Animation

I expect to be developing animations for the purpose of creating gifs to be included in the e-Storybook. Now that the (prototype edition) of the three volume set of the Storybook series is almost ready to be printed, I am starting to think about animations again for that reason. We will be working on the illustrations again in the not to distant future, in order to finish the books. Of course, a substantial amount of money needs to be secured before we can advance in that direction, but a distribution deal for the book series may bring those funds. Another possiblity is licensing certain production or merchandizing rights, so that will be considered.

All the technical work of the layout is (for the most part) finished and the next stage is to concentrate on creating the remaining illustrations. That effort will include setting up the methodology for animation  as well. If another producing organization proposes engaging in that end of things, I am open to that, considering all the other arenas that are currently underway.

That's all for now. AG

Current Status

On and on it goes... Well, my most recent efforts have been to finish the book covers for both the Gnome-Sized and Big People Books. That involved getting the IBSNs and the pricing schedule right for the whole series, setting up the copyright page, the back cover synopses and the inner back page. You would think that was not too hard to do, you would be wrong. There are dozens of elements that needed to be cross-referenced between the four pages of 10 books. Since they are the covers, they needed to be right. It's amazing how, once the overall design was laid out, a flow of small tweeks gradually had to be made, in terms of size, color, style and positioning. It's frustrating to continually think I'm done, only to find other adjustment that need to be made. One example is that the components in the whole collection of covers cannot be stored in one file, that sounds like a simple matter if duplicating the file, it's not. Along the way, I discovered that elements in the files diverge from one another. Dimensions are slightly different or alignments change between files. Possibly that is a result of making alterations to the layout, in an attempt to gain consistency. What that means is that, ultimately, after all the design elements are matched, a new file containing only the finished flattened layers needs to be made in order to match the scales and dimensions of all the covers. But that means working with multiple files to derive the final components across the full collection. In other words, the design of Act One, Scene One thru Three needs to remain the same in all instances where those words are referenced. Multiply that by more than twenty and you see, it can get confusing.

Well, the covers are almost done. One thing that did occur in laying out the covers is that the bleed on the hard copy layout changed. There was an error in the centering of the entire layout. Now I will have to go back and assure that all 700+ of the inner pages match the bleed and centering of the covers. Part of the reason that happened is that the first generation (of Rev 245) covers we're laid out using the inner page overlay. That is the twine frame (which you can see from samples posted below). I was so wrapped up in getting the whole of the e-Storybook done that I didn't realize that the cover backdrop of the hard copy books was different and also that the positioning of the covers was different as well, because of the outer wrap and thickness of the hard copy books. I was working from the perspective of the e-Storybook which is a very different technical design.

So basically, it's all very complicated and it has taken two decades to get to this point !

This morning I was thinking that I just want to be done with this. I really want to put sales, promotion and everything into the hands of someone else. I'm just very tired of working on this. It's almost done and that's only the books! You can  read about the other stuff below. 

So if any professionals who engage in Post-Production activities want a good opportunity, let me know. It's really time to stop cutting bait and start fishing.

AG

Operating Expenses

Refer to IMS Management via The IMS Virtual Studio at ImagemindAG

IMS Publishing

I started IMS Publishing as a tool to published this series of books. Little do I know how involved it would be. It's not just a matter of writing the books, which I have a dozen sitting there in various stages of completion, but it involves the whole gamit of other business relationships and processes. For some time I have been thinking through the binding of The Gnomes of New Hope. 

As you can see here I have designed these books to be stitched in this fashion.

I'm set up to do this quite well for small quantities, but the trick is to be able to produce higher quantities cost effectively. The big problem is punching the books. Stitching I'd done by hand. I don't think these much chance of automating that and even if I could come up with a way to automate that, and I tried, it takes more time tending to the machinery then it does to stitch the book using manual methods. So punching is the key here. I am in the process of designing and constructing pinch press dies to implement punching one whole book in one pass. I'm not certain what thickness I can get away with, but we'll see. I'm gathering the tooling for that, now that the printing files have reached their final stage. I am about to print the prototype run of the whole seven book collection. Once that is done, I will move into designing and fabrication the boxes for the boxed sets.

I'm getting the shop set up for the production line. I have multiple workstations partially set up to create a flow of product from assembly to shipping. 

There is no point to working on sales until production is up and running, but the first level will be a shopping cart scenario. In the meanwhile, I can conduct the business of sales on a wholesale level that is tied to a release schedule and purchase of books in quantities sufficient to fund the completion of the artwork. Anything less than that is a distraction and will draw me away from finishing the artwork. As I have said before, I can provide the books in a perfect bind edition, without the hand stitching in quantities exceeding 5k. You will find posts below that outline sales objectives. I may have posted that information on IMS Publishing, which is where that belongs. Being very occupied finishing up the printing layouts, I have not been updating that sales information, but I will tend to that when appropriate. If you wish to discuss anything contact me via email. The address is; image.of.the.mind.studios@gmail.com

AG

Dividing the Collection

As I said in the last post (and on The Gnomes of New Hope Facebook page) laying out the book covers became the lastest stage in publishing. After having finished the page layout for the entire collection, I needed to define how the books were going to be divided up, so that the number of pages match as closely as possible between books. There are to types of books, The Gnome-sized and The Big People Books. The Gnome-sized books will be issued as Seven Books, while the Big People Books will be issued in Three Volumes. Both type books will also be available in boxed sets. Of course, there also is the e-Storybook.

It has been challenging matching up the IBSN numbers to the books and adapting the covers. The GFX on the covers is different between the two editions, so that makes ten covers in all, not to mention the boxes for the boxes set.

So that's were it stands right now. The books are getting closer. I know I keep saying that, but doing the IBSN numbers, bar-codes and covers has identified a total of fourteen published book products. There's more to come, including five stories contained in The Gnomic Tales.

That's all for now. AG

Book Covers

     I was moving along nicely to rebuild the e-Storybook when I realized that I had divided the files into the Seven Books of the series. So what's the point of assembling the Three Volume Set without the covers for the seven books? So I switched over to designing the remaining covers. That way I can publish three books as Gnome-sized & Big People Books. When I get to Book Four, I am missing a few Illustration Panels, but not many. Then when those few illustrations are finished, I will have four finished books. The idea here being that the first three books will fund the artwork for the next two books and so on. Although, Book Five consists of only Scene Ten, which is predominately "The Gnomic Tales" and none of that is illustrated yet. That scene is very extensive. When I get up to Book Six and Seven, most of the illustrations in those books are also done, but still, there are quite a few to create or finish. I have a vision of how that may pan out, but we'll see. So, anyway, the covers are mostly done, but I still need to make the Synopsis pages, which serves as the back page on all seven books and they are all different. I have three done.

    I'm not sure it's a good idea to sell the books until all the artwork is nearing completion, even though creating income will pay for the rest of the artwork. It rather depends on what the distributors have to say about it. Selling a good quantity to distributors will go a long way to funding operations. 

