” Nile Rodgers, WAFF is dedicated to the vision of a global family. WAFF creates and supports programs that inspire and educate the next generation about respect, understanding, and cultural diversity. WAFF is supporting outreach with a grant and is working closely with the outreach team to ensure the film is widely publicized through relevant music channels.
We have also begun working with the Center for American Military Music Opportunities (C*A*M*M*O). The overall objective of C*A*M*M*O is to build multiple “C*A*M*M*O Centers,” where military artists, writers and technicians live and work with their professional music industry counterparts, in major music cities, starting with Nashville, and eventually expanding to New York, Los Angeles, Austin and others. CAMMO is reaching out to local military and veteran musicans so that we can combine community screenings of Striking a Chord with live music.
Community Screenings & Other Collaborations
A database of veteran’s hospitals, mental health organizations and associations involved in various forms of soldier care and healing, is being compiled in order to partner with them at key moments for community screenings and other forms of collaboration.
Festivals, TV & Other Distribution
Film festival submissions will be focused on U.S. documentary festivals such as Hot Springs and San Francisco, as well as heartland and small independent film festivals. The film premiered at the Woods Hole Film Festival in August 2010 and makes its New York State premiere at the Hamptons International Film Festival in October. Other festivals scheduled: Southern Winds (Oklahoma); Global Peace (Florida); and Tallgrass (Kansas).
Striking a Chord will be offered to major public TV and cable channels, including Discovery, HBO and PBS’s POV and Independent Lens programming strands.
Educational distribution will be sought through well established companies such as Bullfrog Films. And, direct distribution to consumers will be engaged through the film's website, corporate and non-profit partnerships, and affiliate agreements.
Veterans Day Initiative
On and around Veteran’s Day, November 11, 2010, we are promoting screenings on major military bases and in towns close to them. Already in place are a screening close to Ft. Bragg in Colorado and two screenings in El Paso, Texas, one at Ft. Bliss and the other on the campus of the University of Texas. A live, webcast event will follow the screening at one venue and stream to all others. Key features of the event will include:
- Panel and Q&A with director Susan Cohn Rockefeller, Lt. Col. Scott Rainey, and psychiatrist Judith Broder
- Performance by Nell Bryden and her band, or other musicians such as 4Troops, which is made up of four combat veterans who use song to celebrate American soldiers and their service, and Danny Roberts, a soldier who sings in the film and is now pursuing a professional music career
Measuring Outreach Impact
We will use several metrics to monitor the impact of our outreach strategies:
Online
Online impact can be assessed by tracking Google and Facebook analytics, YouTube views and Twitter followers. Google analytics is embedded in Striking a Chord’s website, and allows for both general and specific traffic results. Our Facebook fan page provides weekly updates of fan traffic, as well as detailed demographic and engagement statistics. Regular Twitter updates and interaction will ensure a growing base of followers, typically with a specific interest in topics covered in the microblogging feature and linked blog on the film’s website.
Offline
Organization and individual partnerships serve our core audience. Community film screenings will be facilitated by providing screening kits including DVDs, posters, and post cards to all partners. Partners will be encouraged to report back on attendance and response to film to help gauge effectiveness of the screenings.
Offline will be supplemented with online. We will follow the news and our partner organizations’ updates and, as possibilities for action arise, we will alert contacts in our database and the film’s followers in the social media sphere, as well as post alerts on the website. When appropriate, we will provide action postcards at screenings, so that the audience can immediately participate in alerts.
Funders
| Name | Amount | Date | |
|---|---|---|---|
| We Are Family Foundation | $9,500.00 | 08/03/2010 | |
| Individual donors | $11,745,339.00 | 12/01/2009 |
Location
7218 Van Hook Dr.
Dallas, TX, 75248
Short Synopsis
As singer-songwriter Nell Bryden and her band travel through Iraq performing for the troops, we learn how music can heal invisible wounds of war. Inspiring performances and moving conversations with troops are intercut with conversation with psychiatrist Judith Broder.
Description/Treatment
What’s the effect of four deployments on an American soldier? Susan Cohn Rockefeller’s 30-minute documentary Striking a Chord is a window into that world, where troops maneuver between constant threat and crushing boredom. It is also a look at how live music can provide some relief and a return, however brief, to normalcy.
Striking a Chord takes the audience right onto army bases in Iraq. The film follows singer-songwriter Nell Bryden and her band’s second tour to Iraq. We see firsthand how music brings joy and relief to the troops by briefly breaking their isolation and boredom. Long lines of soldiers waiting to share their stories with the band after every concert attest to the positive effect the music has on the troops.
Other engaging characters are encountered such as Lt. Col. Scott Rainey, Chief of Programs for Multinational Corps, Iraq. He hires musicians to perform for the troops and it is clearly a labor of love for him. During the concerts he doesn’t watch the stage – he watches the faces of the soldiers. We also meet charming soldier Danny Roberts, who trains Iraqi firemen. He says, “We learn as much from them as they do from us.” When Roberts sings onstage later, he electrifies the crowd with his extraordinary voice.
The backdrop to the story of Striking a Chord is the somber reality of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and its devastating and isolating effects. At least 20 percent of soldiers will return home from serving in Iraq and Afghanistan with PTSD. Intercut with uplifting and moving scenes of Nell’s performances and talks with the soldiers are interviews with psychiatrist Dr. Judith Broder, who speaks to how music addresses stress, promoting relaxation, expression of feelings and promoting the healing of invisible battle scars.
Striking a Chord reminds us that when soldiers return home, they need special care and attention. PTSD is a disorder that many veterans are ashamed to speak about, yet it is all too common, and, as the film effectively depicts, music can provide a way to start the healing process.
What People Are Saying
“'Striking a Chord’ is a beautiful documentary that strips away the armor and the camo and shows America a side of our troops they have likely never seen.”
--Tanya Biank, author of Army Wives
"Music reaches the depths of our being - and when our connection to self has been damaged by trauma and loss - music can be a powerful tool to revive us. This film shows how well music, especially live performances, provides a vital connection to self and others and through that connection a chance to recover and heal."
--Concetta M. Tomaino, D.A., MT-BC, LCAT, Institute for Music & Neurologic Function
“'Striking a Chord' is an honest and powerful glimpse at the incredible positive impact music and those who deliver it can have on those serving our Nation in harm’s way. These young men and women are sacrificing pieces of themselves, sometimes literally, for our well being, and yet almost universally they are moved to excited expressions of gratitude for the efforts made by those who would bring them a small slice of home in the form of music.”
--Lt. Col. Scott Rainey, former Chief, Armed Forces Entertainment
“'Striking a Chord' is an incredibly compelling film of the power of music to bring normality, if only briefly, into the lives of deployed soldiers. And it is also a sobering reminder of how many of those soldiers return home with the invisible scars of PTSD — and what we as a country owe to these wounded soldiers. I urge people to see 'Striking a Chord' both for the highs and lows that this documentary presents.”
--Phyllis Zimbler Miller, founder of Films That Support Our Troops and author of Mrs. Lieutenant
Click here to ask for more information about this project: