How The Pinnacle Was Born…

‘The Pinnacle’ was born in a roundabout way… (SPOILERS AHEAD)

Isa Agape (Producer/Composer) sent an unfinished, untitled piece of music to longtime friend Ryan Mcgrady (Producer/Director) and floated the idea of collaborating- to make a film, a story, visuals: she wanted something for the music to accompany. Ryan listened to the track, and started drawing…

“From my first listen I had some imagery in my head - but I didn’t want to rush it, so we talked through it over video calls. I asked her what emotions were running through her mind when she wrote it. ‘Loneliness’ ‘Heartbreak’, and feeling like ‘a shell of a person’.. that made it all start falling into place.” says Ryan “I’m used to writing, but it was a challenge to storyboard to an existing piece of music. I had to follow the beats, I couldn’t elongate or change the music - I just had to stay within its lines. It used a muscle in my brain I wasn’t used to working. We emailed images back and forth to each other to nail down the vibe, the aesthetic…then we had it.”

“From the start, we knew it was sci-fi. I remembered a recent trip I had taken out to this landscape covered in these massive stone towers - it might have been the myriad of ‘influences’ in my bloodstream at the time, but the whole time I was there, I felt like I was on another planet. So we decided to shoot out there, in the desert. That turned out to present some serious challenges...”

The crew rose before 5:00 AM to catch the sunrise - it was a 45 minute ride in the dark on an unmarked dirt road. When they arrived, the temperature outside was 31 degrees fahrenheit.

“It was cold. Colder than we were expecting, mainly because of the wind. All day there was this brutal, freezing wind. It almost knocked the camera over more than once.” says Ryan “We huddled for cover in the cars and it just battered them.”

“It was cold, but it was beautiful. There’s something very peaceful and surreal about being in that landscape - I think it helped to be able to be in the zone of the film and get into character, cuz it was like ‘I’m on an alien planet!’” says Grace Noble, the actor who played the sole role in the film.

“The costume didn’t help keep me warm. Between takes people had to cover me up with a giant coat.” says Grace.

But was it so cold that it was hard to perform? 

“Yes and no - because the nature of the film was supposed to be desolate and barren, so it made sense; I was able to use the cold. But it was so cold it was hard to concentrate, and the wind almost literally pushed me over at times.” 

The camera started rolling before sunrise, just after 5 AM.

“I was so excited” says Grace “I think when I’m anxious and anticipating filming something, it’s a lot easier to get up early - I was ready to get out there. There’s like this electricity, like ‘We’re going to the desert to film!’ so it doesn’t really matter how early it is…”

“When we filmed the last couple shots, it was so surreal and almost eerie because up until then it was so windy and cold” says Isa “Then a stillness came over right at the part of the story where stillness and calm, like after a storm, was very much appropriate”

“The music came to me so fast. I had these phrases in my head when I was writing the piece, ‘loss of innocence’, ‘loss of our humanity’, just this really hopeless place. Dystopian in nature.” says Isa “But to somehow gather enough fight and hope to keep going. That is what we must do.”

“When I think about this short and all the reasons why I wrote the piece” says Isa “I go back to Tolkien...”

‘It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end… because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing… this shadow. Even darkness must pass.’

What’s Next…

Hi, Isa here…

Many who have watched ‘The Pinnacle’ have said:

“We want to see more of this story!”

“What would it take to complete the story of The Pinnacle?”

“How much do you need to complete this story?”

And we as a team have talked through what that would look like. And about a week ago we came to a decision to fully commit to writing this story.

Currently, Ryan and I are both in ‘pre-production stage’ working on the story of The Pinnacle. We have partnered with IAM Foundation to start raising support for the First Step in creating the remainder of The Pinnacle story.

Our plan is to make it into a Limited Series with 6-8 episodes. We are currently in meetings with writers and producers about creating the script, the pitch deck, and budget for the full production of this Series.

We want to take 4-5 months to work on the story development the way we did with the short film, which involved writing the music and collaborating with other writers we bring onboard to help with the development of the story with us.

So for the next couple weeks our plan is to raise $50,000 to help support us (Ryan and Isa) and bring on a Line Producer to help create a budget for the Limited Series, and a few writers to aid in the writing of the story. This is what we will put forth effort to produce so that at the end of the 5 months we have a Pitch Deck, a Solid Budget Plan for the Production, a Pilot Script with outlines for the remainder of the episodes, a Sketchbook/draft of the Music for the Series with musical themes for some of the main characters to help shape their character arcs. All of this along with our Short Film as proof of concept on hand to start talking to producers and pitching the story.

*Tax Deductible Donation
Proceeds of what we raise will go towards Philanthropic work.

If its in your heart to give to this project, we want to give you the opportunity to do so.

We have a way for your donation to be tax deductible through the IAM Foundation.

We are excited to work on this and just this. It takes a lot of creative energy to write music and dialogue/story and work through budgets and building our team of writers for this. We want to do it to the best of our ability. To do so, we need to not be working on other projects and solely keep our focus on this project.

We also welcome monthly donations. There is a way to do that through the links provided.

As a bonus, we are looking into a way to give updates along the journey where we share with you updates on the project throughout the next several months. We will either have a Members Only Access to a portal where we share updates, or a Private Facebook Page. We haven’t decided yet but we will update donors when we do.

On behalf of me, Ryan and all involved, thank you so much for your consideration!

We look forward to sharing this story with many viewers and fans around the world.

With gratitude,

Isa (Writer, Producer, Composer)

*Tax Deductible Donation
Proceeds of what we raise will go towards Philanthropic work.