    That's all for now.  AG

e-Storybook

Well, as I said, I have had to make corrections, both text and layout errors. Yesterday, I assembled the e-Storybook and I'm very pleased that it all looks and works extremely well. Now I need to integrate the existing narration into the new layout and update the portions that were corrected. Of course, after I ran into certain errors, I stopped narrating, do that needs to be finished. The whole collection amounts to 766 pages, plus Preface and Appendixes, so it is rather large. That size is due to the space taken up by illustrations. I just hope it doesn't come off as too large for kids. I think it will be a challenge and feel like an accomplishment to be able to read it all. I think the story moves along nicely, I just hope others feel that way too.

I feel like a Ground Hog coming out of his hole after a long winter. AG

October Update

Here's a Link to

 The Promotional Video

The narrated video is 39 minutes long and provides samples of the e-Storybook.

Status Report

 I feel like all I do is update the writing process on this project. I never imagined that this would be so complex and take me half my life to complete. Oh Well. So here's where things stand:

First, I'd like to say that the sample video is narrated, possible too carefully, because it seems rather slow compared to fast paced videos so common today. But it is a good example of the e-Storybook and exemplifies the Read-Out Loud nature of the product. 

As you might see from past posts, I was moving forward with the narration for the e-Storybook and the Audio Book. In terms of the Audio Book, it is only a "stage one" narration. I am doing character voices and singing some of the easier lyrics. I say easier lyrics because, being a stage musical, there are numerous choral pieces and other  divisi songs, like ,duets, trios, quartets, quintets, sextets... and on up. It would be ridiculous for me to try to sing all those parts, so I deliver them in prose. I hope to do the Audio Book like an old time radio play with other people doing the voices and including the music where it's supposed to be in the show. It would be nice to use the performance from the stage play for that, but the contracts I know of disallow that. That might of changed since I was studying Entertainment Law, but even so, I think it best to produce that Audio Book separate from and before the stage play to avoid contract entanglements. I would be nice to avoid using union personnel so that we can keep it simple and if I am producing it as a sample project, to pitch it, then that's what I will do. I figure that if we need to do it over again with Union Contracts, then so be it. But I will leave that up to another Producer, because I'm not willing to mess with that. The thing that rubs me the most about that is the clause that gives them the right to audit the books,determine the expenditure legitimacy and dictate distribution. As far as I am concerned you add that in and... forget it, too much paperwork. I don't need that aggravation. So I'll hand it off to another Producer willing to contend with all that, either that or hire someone to monitor all that, but not before I get my due. It's all in the Business Plan and if we move into The Elder Gnomes Joint Venture, the Board of Directors will handle all that.

OK, well, here's where it stands: I was moving forward, up to scene 15, when I found a layout error. Now along the way (I think I mentioned it in the last post) I found numerous sentence structure mistakes. It's a good thing I was doing the narration, because otherwise I would not have found those errors. This entire series has been proof-read thousands of times and yet, still, I found errors! It might have been because I have continually been required to rebuild the files (out of older files), due to failing storage systems. Even when I though I had rectified that problem it kept occurring. Recently I bought a NEW hard disc, thinking that the failing discs were due to age. I did the same thing with an SSD and two new Seagates failed with the main copies on them. what a nightmare. I think I solved the problem, but even now, I only have one cope of the most recent Revision of the Primary Layout files.

I set the files up in the Mac Pro, because the G5 Quad I was using (which I like a lot) had the boot drive fail, of course, with my main files on it. Luckily, I made like five copies of the files and put them all on different discs. But that ends up making it very difficult to find the most recent files, even with the Revision numbers on them. Anyway, the new set of files, or should I say the new design of the layout, allows me to make changes without diving too deep into the primary layout components to do that. It took me a long time to devise a structure that allowed me to do that. Basically all the design elements are set in stone, after a long process of refining the graphics involved. So no I only have to contend with text, which at this point makes it very much easier. I have to say that: it was necessary to integrate the GFX design with the textural design in order to craft the overall design. I don't think I could have come up with the overall look of the project if I had done it any other way, but it was an extremely laborious process. Basically, that is over now, of course, unless I find other mistakes. I think I have purged out all the possible errors, but I said that before, countless times. 

So my most recent activity has been to convert all the page files over to a reduced JPEG format for use in the e-Storybook. I discovered that the files only really need to be 150 DPI and can be set to the proper aspect ratio, while being significantly smaller than my working files. So I scaled everything down through three levels, which also gives me more back-up capability in case something happens. Well, that puts me up to rebuilding the e-Storybook with the new revision. The entire project is broken into many files, which I ended up separating by Scenes. It became clear that serving the e-Storybook on a Subscription Page would be easier if I did it by scenes, so that also simplified my file structure. I had combined scenes when building the working files, because I needed to do that for hard copy publishing. Well, since I decided to structure the files for the needs of the e-Storybook, then I had to modify the gutters. When doing that I found divergences in the inner page sizes, which of course, I had to correct. 

All this means that I am now rebuilding the e-Storybook, replacing the previous pages with the new ones. At first I though that I only needed to replace some pages, but there are size variances, so it's easier to just do a new one. I'm hoping that the narrations I already did will work. Now that I think of it though, the page turns are all timed out in the previous files. I don't know, I guess we'll see.

After the e-Storybook is finished using PowerPoint, I then convert it to a movie file. I'm hoping to set it up so that the files automatically play from scene to scene. If I can do that, without a link, then the files will be able to remain separate, which is preferable for giving options on the subscription page and allowing me to integrate Animation and the music. So that's the direction everything is going in.

The e-Storybook is completely laid out, sans the artwork  for the remaining Illustrations. Relatively speaking the remaining illustrations are less than what has already been done, but even so, I am setting up a new Art Department to accommodate both the Illustrations and the foray into Animation. The way I see it, what has already been done is sufficient to generate the financing for the larger operation. Any way you look at it, I am extremely happy to be done with the complexities of the layout design. Everything is set up to easily integrate the new artwork in terms of the Illustrations, Animations, and Music. So we're "In Like Flynn", we only need more financing, mostly because I have a 20K sq ft building to take care of and a bunch of people I could hire if I had that.

AG

September 2020 Update

They seemed to have changed the program so that any changes (such as correcting typos) moves the post to the top. So it may seem out of place. 

Well, my browser no longer works to access the blog, that's what I get for trying to use XP.

No picture in this post, it doesn't want to load.

I've been struggling with failing hard discs, so I've been in a rush to recover and backup as much as possible. Something is going on here. I have a handful of failed flash drives, three hard drives that are either totally in accessable or do not function, including one of my primary startups, and two arrays that I cannot access, all with primary working files (of various revisions). So you can imagine how panicked I have been about that !

Fortunately, I have been able to transfer the latest working files over to a new 2tb HD. 

I'm getting ready to print the entire collection. I've created two sets of hard copy files. One has description panels for the missing artwork/illustrations, while the other has those panels removed, making it easy to drop the new artwork into a finished layout. Everything for both the hard copy and the e-Storybook has been done, in terms of the foundational layout. The e-Storybook is a completely different layout, but it uses the same pages. I may have posted samples, but at some point I will post more. In fact, the promotional video shows how the e-Storybook functions and looks. That's further down in this blog.

