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 ðŸŽ
