Tracy Schott and Sue Lange are filmmakers and writers who have created many projects about women, society and change. Sue recently completed the reality bending film DUST NUGGETS and Tracy is the creator of the award-winning FINDING JENN’S VOICE. They are both foodies who love to feed you and eat!

In the male-dominated world of classical French cooking, tradition is king. Strange ideas, innovation, and women have no place there. Enter Vivienne Martine. Trained at the Cordon Bleu and heavily influenced by a domineering father, she has all the tools to make it in this rarefied world.

In spite of that — or because of it — her restaurant, Le Bon Chef, is failing. People are moving beyond stuffy French tradition. Fusion is where it's at now, but Viv is a traditionalist. 

She has an ace in the hole that could save her. Best friend Celine Thompson is a world traveler and has her finger on the pulse of just about everything. She has ten million followers on Instagram and a nation of friends of Facebook. With Celine's help, Le Bon Chef could be saved. But will their friendship survive?

Plan of Action

We are dividing our fundraising plan into three phases. Phase I consists of procuring development funds. This is the phase we're in right now. The goal is to raise $20,000 which we will use to prepare contracts, find our talent and crew, secure locations, and start our social media campaigning.

Phase II is the bulk of our fundraising efforts. We will be seeking investors for the production of the film. We have budgeted the film at $650,000 and plan to sell shares in the final film to procure these funds. Once these funds are in place, the film will be greenlit. We hope to be in production by Spring 2021, and expect a 4-5 month timeline from shoot through edit.

Phase III is the final phase and consists of procuring funds for marketing the finished product. We hope to raise $200,000 for this phase of the project.

Progress

We are currently at the very beginning of our journey with Le Bon Chef. Our script is complete and we've received feedback from industry friends. We are confident we've got a sharp little film that will entertain, enlighten, and delight. 

We've begun thinking about who we'd like to cast as our leads, Vivienne and Celine, as well as our quirky Creole sous chef from New Orleans, Cuban maitre D' who is convinced he's French, sloppy substitute waiter, hefty delivery gal, and of course the wicked mayor's wife.

We plan on not shooting this film until things have settled down from the pandemic. We would like to wait until things have returned to normal. While things may never return to 100% normal we will wait until we can safely shoot. If we are still under pandemic conditionst by that time, we will follow protocols set forth by SAG and other industry organizations as to how the shoot is to proceed, using such tools as masks, disinfecting stations, minimal crew, and an onsite Covid specialist.

We'd love to have you follow along with the progress of Le Bon Chef. You can do that by signing up for our newsletter.

You can find our blog where we talk about all things food, film, modern culture, and anything except politics at our website. We might even throw in some recipes or advice on car maintenance.

Sue Lange & Tracy Schott