I was doing the narration for the e-Storybook/Audio Book and moving along nicely. EGADS ! You just cannot believe how many text errors I found! I have proof-read this, literally, thousands of times and I have made as many correction of various sorts. You can hardly believe that the written word is so different from the spoken word. Little mistakes in sentence structure, missing words, or spelling, are overlooked and subconsciously corrected by the mind when reading the written word. But when reading it out loud, as in a narration, those mistakes cannot be overlooked. I found at least sixty errors that need to be corrected. At this stage of the layout, doing so involves at least eight layers of operations, possibly more. So, more delays in that regard. This thing is killing me. 

I was reading the narration and I got up to Scene 18 of 20, when I discovered two whole sections of Scene 18 missing. That amounted to about fifty-some pages. So because of the failing hard discs, I had to rebuild those pages. But... Back in Scene 8, I was also missing sections and in Scene 10 as well. You see, I had to break up the scenes to create smaller file sizes, because that was one of the difficulties I had run into. Files that were jamming my computer up, because they were too big. I found out the hard way that; if a file is heavy with GFX, not only is it too large to work well, but it also does not always save correctly. A large file like that acquires anomolies.

Ok, so, with all those missing pages, discovered at different stages of operations, the page numbering had to be corrected a number of times. As I said, 8+ operations, on each page; there are 766 pages in the collection. 

I repeat - this is killing me ! Well, this stage of operations is almost done. When I get the books done, I'm taking a break and working on my vehicles. I've got a 1931 Model A Roadster sitting in pieces that I want up and running, plus a lot more, like two Corvairs, an RV and a 1944 Star Trailerized Home, not to mention my work trucks. So I have a lot that I pushed off to the side, in order to finish "The Gnomes of New Hope". But I also have to get back to working on the music too.

What I need more than anything right now is serious capital influx. I need to secure the working environment in a number of rather expensive ways. I pushed that off to the side too, in order to get this done, but all this stuff is catching up to me and it's starting to interfere significantly.

 Let me know if you can help with that and/or representation. AG

In-House Production

Here's an old business card that I used as an Ad
which I posted in a Playbill for
"The Pirates of Penzance"

(years ago, the email is no good)

I've been analyzing the current marketplace and have come to the conclusion that we are very well postured to support the full range of activities for this show in-house. That has been my objective, and although the studio setup is underway, the end result will be a very comprehensive and well equipped scenario. The biggest issue right now is capital influx. The product lines are not fully developed. The core product lines are developed, with only a few elements needing to be finished, but the external details and support mechanisms allowing for release into the marketplace are still being refined.

It is clear that the changing environment is bringing about new methodology and those alterations to the marketplace are aligning themselves exactly to the structure that I designed into the entire product line of "The Gnomes of New Hope". This is quite fortuitous, since I have kept everything under wraps and developed capabilities for fulfilling the imagined potential within the atmosphere of Image of the Mind Studios, while anticipating the potential for the traditional path that projects of this nature travel. So I have designed the project to be able to avail itself of existing methodology and to break new ground, by virtue of it's Core Creative design.

Often times a project advances in the marketplace when it seems that the creative materials are ready for presentation, simply based on that criteria In that regard, the Libretto has been finished for over ten years and a production could have been developed from that. The basic music has also been "finished" sufficiently to support moving forward, however, the music is not sufficiently refined nor satisfactory in my mind. That is, in fact the next are of attention.

As I suppose you can glean from the other posts here, the focus of attention has been the Storybook. I have just burned the final layout to DVD for security reasons. I have had major problems with failing hard discs and have lost a great deal of work because of that. Not only have I lost work, but I have lost time. Years worth of delays have happened because of work that has had to have been done over, multiple times. So burning the layout materials to disc represents a certain level of finality. This is really the first time that the whole collection has been consistent throughout and thoroughly inspected and cross referenced to assure that. The only thing missing is the finishing artwork and composite illustrations. But now we are in a position to focus on that artwork, without the distraction of other design and layout issues. It would have been too costly to engage in the work of illustration while creating the designs for the layout. By designs I mean not only the book designs for both hard copy and e-Storybook, but also the production designs that are connected to producing a final product. Production design extends into the full range of manufacturing, marketing, distribution and the capability to expand upon an array of Secondary and ancillary markets while focusing on the Primary markets. It's very extensive and establishing the foundational elements is key to success.

The materials that have been presented thus far represent samples of the greater whole. Those sample were developed to establish the initial foundation and cause the Core Creative Materials to be manifested. As the CCM was refined the scope expanded to a degree that required certain methodologies to be developed and put in place. A great deal of that has been formed and across the board the designs for both the project and the work environment are in place and well established.

Implementation is underway and the rapidity of progress is wholly contingent upon capital influx. The intention had been, and remains, to generate that capital influx from the product lines and their own viability. This is a good plan, but external circumstances are somewhat precarious and maintain a threat potential to derail the progress. As much as I wish I could ignore this threat that lingers outside of the studio goals, objectives, internal balance of workload, and progress of this and other projects, I cannot.

Therefore, I must  express the desire and need to generate sufficient capital influx to avert any external threat. What that means is that I will be focusing on posting information about "The Elder Gnomes Joint Venture" and the Front Money Agreements involved with "The Gnomes of New Hope". I will be posting that information on "IMS Producing Partners" but access to that page is by request only, because I do not want that information generally available to anyone who can read the blogs. Those are business documents which I will make available to our potential and real business partners. I will discuss other business matter on that private blog also, so if you are an Industry Professional considering involvement, that site is the one to discuss the project. I may or may not allow comments on that site. Currently I do not, but as a production tool, I think I will set up another page for production personnel.

That's all for now. AG

Scene Shop

I'm reorganizing the scene shop to include a delineated area for a 24' diameter turn table. This turntable will match The Bucks County Playhouse stage (BCP). So even though the blocking and set design sketches were designed for The Michelle Performing Arts Centre stage (MPAC) the show is being redesigned for smaller stages, use BCP as a guide. I'll go into details about that later and I'll be posting designs on a separate page that will only be accessible to our crew.

The sets are being built to use the downstage half for the current scene, while the next scene is being loaded upstage. Right and left will be stage props thematically tied into the Shakespeare doors. It's likely that those areas will be positioned from the turntable, but that's yet to be seen.

 A good portion of the scenery will be drops and flats, because the show needs to fit  into a 35' trailer. I'm opting for the smaller trailer for manuverabiliy in the cities. I'm not sure the larger show will fit in one trailer. But for now I'm only focusing on keeping the show sized so it will fit in one 35 footer.

I expect to make the sets flexible enough to cover a mid-sized non-union stage as well as the parade float and the festival environment. I'm leaving the first class operation  to either the Board of Directors or a licensed external producing group. But my focus will be on setting it up for presentation on my sound stage (20w x 16d) for the purpose of recording the scenes in the book using puppets. There will be some flexibility as to stage size.

That's all for now.

Pages from the Final Layout

Rather than add these pages to the last post, I'm posting them separately.

 The Credit page may or may not show up well here, 

since I cannot enlarge it to it's intended size.
It is intended to be seen as the e-Storybook on a large screen HDTV.

