Wright Brothers: The Musical

How many ideas have you given up on because of your own self doubt?

Wilbur Wright must overcome his self-doubt with his brother Orville to achieve their dream of becoming the fathers of modern aviation. And they’ll sing while they do it.

Synposis

The year is 1901. Wilbur Wright has been invited to the Western Society of Engineers in Chicago by the societies President Octave Chanute, also an aviation enthusiast. Wilbur will be presenting his findings from the gilder experiments him and his brother had conducted the previous year.

Upon his arrival, Wilbur finds that the society have no interest in his work. Chanute convinces Wilbur that his findings are worthless and any attempt at progress will be futile. He also cites two aviation pioneers, Otto Lilienthal, and Percy Pilcher, who each lost their lives while pursuing manned flight in the last decade. This instils a strong feeling of doubt and fear in Wilbur.

When he arrives home, his sister Katherine tells their brother Orville about Wilbur’s reluctance to continue with their work. They know their brother and they know he won’t give up that easily. With a little convincing, Wilbur agrees to try on the condition they don’t do anything that could put themselves in harms way.

The Wright Brothers take their new machine out to Kitty Hawk in North Carolina. Their friend John T. Daniels is there to help them operate the machine. The winds seem favourable. They conduct tests with the glider unmanned. Only when Wilbur is confident do they agree to fly. They flip a coin to decide who goes first. Orville wins.

They prepare the machine. The three men run together. They launch the gilder. They succeed. Obviously. They’re not The Wrong Brothers after all.

Directors statement 

Wright Brothers: The Musical will be my final major project at university. I’m hoping for it to be the culmination of all the skills I’ve learned during my studies and for it to represent who I am as a filmmaker. I want it to be an honest and sincere representation of the things I want to make. Making it a musical will also be a challenge as I’ll have to write the music and lyrics and have them be appropriate for the story we’re telling. Essentially this project will push the boundaries of everything I know how and want to do, which is why the concept is so appealing.

At the start of the year, I wrote a story with the working title of ‘Festival Car Park’. It was to be a coming of age type story about navigating friendships and learning to stand up for yourself. It was set in a supermarket and would require the execution of some complicated stunts. I appreciated the ambition, but I realised it would have ended up being ambitious in ways that would have been detrimental to the quality of the final film. This and the fact I simply couldn’t think of an ending convinced me to scrap the idea. 

Shortly after I had the idea for ‘Wright Brothers: The Musical’. A period film set in 1901 telling the story of The Wright Brothers. It would require music, songs, maybe dancing and the building of a scale model Wright Glider to make it work. It was audacious and I fell in love with it. So, I knew I had to try, which is what the story is all about.

And this is where we are now. Pre-production on ‘Wright Brothers: The Musical’. I’ve read a biography and am heavily basing the story on their history. Obviously when years are condensed into only 10 minutes, certain creative liberties must be taken with the characters and events, but that’s okay. It’s an ambitious story to tell in such a short time but setting limitations on yourself is one of the best ways of ensuring creativity.  

Though the vehicle of the story is very far-removed from my personal life, the story and themes we’ll explore are in fact very personal. It’s one of overcoming self-doubt and trying the things you want to, even if you’re scared to do so. Wilbur wants to fly, but he needs to believe in himself. He also has his brother Orville and his sister Katherine to support him. So, it’s also a story about family and how they can be there to support you, something I am luckily enough to have. 

As for Challenges, I don’t think there is any single aspect of filmmaking that won’t need to be explored to make the film work. set dressing, costumes, makeup, locations, scriptwriting, song writing, music Composition, prop building, logistics, choreography, cinematography, editing. Everything. No stone can be left unturned. And this will also come at a cost, which of course we want to keep to a minimum. So we’ll need to be resourceful to make it all work, and that’s why I love this project so much. Because it will be hard, and it might not work, but it will be quite something if it does.

So if you’re feeling generous, and want to see something I’m hoping to be quite spectacular, donations of any amount will be appreciated beyond belief!

Let’s get this show in the sky!

The Glider

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Over the past month I've been building a (nearly) scale model of the 1901 Wright Glider. It still needs more work as you can tell but the frame is complete, now we need to make it fly!

Wright Brothers: The Musical - Glider (2025)

1901 Wright Glider (1901)

The Target

You probably want to know where your moneys going. Here's a brief breakdown of exactly how the money we raise will be spent and put back into the project.

• Transportation: Cast and Crew to and from Locations
• Accommodation: Accommodation for the production while filming
• Catering: Food and drink for the production team
• Permits: Any permits that may be required while filming on location
• Costumes, Hair and Makeup: It's a period piece, they need to look the part
• Props: We Built a plane, and we still need more?
• Festival submissions: Let's hope it's good enough
• Anything else: I'm sure we'll have more problems to face so anything and everything will help