The Film

Virgil, a disillusioned, late twenty-something romantic idealist has finally found true Love only to have it snatched away from him and is forced to undergo his own modern day odyssey to get it back.

Rolling with Virgil is a Music Film about the grey areas between Love, fixation, and possession, and the extreme lengths to which the effects of these grey areas can push people.

Virgil is a man pursuing his version of true Love in the streets of New York City and eventually across the continent.  Simultaneously dark, funny, tragic, and inspiring, this film is, on the surface, a collection of music videos chronicling Virgil's odyssey.  At a deeper level, it's a collaborative effort of emerging artists across various disciplines, from filmmaking, to music, to dance, and others.  It embodies a passion for an idea inspired in the writer, Conrad Shaw, by the underground NYC band The Dirty Urchins to tell a story in a way that stories haven't been told.  It challenges concepts of what Love is and what a film can be.  It is a hybrid of genres we're calling a Music Film. 

Music Film: A postmodern cross between a silent film and a series of music videos; a dramatic narrative that tells its story using only music and lyrics along with the visual action.

This means that there is essentially no dialogue in the film, save a couple of exceptions, since rules, even when self-imposed, were made to be broken.

Proof of Concept Videos

live action SEQUENCE - "DREAM WITH ME"

We shot this in the summer of 2014 on a restricted budget, and it has helped greatly in raising the funds for the feature.  It is the second scene in the film, a dream sequence, and it sets up Virgil's mindset heading into the twists and turns ahead.

ANIMATED STORYBOARD - "My Baby rides the subway"

This depicts another early scene from the film, in which Virgil pursues April, the girl of his dreams.

The Music

Here's a taste of the The Dirty Urchins--a live version of the film's title song "Rolling with Virgil" from their album, Late as Usual.  About half the soundtrack will be from this album and most of the rest will be from Romance and Apocalypse with a couple bonus tracks thrown in.

Albums: Romance and Apocalypse and Late as Usual