The first page describes the Signed & Numbered Limited Editions,

while the second page begins the Preface to Volume One.

I posted a link to a Promotional Video below that shows
how the e-Storybook functions, with narration.

If you compare these pages with that presentation,
you will see the difference.

It seems now that the e-Storybook will be delivered in Volumes,
broken into Scenes, rather than Books.

The reason is that the narration increases the file size, 

thus making delivery of the Volumes as Books more difficult electronically.

So, the Big Peoples Books will be delivered as Three Printed Volumes,

while the Gnome-sized Editions will be delivered as Seven Printed Books.

On the left, below, is the Complimentary Ticket Page.
 For those person who purchase
a Signed and Numbered Edition
or an Edition From any Special Event
This page is included in the book, on the back of the Signing Certificate.
The Page is self-explanatory.

There are terms for Two-Fers and Complimentary tickets
 which will be posted here
(on the side panel).

Briefly: Two-Fers and Comp Certificates
must be redeemed no later than one hour before curtain,
In the instance of the Comp Certificate (seen here) in the book
the entire published book must be shown at the Box Office,
they are for Comp Seating (which is an area set aside by the theatre),
there are a limited number Comp seats offered at each show,
it is contingent upon availability
and they are offered at the theatre's discretion.
They may also be used to receive a discount on General Seating.

As you can see, the Credit page is not as clear as I would like
when it is presented smaller like this,

even though I altered it from the the panel design to improve it.
Part of the reason is the amount of information I squeezed onto the page,
but I needed it to be on one page.
 Because of that, some of the text needed to be smaller
 and it lost clarity with use of different colors and sizes in each word.

But it does print well, which was the main purpose at the time.
 It is only digitally that it does not read as well,
because of the variations introduced
by different  viewing screens.

 It's the one page that I just decided to leave in,
even if it does not read as well I want it to.
Although, with the narration it doesn't matter.

I like it, so I'm leaving it ...
at least until I feel the need to change it, again.

Here's a link to
IMS Publishing

AG

Assembling the e-Storybook

I was making a few minor changes, after discovering that the Preface to Book One had a design variation from the rest of the collection. So rather than change the entire 800 pages, I removed that element from the Preface, since it wasn't that important, it was questionable anyway, and that only involved around 15 pages. But while I was at it, I realized that the layout had accommodations in it for a full bleed for the printing press, so I decided to crop the page for the e-Storybook. Well, by doing so I gained at least 15% in the image size. On the HDTV that is huge, not to mention on your hand-held devises. I have a few sections (actually only one page really) where the clarity of the text is uncertain, but I left it in anyway, because with narration, that doesn't really matter. I'll post that page here when I can. So I think the gain of so much more image area is a really big plus. I keep thinking I can't make it better and somehow I manage to do that. I can't wait until I can install animations (or even clips of the puppet show).

Here are two panels which make up that questionable page. They have been combined into one page and the design has been altered in numerous ways to improve the clarity . The images posted here are too small to enlarge well, because they were taken from The Gnome-sized Book. It is the only page where I use this design. It was an experiment which I decided to keep and it is used as the Inside Back Cover of the Hard Copy Books (it does print better than is shows digitally). You can see what I mean about the clarity. I'll replace these panels with the actual page, later. Hopefully the clarity will be better, we'll see. AG

Act One, Scene Four

A Sudden Awareness

Here's a photo from my thirties, just to make this post more interesting. Of course, now I'm 66 and don't quite look the same. You know how that goes!

After spending a week or so focused on replacing my HVAC and Hot Water Heater (doing it myself) I returned my workstation to continue working on the e-Storybook. It is very clear to me that I cannot move away from work on the Gnomes for very long, because the materials are complex enough that I will loose track of what I was doing. I post this as a means to convey the necessity of transferring the lion's share of momentum to a level of production activity that delegates critical activities into departmental objectives. This requires sufficient funding to implement. I only know that the burden of forward momentum needs to be transfered out of my sphere, because I am easily distracted with far too many "projects" that have nothing to do with producing the Gnomes. I have pushed these "projects" aside for the sake of developing the Gnomes and there are many of these that cry out to be attended to. Doing so risks loosing track of the Core Creative Materials. This is why my concentration has, for so long, been focused on finishing those materials down to only installing the artwork. The one critical thing that needs to be achieved is purging my workstation of all revisions of the work, except the final revision. But that can't be done until the publishing materials are done, done, done.

It's disturbing to discover that I can so easily loose track of the complex of materials in my own computer. This is another reason the materials cannot be released until they are considered finished.

Well, I thought it apporopriate to convey that, so that management relationships might develop to avert stalling the momentum by my inevitable distraction.

AG 🎭 🇺🇸

New Stage

 I hope you have taken the time to look at the while Promotional Video I posted last time I wrote here. That video exemplifies numerous aspects of the overall project. Now my efforts are turning to narrating the entire e-Storybook and printing the entire collection. That is as far as I dare go at present. Believe me, that is enough of a task. I can say that, with the introduction of that video, other production activities can take place if both funding and delegating responsibilities come into play.

On my end, setting up the production line for manufacturing books it underway, but I need to concern myself with generating capital influx to maintain facilities while getting the assorted work areas prepared for personnel. That includes, most especially the sound stage and a audience gallery. Implementing those elements are contingent upon an escrow for facilities overhead. So I guess that means licensing, because the book products, as a whole, cannot be distributed without finishing the illustration artwork.

So overall, it's a delicate balance.

AG🎭🇺🇸

A Promotional Video

Here's a link QuickTime Movie that I created from the Preface of 

Volume One, Book One
Promotional Sample of the e-Storybook

I'm still working on the settings, but the video speaks for itself.

https://youtu.be/tfSsJKwANw8

IMS Publishing

Here's the latest post on

IMS Publishing

regarding the status of releasing the books

and the design process.

AG

e-Storybook and Published Books

You will find this flyer further down in a post with an order form,
if you are interested in buying books or contact me via email;
  ✉ image.of.the.mind.studios@gmail.com

Yesterday, I finished the book layout
and saved the pages as DOCX, PSD, PDF, and JPG files.
The journey of refining the material,
making corrections to the graphics and the text
has been nothing short of a nightmare for various reasons.
I go into that in other posts,
but now I have finally saved the files in all the formats that I use
for both the e-Storybook and the hard copy published editions.

Now, I must also state that the entire collection is not finished,
 we still need more illustrations
but at least the final layout is completed !
done... done. Yahoo !

 I'm still setting up the e-storybook, the audio book and the printer files,
but the hard work of locking in the layout is finished.
Whew!
 Also we still need to create and install
quite a bit of artwork and illustrations.

As it stands now,
I'd say that that five out of the seven books in the collection
are illustrated,
but only three books are complete enough to sell.

The Book Four needs less than 15 illustrations,
while Book Five is a collection short stories
derived from
  The Gnomic Tales
and has not been illustrations at all because of that.

When last we worked on the artwork,
the mission was to illustrate
Zach & Zebby's Grand Adventure
and so, when Volume Two, Act Two, Scene Ten became Book Five,
it was composed entirely of brief stories,
which are the foundation of
The Gnomic Tales
and those tales were not illustrated.

