The biographical musical drama Clouds is based on the memoir Fly a Little Higher: How God Answered a Mom’s Small Prayer in a Big Way by Laura Sobiech. In the film, a young musician named Zach Sobiech (Fin Argus) discovers his cancer has spread and he only has a limited time to make his dream come true of becoming a musician.

“It started out seeing Zach’s video,” said Casey La Scale. “My wife had seen the video online. I was blown away, then randomly, a month later my manager said he found an interesting book and it happened to be Zach’s story.” Since Casey had previously produced another movie in the same realm, A Walk to Remember, his manager suggested turning the story into a movie.

Casey sent the book to Patrick Kopka, who also felt an immediate connection to the book. “Every studio had already passed on it. They saw it as Fault in Our Stars, and even Warner Brothers passed on it. Luckily, I had a relationship with them, but sort of as the last favor I had, we overturned that pass.”

Casey and Patrick took a swing at the screenplay, but they felt like something was missing. “We did the family version, then the teen version, but we ended up finding Kara. She came in with fresh eyes and then we started getting some momentum, which was great.”

Kara, who had worked on Soul Surfer and Carrie Pilby, had also been following the real life story of Zach Sobiech. Thanks to her relationship with Director Justin Baldoni, she was invited to take a look at the screenplay.

“I watched the documentary and felt kind of overwhelmed. It was such an incredible story and incredible character, but it’s so sad and there are so many parts to it.” That said, when she asked herself “Who’s story is this?” She changed the perspective to Zach’s POV and pieces of the story fell into place.

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