I know there are some folks who are watching and waiting (as the Moody Blues said), so I thought I'd address the issue of the most recent and current focus of attention.
As I have said before, the Libretto is finished. It is fully Illustrated and you can see some of the artwork by Jency Latta posted here. The foundational Story-book text is complete, but needs refinement before it would be ready to publish. My goal with the storybook is to locate a major publishing house to take over that aspect of the project. However, at the appropriate time I will continue to pursue the pre-press activities and there are certain aspects of publishing that I intend to keep in-house if I go to press with those editions. The items I will be working on first, in terms of publishing, are the B&W Coloring Book/Comic Book, the Insert edition for the Music CD, and the Illustrated Gnome Sized Edition of the Storybook.
Another consideration is an edition containing portions of the Libretto designed to be part of our puppetry product line. In addition to many other products that are in development, I anticipate developing a line of smaller puppets and providing a reduced version of the story as part of a puppet show which can be purchased so that kids can enact the story with their own puppets. Now I know that the current craze is all electronics, but I do think there might be a niche for puppetry if presented properly. That forum may be at the puppet shows when "The Gnomes of New Hope: Zach & Zebby's Grand Adventure" is ready to be presented in that format to the public.
My current, and very concentrated, focus of attention is on publishing the score. We have taken a hiatus from composition, partly because of the holidays and partly because because I have a need to produce the published edition of the score and that duty has fallen upon solely upon me to perform. And so it is that I am daily engaged in formating and printing and evaluating the score to all the songs in the show. Certain items in scoring will need to be redressed at a future time, but I am reserving that to be a process which takes place with the maestro involved.
There are nineteen scenes in the show and some of the scenes have as many as seven songs in them. There are a total of sixty-five musical numbers, some of which are as short as twenty seconds with only about six songs that exceed four minutes. The score is currently taking up two 1-1/2" binders, but I expect that to increase as I continue to print out the score.
I am producing the following material for each song - (1) Lead Sheet w/piano (2) Vocal Score (for solos, duets, trios, quartets) & Choral Score (for quintets, sextets, and choral numbers), (3) A Conductors Score (containing all the parts in a linear timeline) (4) Orchestral Parts (for each instrument, arranged with consolidated rests). I am also producing the recorded versions of this show to go along with the core materials and assist us in recording the lyrical music. The dynamics which were written into the MIDI files has needed to be removed for scoring, so the piano and vocal editions, which will be as an aid in recording the lyrics, may be somewhat devoid of the dynamics we developed in the composition stage of producing this work. I am under the opinion that the earlier decisions made in shaping the dynamics will be redressed at a future stage of the recording and mastering process.
It is becoming critical that we upgrade our computer systems, but until that happens I am trying to work with what we have got. We are still using a Mac G4 & A G5 to do this work, but out material is starting to exceed the machine's capabilities, especially now that we are moving more actively into recording. As I always say - I invite anyone wanting to consider investing to let me know.
More Later, AG