So, right in the middle of the collection, there are no illustrations.
 Books Six and Seven are largely illustrated,
but some of those illustrations need to be replaced
 to avoid redundancy.

It has been the plan to replace still life illustrations with animated scenes
or brief snippets in the form of GIFs or .MOV files.
 One aspect of that plan is to create the entire series as
an animated film
and to do so scene by scene,
presenting those clips as part of the e-Storybook,
accessible via a subscription page.
How this plan will work out is yet to be seen,
since the subscription page, the shopping cart for sales,
and the remaining illustrations for the entire collection
are not yet finished.

But... the layout is done,
leaving me free to concentrate on other aspects of production,
such as working with Jency and other artists to finish the illustrations,
working in the shop to set up the scene shop, sound stage,
production line, inventory and shipping,
working on the gallery, showroom and sales office.

I'm enthused to have more freedom to work on
the animatronic puppetry and the parade float.

So now I need to decide how to proceed and create cash flow
from the work that is complete.
There is a dilemma with whether or not to release any of the books
 before the entire collection is complete.
I can release Volume One, because that is
 "An Introduction to The Gnomes of New Hope"
and stands on it's own, but the rest of the collection
is tied directly to the Stage Musical
and is broken into Scenes that match that show.

Volume Two consists of Act One, Scenes 1-9,
with three scenes in each of the three books
Books Two, Three and Four.
 Volume Three consists of Scenes 10-20,
with Scene 10 (The Gnomic Tales) being in Book Five,
Scenes 11-14 being in Book Six
and Scenes 15-20 being in Book Seven.
So that is the makeup of the collection.

I do expect to release the entire collection on the subscription page,
figuring that for those members,
the pages without artwork will still be available to read.

On that subject, in the current layout,
pages without artwork are fully designed
and match those pages with finished artwork.
The only difference is that instead of artwork
 are description panels defining the artwork
that will be placed in the allotted space.

My thinking is that via the subscription page,
members can watch as we create the art
and replace the panels with the finished illustration,
 but also, as we proceed,
 illustrations will be replace with animations.

This approach cannot be done with the printed books,
so it is a different product.
Ultimately,
"Gnomes in a Gnutshell"
will be a product containing all the materials,
including the feature film
(and possibly the Libretto and Score as well)
 that a personcan put on their shelf
to view at anytime,
without needing to go on the subscription page.

That's all for now. ⌚ AG

Stage Designs

Here's a shot of The Meadow Amphitheatre, 

a stage I designed and built for The Shakespeareans of Tamanend Park 

a troupe I formed and we briefly started to grow, 

before vandals kept damaging the stage 

and we had to discontinue operations. 

We also did Cinema Under the Stars there it was cool.

Now onto The sets for the Gnomes: 

As I have said, I am setting up the shop, most particularly the wood and metal working areas. Part of that deals with storage and spacial design. I have made mention of this before, but in the wood working area, where the sets will be (in large part) constructed, I have a working area that matches the turntable on the stage in The Bucks County Playhouse. Initially the show was designed using The Mitchell Performing Arts Centre as a model stage, But those two stages are quite different.

MPAC has a working stage area of 40'x 24', while BCP (assuming the use of the turntable for set changes) has an approximate working stage area of 29'x 19. Those areas are upstage of the proscenium without a thrust.  Other theatres around the country are basically in-between those dimensions. I will need to be gathering stage specifications before I determine the actual size of the sets to be constructed. As it stands now, my studio can accomodate constructing the show for a 20'x 16' stage. If I design the components to be independent from oneanother, then positioning can take up the slack. I figure the drops can have wings to take them upo to the 40' dimension if necessary, or we can (as I had planned) have the legs serve as those extensions and taper them out toward downstage.

My point here is that I need to gather a list of theatres where we will take this show to after we mount it. I need to have the dimensions before we construct the sets, unless I assume that the show needs to be flexible enough to set up on any stage that falls between those two working areas. That's probably the best approach, but I'll be doing the research and invite any theatre owners or producers who may be interested to contact me. I do intend to construct this show as a rental, meaning that the show we mount in the studio will be available for rental to any producer wishing to put up a presentation and the basic cadre of supplies, sets, costumes, props, libretto and score (including MIDI or live recordings) will be rented out as a package deal.

I'm also building the parade float to work out at 20'x8' which will be used to promote any location the show goes up, including festivals.

So all of this is open for discussion. Start that discussion via email, or come over to the studio in Southampton.

That's all for now.  AG

Here's a set I designed and built for "Anne Frank"

AG 

🎭 🇺🇸

Status Report

I'm posting an image of the DVD, however, I have discovered that the file sizes may be too big for a DVD. It may be that one or more PowerPoint presentations will fit on one DVD. I hope so, but we'll see. I'm posting this image because I want to encourage industry professionals to consider becoming involved. I've mentioned this before, but I am seeking representation and licensing opportunities. I need a break and feel like, under the right circumstances, certain ancillary markets could easily advance. In terms of First Class Legit Theatre and First Run Cinema Production, I'd rather have other organizations take the ball. I'm not savvoy to producing in a union environment, not to say I couldn't do it, but I've been busy with other work and I'm not up to speed in that arena.

I'm tired, I need to take a break to attend to other matters, while building my cars and the Parade Float. I'm happy to focus on Little Theatre (non-union) and building my studio capabilities; scene shop, design studio, fabrication, filmmaking, art department , animation, animatronic puppetry, etc. So the larger union based production needs to be jobbed out.

Publishing

Well, as I have said, I have been busy redesigning the layout. I realized that the way I had the layout designed, making corrections or adding material was very diffult and time consuming. In addition to that, I have been working on two separate products; the published books and the e-Storybook. Well, the layout was such that I needed to make adjustments for each of those products, which was becoming not only tiresome, but a waste of time. So I concluded to redesign the basic layout, which worked quite well to create the product lines, but created numerous issues that were causing serious logistical problems and were the root of many delays and redundancy.

After having spent countless hours, amounting to years worth of effort, crafting the series of books and developing a digital environment, as the means to implement this project, it became clear that, having fully identified the scope of the project, a new core design was required to implement many aspects of this in the most efficient manner possible. So I set out to make changes by separating the components into new categories that were more effectively linked together and were able to provide the ultimate of flexibility within the parameters of each arena that will avail itself of the Core Creative Material.

In addition to providing greater flexibility, separating the GFX from the Narrative Content in a different fashion then used previously, has reduced file size significantly. As I mentioned before, I have had serious problems with file storage and files becoming corrupted, which has forced me to do (essentially) the same work over again and again. That has been very frustrating. It was especially distressing to have storage device failures that have caused me to loose a great deal of work. This is one reason for restructuring the files. I have, in fact, separated the components, so that any future failures of storage will not destroy anything but the most recent revisions, which contain only minor adjustments. The truth is that I am now working on Rev 220, a number that represents a bit less than that, because I skipped some groups for delineation purposes. But the number of revisions absolutely exceeds 150.

