Breifly, in terms of the Creative Material- I am focusing on establishing the page layout and numbering of Volume III, by inserting text panels which describe the artwork required on the remaining pages. Volumes I & II are fully illustrated and Volume III is currently up to page 489 at the end of Scene 10. There are 20 scenes, but S.10 numbering includes the Appendixes, which outline the back-story, under the title The Gnomic Tales. Understand that the Storybook, although it follows the sequence of events in the stage musical, has a very expanded view of the characters, events, and back-story. The idea being to give interested parties, a broader view of Gnomanity. So, at this stage of the process, rather than engage Jency (or other artists) to continue with the artwork, I've concluded that I need to finalize the page numbers of the Storybook and identify both the required artwork for the illustrations and the space that those illustrations will take up. It really is The Gnomic Tales that throws a snag in the illustrations, because the previous work we did in terms of illustration did not include those back-story elements. So once I move into S.11 I have a good amount of artwork to use for the panels, although I have expanded the descriptive nature of the text, so we will need more illustration panels than originally anticipated. I've taken the approach of describing the illustration panels because, although that was not the way we developed the illustrations before, I now think that is the most effective step which needs to included in the process. I can do that myself without incurring the additional expense of engaging anyone else (ie: artists) and completing this step will (not only) expedite the illustrating process (including creating material for animation), but it will also allow me to continue on the path to finalizing the entire layout in terms of the e-book and the hard copy layout. In this way, I will only need to replace the scenes (pages) in the layout with the newer revisions which have the illustrations. So, basically I am moving the illustration work further into the process and putting a priority on the other aspects of the layout. This will also better serve the packaging requirements of presenting the project to the industry, because the panel descriptions represent the storyboard sufficiently and also allow me to pitch it to potential partners in the assorted fields of endeavor- publishing, film, theatre, etc. I admit that I am a little concerned about how large this has become, because that may prove to be prohibitive in regards to publishing the hard-copy, but that could work to our advantage in marketing it as an epic tale.
Now in terms of the Business Structure- I've come to the conclusion that the most effective direction, in which to proceed, is Executive Management. I have decided that we need to build an Executive Producing Team which will consist of seven Executive Producers. Each producer will be delegated a different aspect of the project, which I've begun to define. I will discus those arenas of delegation in another posting, after I review my notes, but basically each Executive Producer will need to buy into the project, because all parties to the Joint Venture will need to be vested. My terms as writer are ten percent of the budget and ten percent of the gross. Those seven producers will be responsible for gathering the budget in each of their respective fields and providing that ten percent to me, as their buy in. This is only a buy-in for the writers share. There are other terms pertaining to music rights which need to be addressed separately, as well as the various ancillary markets, which are all separate markets operating under their own specific terms. but all of those terms are to be developed & refined by the producing team under the Joint Venture as a collective endeavor based, on outlines and basic premises which I have already developed. There are also other categories of investment which are managed by the producing team and which, are subservient to the JV. Those other categories allow for other producers to be engaged under the various appropriate titles, such as Associate, Supervising and Managing Producers. They may or may not be responsible for gathering funds, depending upon what they bring to the table. The other aspects of the management structure will not be discussed here, but you may find some comments on that subject at IMS Producing Partners or the IMS Virtual Studio.
So, I post these subjects for those of you who are far enough into this aspect of the industry, that you might end up becoming one of our Executive Producers. It is my belief that posting these discussions will give you an idea of how I plan on going about this project and if you are onboard with my thinking in this regard, then we might possibly move toward coming to some agreement or working together. I assume that some of the more savvy individuals I have known, or will meet in the future, may be watching the progress of this project. But I also want those of you who have contributed and are continuing to contribute to be appraised of the progress and our overall methodology.
The more detailed information, that may be considered classified, will be available on the subscription site IMS Producing Partners. AG
