Says Lenker, “I played a showcase at Americanafest in 2019 and mentioned Morse Code. A local filmmaker named Molly Secours came up afterward and wanted to know more about it.
Through Secours, local legend and sound mixer Peter Kurland (Coen Bros) became aware of the project and shared it with producer Dona Spangler who felt it should be expanded into a longer format television pilot. She contacted writer and filmmaker Travis Nicholson and asked him to meet Korby.
“One thing led to another,” says Lenker, “and a few weeks later, I met Travis.”
Travis Nicholson co-created Still the King starring Billy Ray Cyrus, which ran for two seasons on CMT. The son of Hall of Fame songwriter Gary Nicholson, Travis was no stranger to the themes of Lenker’s show.
“Having grown up in the Nashville music industry, this story holds a lot of parallels to people I have known in my own life,” says Nicholson. “I wanted to explore the dichotomy of admiring a parent for what they do as an artist, with that being the very thing that can create distance from them.”
Lenker and Nicholson met in the dining room at Brown’s Diner near Hillsboro village, and the creative sparks flew.
“I always admire when people just make stuff”, says Nicholson, “and Korby was doing that. He managed to get people together to make something really impressive and original with basically no budget and everyone just pooling their resources. I was inspired by that.”
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