The Greatest Good - The Harold Lee Washington Story begins with the life of Harold Washington, a young political mastermind who was inspired by Chicago's founder, Jean Baptiste Du Sable and his father, Roy Washington.
In the mid 1950's, after being deceived by Chicago's Mayor, Richard J. Daley to secure the black vote, Harold Washington seizes the opportunity to launch his own political career aimed at destroying the Chicago political crime syndicate. After working his way up through every level of government, Harold ignites the African American, Mexican American and Native American communities of Chicago to become the city's first Mayor in Chicago's history to challenge and defeat the brutally racist machine. Under his leadership, a powerful and corrupt political machine was brought to its knees.
The Greatest Good movie is a tool to help unite the south and west sides of Chicago. We plan to cast the entire community in The Harold Washington Movie and use the proceeds of the movie to return back to the communities which are currently under-served in the city of Chicago and around the world. Our film will cast a large population of the Chicago community and generate thousands of jobs for the next 5 years, during pre-production, actual production and postproduction. We will also premiere our movie at The Avalon Regal Theater on Chicago's south side, so that the entire community can see the Harold Washington movie on the south side of Chicago in a predominantly black neighborhood, while supporting black businesses and vendors. It is time for this legendary figure’s story to enter mainstream consciousness, with the aim of reintroducing Washington’s spirit for community development back into Chicago and the world.
The Greatest Good will be an academy award winning film, in the same category as great biopics such as VICE, Lincoln, Amadeus and The King’s Speech.
When you look at great biopics like "Lincoln," "VICE" or "The Kings Speech", their common theme is a durable story that drags the viewer forward and therefore pushes the story and the lead character along. In "Lincoln", the story begins in the middle of a drama and a question - will slaves be freed? Will white men in the Senate agree with Lincoln to free slaves? And what happens next? With "VICE" the film starts on the precipice of the infamous 9/11 World Trade Center Attacks, America's rise in the OIL industry and the sheer will of Dick Chaney to become the “devout politician”. In "Amadeus", Mozark is not only seen as a L'Enfant Terrible genius but also a man with demons that the film bookended with his rival - telling the audience his story, his problem with Mozark and how their competitive relationship became essentially the story of both of their lives. All these great stories prove that a biopic can be told in a bold, funny and different way and not just the regular cradle to grave boring stories we always see. We want to bring The Greatest Good to the top of the biopic “Classic” list.
The Cinematic vision for The Greatest Good Movie is along the lines of the biopic VICE – A dynamic story with a great character arc that pulls its viewer forward through the film constantly.
We may also want to intersperse the film with interviews with real people and parallel those interviews with the narrative of the film. This type of dynamic story telling might work wonderfully, because like Harold Washington, the Chicago natives telling this story are hugely important to the community, but somehow end up being forgotten.
The biggest issue with the screenplay right now is that it is a blow-by-blow account of Washington's life, until the day he dies in 1987. However, this script needs to be creatively pieced together to generate a strong focus and visible character arc for a 2 H. 45-minute picture. This will work to make Harold Washington hugely famous and well known to a modern audience. What our Harold Washington biopic needs is an undeniable story that gives us this an arc to the likes of which any viewer has ever seen.
There is a real need to further develop this biopic with an everlasting, unforgettable character arc that makes the viewer feel like moving forward, and more important, makes them feel as though they are watching a classic. Also, the actual scenes of the movie need to be 70mm/IMAX dynamic images, where a viewer can never seem to pull away from watching the story unfold.t.
Our stylistic approach will be heavily influenced by the production team behind movies like VICE. Similarly, these photos below illustrate the color depth we will seek in our cinematography.
Lighting. Our lighting will evoke dark and mellow tones, with a noticeable glow.
Camera Movement and Editing. There will be a lot of flashed cameras, transitioning between cuts and breaks during each scene while showing large crowds of people. Our goal is to show large crowds of Chicago's African American community standing together as one in support of Mayor Washington. The color scheme and lighting details will show a broad range of brown, maroon, navy blue, gold, pearl white and black. Portions of this film will be shot in contrast in black and white, an homage to Emmanuel Lubezki’s work on Michael Mann’s Ali (2001).
Special FX Makeup. We begin Harold's story with a young and vibrant seventeen-year-old track star, and end with a sixty-five-year-old, grey-haired politician who walks at his own pace. We will be applying hair color, body suits and special FX makeup to our leading cast members to help them more resemble the real-life characters they are portraying. Harold went through several body figure and facial changes throughout his lifetime, so our makeup will be the highest quality Hollywood can offer.
Costume Design. The costuming for The Greatest Good will show a variety of styles from the late 1700's, before the city of Chicago was founded, right up until the late 1980's after Mayor Washington's death. In the beginning we will see buffalo skins and cow hides on Pottawatomie natives, towards the middle of the film, we will see great wardrobe concepts inspired by the 1940's - 1960's and as we finish our film, we will see the smooth wardrobe style inspired by the 1980's.