So the biggest immediate advantage I gained by redesigning the layout, is that I increased the size of the primary image area for the HDTV e-Storybook, while changing the scale to match both HDTV and the capacity of the printing press. Previously, I had designed the layout for the printing press and adjusted that layout for HDTV, but I did not take a few factors into consideration. That was basically causing me to do two layouts, which meant I had to implement changes or adjustments in both layouts. Now the entire series has turned out to be 741 pages, so you can imagine the complexity. I've massively simplified my process by, changing key elements in the layout and making it possible to add security measures, in terms of protecting the project both internally and externally. The new layout addresses the addition of new art in both illustration panels and animation in a much more efficient manner.

On the subject of animation; my intention is to add animation by replacing select illustration panels one at a time and to tie those animations together in a string, effectively creating an animated film step by step. As I said elsewhere, those animations will be available through the e-Storybook subscription page. Once that is set up, and the new layout design takes that into account, then the subscribers will be able to watch the project grow step by step, as we add new animations and music.

There is much more to talk about, but I'll save that for later.

AG 🎭

Theatre Notes

I was reading about the theatres opening up again and it got me thinking about the theatre aspect of "The Gnomes of New Hope". The Libretto has been done for some time. It's fully re fined as a foundation for the show, with many technical notes included. Of course, the text includes dialogue, lyrics, blocking, and operational notes, but it also has design notes. The Score, however, needs to be completed. I have drafts of each song in various forms. There are Leadsheets for the melody lines on most songs. Only those that have not been arranged have not been printed out. Only a few songs have the full orchestral arrangement printed out. My effort was to secure Lead Sheets for the singers,with Piano adaptations, without worrying about the orchestrations.

When we wrote the music, our process was like this; I would write the lyrics, in the context of the storyline, then I would conceptualize a melody line for delivery of those lyrics, then I would present the lyrics and melody line during our worksessions. Shawn would then write that melody line down (using Digital Performer) while I conceptualized the delivery and the timing, in the context of what is taking place onstage. That includes anticipating the blocking, set changes, and technical transitions. An important aspect was the tempo required to maintain the overall beat of the show, but it is a fine line between keeping the pace up and making the lyrics deliverable. It's one thing to think it out and quite another to delivery the words descernably to the audience at the back wall. 

I discovered a flaw in our method. When we first started working with Digital Performer, we had to learn the program while trying to write at the same time. Any of you familiar with DP will know what a monumental task that is. DP is unbelievable. It a complex program, especially for a neophite. Well anyway, we were excited to experiment with arranging, so we moved forward to arrange the first song. We spent an inordinate amount of time getting that right. I won't go into that, but it forged a modus operandi, that looking back, it think was a mistake. Now Shawn is a pianist. So his desire was not to use the piano, because he wanted to break out of that genera. I wasn't entirely onboard with that but I agreed. So all the music was crafted without the piano and there was no piano in the arrangements. I fought for piano arrangements, but it was a point of contention. In fact, the piano and scoring lead to us stopping working. I insisted I needed piano arrangements for both pitching the music and training the singers. He refused to engage in scoring until the entire show was arranged. But here's the problem; the arrangements were made based on the melody lines. Well that absolutely is the correct thing to be doing, except that while I was writing, Shawn was arranging. We did it together, working in the same space on two different computers. We collaborated on every note, but there was a big disagreement on one important issue. I asked that Shawn preserve the melody line that we created by duplicating that basic melody line in a separate track. He flat out refused and took pieces of the melody line and moved them to different instruments to create the arrangements. Effectively that hurried the melody line in the arrangements and assigned that melody to multiple instruments, making the melody, in some instances, nearly impossible to distinguish. That combined with the scoring issue caused us to argue enough that we ended up discontinuing our work. There are still fifteen or so songs that need to be arranged.

I shifted my work over to the Storybook, because publishing the entire story, both the current time line and the backstory, in a narrative format was an overwhelmingly huge task. It has taken me nearly fifteen years to get this story ready for publishing. But it is literally days, weeks at most away from being finished. Not done done mind you. But the publishing layout will be totally finished in terms of being "ready-for-press" sans the remaining illustrations, which need to be created and inserted.

 So with the completion of this stage of the Storybook, knowing that it will be presentable as The Industry Review product, I anticipate getting back to the scoring. I need to recover the melody lines from the arrangements, create piano adaptations, and do the divisi, starting with the duets and working my way up to the choral numbers. I've spoken to Shawn about that and he is open to continuing the work. I have upgraded our workstation and need to get DP9 and Mach Five installed one operating. We used Reason for our voices and I want a tone generator that integrates better with DP, so I bought MachFive, but I have to learn it. Especially before I invite Shawn back into the studio.

That's all for now, more later. AG 🎭

Most Recent Activity

Well, as I have said, the Storybook, beginning with Volume Three and working backwards has been being conformed to a new background page. This process has gone back and forth about the three times, in order to check and adjust the page numbers. The discovery of new material and installing that into the layout has extended that time and the effort required to do that, but also, I discovered sections of text that were somehow missing and needed to correct that.

One element here is that; where there is no artwork (because it hasn't been created yet) the space for the artwork has been estimated and a description panel inserted. I am somewhat concerned that when the artwork is created the area on the page will need to be larger than anticipated. That will change the page layout, numbering and the length of the book. That would be fine for the e-Storybook, because changes and updates can easily occur, but in terms of the hard copy books, that might present a diffculty. Luckily, Volume One is finished and Volume Two is only missing a few illusrations. The larger part of the missing illustrations are in Volume Three and publishing that can be delayed if necessary.

As I write this, I wonder if it would be possible to select an image and enlarge it. Of course, that could only happen if the e-Storybook is viewed on a computer. I may integrate that function into the Storybook. I will be inserting animation, so maybe that zoom function will be integrated throughout the book.

The most recent activity has been to conform Volume One to the new background. Although Volume One has been published, it needs to match the rest of the series. The changes in the background include adjustments to the text and the color balance and density of the page, as well as creating a different method of layering the components, so as to reduce the working file size. The new methodology give more freedom to integrate active elements and a wider latitude for make corrections and additions.

So Volume One is almost finished being confirmed to Volumes Two and Three. Overall there seems to be 743 pages, not including prefaces and appendixes. I am looking forward to binding the prototypes if the Three Volume Set. As I said before, the Gnome-sized books will be issued as a seven book set, while the Big People books will be issued as a Three Volume Set. The e-Storybook will be initially released as a subscription page, until all the animations for the entire series are complete, at which time the collection will be sold as "Gnomes in a Gnutshell".

So there is the status of thing so far. I will be, and am, looking for a Theatrical Agent to manage some of the external business of the project and although I am publishing this in-house, I am looking to contract out distribution and publishing management. I am simply too busy with other studio work to do an effective job of saturating the market. Do contact me if you have interest, abilities and resources to engage at the appropriate level. AG 🎭🇺🇸

Slowly but Surely...

So, you can read about the progress and the delays that. I am experiencing in the effort to complete the Storybooks. It is unbelievable the way I make discoveries along the way. On Saturday I decided to work on the books, instead of my usual work on my vehicles or the shop maintenance. Ok, and what did I discover? More pages missing... 39 pages were missing from Scene Eight. How does this happen? It's a good thing I decided to redo the background for Volume Two also, otherwise I would not have found those missing pages until I was trying to print the books, and that would have wasted time and money, for more than just me. The bummer here is that those missing pages in Scene Eight mean I have to renumber Volume Three... AGAIN!  Well, these are the challenges that must be surmounted.

