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🎭🇺🇸