Focusing more on the most important event in Washington’s tenure as mayor: His fight with Chicago's notorious city council. (Taking nuances from stories with great and historical battles)
Maybe sample some interesting themes from Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony and the Roman Senate and/or Star Wars, with the intrigue, backstabbing, games and rewards, corrupt political machine. Possible even moving the story backwards through Mayor Washington’s life, and then we catch up to the story later in the middle of the film. Promote the entire DuSable story, (featured as the first 32 pages of the movie) as a pre-released short film to showcase how the city of Chicago was founded - 200 years ago.
Idea: Begin when Harold became conscious of his political life. Really focus on the life of a black man in Chicago in the mid 1970’s – min 1980’s. Show Harold’s sincere willingness to clean up the flaws of the city.
We want to show a tremendous racially charged, grimy, dirty, wretched, and hostile political battle between Harold Washington and Ed Vrdolyak – The movie’s main two characters. We want to show a battle that is racial on the surface but is about power behind closed doors.
We want to show the immense POWER of the infamous Chicago political Machine and tell our audience exactly what makes Chicago politics run like the well-oiled machine it is. Power, Dirty Politics, Dirty Money, Gambling, Mafia, The European Kingdom and The Worldwide Black Community are essentially the engines that drive this movie; and we must use it metaphorically and uniquely. We need to develop a screen play that shows how power is used to manipulate public office in Chicago, and how it controls entire populations and elects only certain people to be a part of the strongest, wealthiest families in America.
We want to overwhelm our audience with Power and corruption as a theme. Finally, after we see the power of this mighty and untouchable, undefeated political machine in Chicago, we show our audience a glorious, unexpected takeover of this powerful machine as Harold Washington wins the battle to become the first Black Mayor of a city that never thought it would happen.
Harold’s battle in the latter part of the film should showcase a pure and deliberate “take over” of the powerful Chicago machine, by using his words as his weapons to destroy his political enemies. To put it plainly, the screenplay must show how Harold Washington easily disarmed his political opponents by simply being a student of vocabulary. We show how Harold became the most powerful politician in the world by showing the great political leaders he studied with, listened to, and emulated. When Harold challenges the large powerful Chicago political corrupt machine, his words slay all his opponents, because Harold’s power is in his vocabulary, and this makes him able to create his own battles and win every single time. This must be the theme of the screenplay.
The Greatest Good movie uses the narrative of Harold Washington’s journey to engage viewers. His story is dynamic and takes place over several years and across the city of Chicago. Professional narration is used between acts to set the stage for the ongoing discussion. Key narrative scenes take place in practical locations with an emphasis on movement. As Harold’s friends and family share his story with the viewers as they walk and talk together, we hear the trusted voices of political and street experts as they affirm Harold’s convictions and give advice to youth to help them succeed under the current corruption which plagues them. Throughout the film, we visit scenic and historic Chicago locations, including one-room schoolhouses, libraries, abandoned inner-city schools, and Chicago city squares. Harold’s story is also augmented by voice-over and videos from every Black movie ever made.
The color palette will shift from a low-contrast of brown-blacks, tan- grays, and yellow-white highlights for stories of struggle and uncertainty, to high-contrast warm yellows, bright greens, blown-out backlit highlights and long, black shadows to convey joy and life during times of success and new revelation. Framing is wide to medium, and each shot is dynamic but fluid, utilizing a Steadicam or gimbal for most shots, with ultra-wide shots and drone shots to establish the setting and mood. Short narrative segments are interspersed with interview footage of religious and spiritual experts discussing the topics that Harold had to deal with. These interviews have been shot in two main styles; Many have been formal, sit-down interviews in practical locations - living rooms, schools, and offices. They share a similar color scheme of earthy browns and tans with accents of primary color and are all lit with a similar, bright three-point lighting style to ground the content.
The Greatest Good is a true story based on the life of Mayor Harold Washington – the first American African Mayor of the City of Chicago. The film will explore Chicago’s legendarily oppressive political machine and how Washington sought to topple it down, first dismantling the system run by the late Richard J. Daley, and second, by uniting the African American, Mexican American, and Native American communities of Chicago.
Before his mayorship, Washington served as a First Sargent in the US Airforce during World War II. He represented Illinois in Congress, authoring the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday bill, helping pass the Human Rights Act of 1980, and working to extend the Voting Rights Act of 1982.
As mayor, Washington fought and won the longest city council war in the history of our nation – foreshadowing the partisan gridlock that occurred during the Obama presidency. Washington received 98% of the African American vote, mobilizing a dejected and disenfranchised voter base in a manner never seen before. He also appointed an unprecedented number of women to key leadership roles. He was simply ahead of his time, even by present day standards.
Washington’s legacy is well known in international political circles. His influence was cited as a key factor in current Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot’s entry into politics. Similarly, his rise inspired Barack Obama to run for state office, setting him on his path to the presidency two decades later.
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