I began this endeavor in 1997. We're looking at twenty-three years. But it's not just a book, it's a full stage musical and a dozen ancillary markets that have also been developed, in addition to the support arenas of puppetry and the developing parade and little theatre arenas. So all this takes time to design, built, and present. But the other significant factor is setting up the studio to service those activities, so I can't really complain, but it is frustrating to have a strong vision but limited resources with which to implement that plan. Oh well, that's just the way it is. AG 🎭

Status of the Storybook 🎭

    

Anyone in their right mind must think  that this e-Storybook is some kind of Urban Legend. God knows I'm starting to wonder myself. Every step along the way I think it's done only to discover I was wrong. I've given up presuming to know anything at this point.

   Well, here's were we stand. Since the last post, I've gone over Volume Three at least four times, installing the Lost Gnomic Tales and correcting the page numbers. Now I discovered the page numbers to be off again by two pages. How that happened is a mystery, but here is what needs to be done to correct that.

   The main documents are written in MS Word, making them . docx files. There are nearly eighty files that make up the seven hundred pages which equate to Three Volumes of the Storybook Collection.

   There are eighty files, because each Scene must be done in both right and left gutters. Now, some people will say that the computer can determine the gutter for printing, but in this case that is not so. The text and artwork on the page must be adjusted to the background, as the background page, being right or left, determines the spatial relationships. If you look at some of the sample pages that I have posted, you will see what I mean.

     Those eighty files and the pages therein, need to be matched to each other in many ways, including page numbers.

   After being written, edited, indeed crafted in DOCX, the file goes to PDF, which then needs to be inspected, before going into a PSD file. Once again, all the pages need to be inspected for shifts that occur when the file is converted.

   You would be surprised to find out how many elements are not stable throughout​ the various digital conversions. Some people will tell you that there are no changes,  but they are wrong. I can assure you, there are changes, not only in registration, but also in density and color balance. With eighty files, cross referencing and eliminating those changes is both time consuming and frustrating. Add to that that I am now up to Revision 214.

    Now in some instances, I skipped numbers for clarity's sake, but there are literally; hundreds of file versions of those eighty (plus) files. You can begin to see the extent of this project.

   In addition to this, there have been countless files, and indeed hard discs, that have been corrupted along the way, forcing me to try to recover files and redo the work dozens of times.

    I have redesigned the Basic method of operation numerous times, until I now have the components in multiple backup renditions. Quite literally, there are hundreds of files in each Revision. It is very extensive.

     Keep in mind also that, one basic file has gone through hundreds of artistic adjustments to both the compositions and the digital parameters to get it to be what it has now become. This, in addition to creating the original story, artwork and music from scratch.

      OK. So where do we stand? Well, now that I have installed the Lost Gnomic Tales, I have turned to inspecting Volume Two for the page numbers, but now I realize that my method of achieving the final page layout in Volume Two is different than that used in Volume Three. The method used for Volume Three is superior and not only offers me greater flexibility, but also file security and a greatly improved ability to upgrade the layout. The ability to upgrade the layout in this way is essential for integrating animation into the project.

    With that said, I am upgrading Volume Two to match the page layout used for Volume Three, and ultimately I will need to do the same for Volume One. But mainly, I am doing Volume Two, to assure that the page numbers are correct.

     An interesting consequence of that; is a change of the relationship between the background and the page content, because I moved the layout into a newer version of Word that allows better adjustment capabilities. And so, with those adjustment capabilities I am refining the font presentation on the earlier work to match the improvements made in the later work. This is a consequence of improving the background and checking the page numbering. Also, this improved method of backgrounding also allows easy alterations in that becomes necessary to match the parameters required for the printing press.

    That is an important consideration. There are distinct differences between the hard copy and digital versions and a full range of adjustment capabilities must be maintained, including the fact that the size of the e-Storybook, although very close to that of the published hard copy, is different, because of the capability of the most efficient printing parameters.

So there is an update, with some other information. I may continue this later.

AG 🎭🇺🇸

Addendum;

  So, I returned to my office the next day (yesterday) only to find that half of the files I was working on were gone. Just not there. So either Works did not actually save them, even though I clearly did save them, as evident by the recent files list, or, as I suspect, the hard disc they were saved in is failing. This is a recurring problem. I bought two arrays as backup and after backing everything up to one of them, poof, the array disappeared from the desktop with all the most recent files. Oh yes, and I bought a new Seagate Backup disc, twice, and twice the new backup discs failed, once before I loaded it up and once with a full collection of my files. Not a backup collection mind you, copies of all my original files, after I transferred them and cleaned out my boot discs, before I could duplicate them, the new Seagate failed. I sent it back to Seagate and they could not revover my files. Just great. I had to rebuild everything over, again, from old files. Years upon years of working and reworking this stuff. No wonder this is, quite literally, driving me crazy. Even when I go to extremes to duplicate and backup, current files still disappear on me. My collection of work files can only be defined as a laberinth. I have gotten to the point where I need to convert to PDF as I go, which poses difficulties when changes are required (like correcting page numbers) well, I'm in the home stretch. Maybe I should burn a set to CD. Duh, why didn't I think of that before? 🙄

An Exciting Development

Now that the e-Storybook is advancing, I will be looking more at the stage production. But I'm also addressing the parade float.

I'm not sure what happened with the alignment. I'll fix it later.

Here is an update:

 I stumbled upon an exciting capability that I have. As you may have read, I've been developing the e-Storybook using PowerPoint. I'm very satisfied with the presentation, especially the "page turn" effect. But I have struggled with certain DRM issues and how to deliver the end product. I have more or less concluded that the end product needs to be a movie and not a document. As a document, I can insert the A/V elements, but as a document there are various issues of access, file size, file security and other things of importance. Unfortunately, (as far as I know) I cannot implement links within a movie, but by using a "Subscription Page" I can craft that page to include links to both documents (order forms, flyers, show tickets) and videos (e-Storybook, promotional, documentaries). 

So my discovery is that iMovie can import PowerPoint, along with all the effects and synchronized audio. 

Unfortunately, the audio is not as good as I'd like, but that may be a result of my recording environment. I'm not using an isolation booth, because I haven't built that yet, but my equipment is very good. However, I used the "record audio" function in PowerPoint, which I am not certain of. I can move that recording over to Digital Performer or possibly boot DP and narrate into DP while implementing the page turn functions in PowerPoint. I'm not sure yet how to approach the Audio Book. If I were to guess, I think I'll create the e-Storybook using PowerPoint and the re-record the Audio Book with DP, particularly after I build another sound booth.

But it is exciting to realize that it won't be long before I post a promotional video that exemplifies the e-Storybook.

AG

New Material

There I was, thinking the HDTV e-Storybook was nicely reaching completion (sans finishing artwork) and - low & behold I discovered another 153 pages that I somehow forgot to include. I think I nixed the pages in this version, but as I was doing the finishing work on the layout, I realized taking those pages out was not a good idea.

Well, those pages are actually sections taken from The Gnomic Tales. So it's good to include those tales, even if it does increase the size of the books. At least those stories are included in the registrations.

So here we are again; more delays... But I guess it's necessary.

AG

Volume One

Here is a copy of the most recent post made on The Gnome of New Hope Facebook Page.

This is a promotional flyer for the hard copy books of Volume One. These books are available for purchase.

The Big People's Book is $29.95 plus $5.00 for shipping.

The Gnome-sized Book is $8.99 plus $2.50 for shipping.

Double check the shipping by using the price on the order form.

These books are published on-demand and they are not inventoried, so there will be a delay in shipping, as they need to be made to order.

(Since posting images from this devise does not work well, check the Facebook link above. I will post images when I update this post, or search below, since they have steady been posted.)

You can send me an email or IM me if you'd like pay using PayPal or if you'd like me to send you a PDF of these documents.

Below you will find an order form you can mail in with your check or money order.

IMS Publishing

Some time ago I began setting up a page for IMS Publishing. 

It's a work in progress, but I posted there today. I linked the title of that blog above. I expect to be posting there more often as the e-Storybook and the hard copy books move closer to being released. AG

HDTV, Formats

Here is a link to the Facebook Gnomes of New Hope page, where I posted on this subject.

Industry Review

I found this letter I prepared as part of the package. The HDTV version of the e-Storybook will constitute a portion of the materials, which will also include the developing Business Plan. So here's a copy of the cover letter.  AG

p.s. The IMS Restrictive Covenant is required to be signed and submitted before any party may review The Core Creative Materials. Although this is posted in IMS Producing Partners, please request a copy of the agreement via email. After this is agreed to, the materials will be made available to Industry Professionals.

The Core Creative Materials consists of Presentation materials containing portions of; e-Storybook, Libretto, Score, Music MP3, additional samples of design materials and prototype materials for some Ancillary Markets, The Business Plan (outlining specific Modus Operandi and Terms & Conditions) and other relative support materials. The full composite of these materials can be reviewed at the studio in Southampton Pennsylvania at any time.

PowerPoint

Here is a link to one of the PowerPoint Presentations.

An Introduction to 

The Gnomes of New Hope;

 Zach & Zebby's 

Grand Adventure 

This link will take you to 

a READ ONLY copy.

UPDATE

As it stands now, this upload

 does not work properly

unless you use

PowerPoint v.15.3.3

I tested it from someone else's Windows 10 computer. 

The file, when downloaded,

 was devoid of transition effects and had erratic narration.

 After some other testing

it is clearly due to

 the difference in 

PowerPoint versions.

 I will attempt to resolve this problem. If you would like a copy

 on flash drive, let me know.

I guess I need to convert this 

to a .mov file... 

More delays. 

Oh well.

You can try it, but rest assured

My original version

(not uploaded)

works beautifully 

on a Mac Pro with 10.13

with PowerPoint 15.3.3

ARCHIVE

The presentation has samples of the music, the final e-Storybook,
and hard-copy books.

I intended for this presentation to put here on the blog, 

but apparently
 it is too large to post

 or view directly.

It is 131 MB.

If you want to view it,

 you will need to have PowerPoint
and download the file.

In the future I hope to post it here

 as a a video.

Here's a link to PowerPoint:
PowerPoint Download

BIO

I posted an older version of my Career History on IMS Producing Partners. 

You will find a link in the header of

Image of The Mind Studios Virtual Studio
(for a newer version I can send it to you via e-mail)

Posts

I have taken to reorganizing the format of my posts. You will note that on some posts I have headings such as UPDATE, the date, and ARCHIVE. I think this works better than simply creating many posts on a particular subject that get lost in the timeline. So, gradually, I will be consolidating the posts under subject matter and purging outdated redundancies. My goal here is to create a blog that will be more useful as a management tool. Up until now, it has been mostly for progress reports, but since the whole project has moved to the level where entrance into serious production activity can now occur, this blog will need to serve a different purpose.

I was using IMS Producing Partners for the significant business management information, and that will continue, but that site is a closed site only for Vested Business Partners. I need to do more refinement on that site, as well as the e-Storybook Subscription Service, so restructuring this site will be slow. I do believe that more direct pertinent Business Information needs to be posted here (since it's not restricted) and I will be trying to do that. But the real meaty Business Contract and Management information will still be reserved for IMS Producing Partners.

If anyone specializes in ISP Servers, as in subscription services for Gnomes in a Gnutshell, let me know and we can discuss it.

AG

Industry Review

An older version of the page layout, but representative of the new look.

The entire collection is now finished enough for review and will be available on DVD (presuming the file sizes fit) for Industry Professionals, with a signed Restrictive Covenant Agreement. Contact me for information.

I may post the collection, or portions thereof, on IMS Producing Partners. But access will be restricted, in that instance, so a password will be required and must be requested if that is the case.

Arthur Greisiger
image.of.the.mind.studios@gmail.com

3/24/20

I've addressed a number of relative subjects herein, so a search through the posts may prove fruitful. I want to avoid being redundant, but some of the discussions may be somewhat outdated. Overall, however, the basics are pertinent and the components are absolutely valid, even if the actual working documents have been updated from what is presented here. My modus operandi does not change from what I present here, engaging with Business Partners in this project will depend on the discussions of both parties, but what I present here (and elsewhere; IMS Producing Partners) is in effect my position, from which I do not intend on diverging, unless of course, someone wants to make me a better offer. I can say however, anyone making an effort to undercut what I have presented as my position, will be shown the door. So please don't attempt to do that. My terms are extremely reasonable. AG

ARCHIVE:

3/20/20

Today, I finished the full three volumes in the collection and have made it all ready for transfer to PowerPoint as JPG files. I have to say it is quite satisfactory, if not fantastic. I'm very pleased to have refined it, not only to be consistent  throughout, but was able to make a collection of subtle adjustments that really make it dynamic. So this look will now extend through all published items, hard copy and electronic.

There may still be file size issues, in terms of digital delivery, but we'll solve that issue if it becomes a  problem.

I made an earlier version of the e-Storybook with narration, which worked very well, but the file sizes became very large when adding the narration and music. Switching over to JPG will help, but I still believe that the narrated version will have to be converted to a .mov file. In which event, the audio e-Storybook will be created in segments and then assembled in Final Cut Pro. I believe that if it is converted to a film, then I can add the music in where it takes place in the show. I did that on earlier PowerPoint presentations and it was very nice. But the earlier presentations had some unacceptable flaws. Those flaws were the reason I had to go over it again before building a new PowerPoint. I'm glad I did, even though it took the better part of a year to do so, because I can confidently say that there are only very few adjustments that will still need to be made and they can be made in the next edition, when the new artwork is installed. The next edition will be prepared with animation in mind.

The Industry Review Edition will be segmented, which will not be the case for the Release Editions.

Well, the whole point is to move this to the next level. I am now working to obtain agency representation, given that my terms are met. Those terms are posted elsewhere. When I find that post, I'll include a link.

AG