Some Thoughts About Cinema

Of course, this is regard to The Gnomes of New Hope. Having begun to shift the writing around so that the Libretto and the Illustrated Storybook Collection would also serve the needs of Storyboarding for a Cinema version, it now seems to me that the complexities of each arena must be address quite separately. I pretty much knew this, but a made a strong effort to craft the writing to accommodate each market. Part of that accomodation had been to craft sections of the material in such a way that it allows for expansion. Such expansion is particularly necessary in the film arena.

Film and television have a unique ability to juxtapose time and space in a way that is more difficult, if not impossible in theatre. That being the case, the cinema production need to take place after the stage show. In my estimation, the expansion is desired, whereas a contraction (or perceived consolidation) as would occur, should the theatre show occur after the Cinema or Television, is not desirable from a marketing standpoint.

Clearly, a Cinema Presentation would be quite different from a Television Series. Of course a Cinema version can be presented on Television, but there is a certain conflict between a film version of the story "Zach and Zebby's Grand Adventure" and an ongoing Television Series based on "The Gnomes of New Hope" which includes an expansion if "The Gnomic Tales".

So securing a balance of the relationship between the numerous kinds of productions is critical. As it stands now, the Illustrated Storybooks are first in line, followed by the Parade Float, which incorporates some degree of puppetry, little theatre, and festival presentation. All those arenas are simpler to implement than the full stage musical, but they do provide a degree of development activities that contribute to the stage presentation. Of course, the Feastival and Little Theatre are stage presentations, but they are non-union and therefore less costly, with the intent of moving the overall production toward a First Class presentation. In addition, the simpler productions provide resource material for the larger productions, both First and Second Class, as well as Regional and Community. More importantly, those earlier theatre arenas and publishing will begin to build an audience.

As much as I have a grip on all of this, I am increasingly becoming convinced that these production arenas need to be implemented via an assortment of Business Relationships, putting fulfillment into the hands of persons or organizations with whom Image of the Mind Studios has partnered. The truth is that there are other projects that need my attention, and those projects are becoming increasingly urgent and distracting from the work on The Gnomes of New Hope.

I say this to make my position know to those potential partners. I none-the-less continue on the path, but the truth is that for this to succeed to it's fullest potential, it needs to shift into high gear and for that to happen, we need the right team of people. It's clear to me that there are organizations that already have those people in place and function as a well oiled machine. Such an organization is required for "The Gnomes of New Hope; Zach and Zebby's Grand Adventure" to reach it's fullest potential. 

I am almost finished on my end; Development and I hope to be passing the project into Representation in the not-too-distant future. Keep that in mind, if this is your specialty.

AG

Final Aesthetics

After all the twists and turns of this journey to publish these books we definitely have arrived at the finished look. While I have been adjusting the CYMK to most accurately emulate the RGB layout I have had to made certain unexpected changes. Although I thought the series would be finished as to the look, when I submitted Book One to the printer, while conforming Book Two to those standards, I found anomalies. Egads! 

Anyway, those anomalies required some addition graphic design to amelliate. Ok fine. You see, the difficulty is that, although I matched my monitor to this new digital Canon press, visually, it is still a guess as to how the printer will respond to those changes.

Now, I want to say here, that although I have been advancing nicely with this new printer, I still intend to work with the other printers who have put time and energy into this project. As it turns out, there are at least four different methods of printing and binding. And, there are the two versions of the books. It now seems apparent to me that the look of the Gnome-sized and Big People books will be different. The reason here is that the backdrop on the Big People Books has changed in this process to adjust the books for the new Canon presses.

I am uncertain about the Gnome-sized books at this point. My concern is getting the Big People books locked in and begin to build inventory. This, of course, will put the remaining books in a position to do the same. It is Providential that all this back and forth adjusting has taken place, because when I thought it was finished (for the twentieth time) we began doing the artwork again. So my juggling the layout around and search for a new digital printer had allowed the illustration process to advance toward completion.

In terms of the illustrations, the sketches for all but book five al nearing completion. They are only sketches at this point, but hey, that's part of the process. It's a bit of a bummer that we had to skip over Book Five, in terms of the artwork, but much of Book Five is The Gnomic Tales, which take place in times past from our present story "Zach and Zebby's Grand Adventure". So that means that the perspective of the art must be aesthetically different and we need to address that after we finish we the present time frame. So the bummer is that The Gnomic Tales are in the middle of the Book Series. Eventually The Gnomic Tales will get their own Storybook treatment, but for now they exist as an assortment of synopsis' within Scene Ten, which comprise Book Five.

I am attempting to time the release of the books, so that buy the time we get to Book Five, that artwork will be completely finished. That is a big task and part of that is building inventory of the Hand-stitched books. 

For the time being, all the book will be Hand-stitched. I'm not keen on Perfect-bind for this project. I do have the files set up for Perfect-bind I want the Hand-stitching because it feels far superior and has the sense that the books have been stiched by the Gnomes. But, it is more costly to produce and takes longer. Although, I am working out a production line that may very well compete with machine bound books and will very likely combine the two processes.

That's enough for now.  AG

More focus on Unfinished Studio Work

As you can see from my last post, the intricate adjustments of the Book Layout have (as far as I can tell) been completed for the numerous press variations I have run into. I'm confident that we will be moving forward to inventory at least half of the collection, in preparation for sales. I will need to be setting up the "Shopping Cart" for both Wholesale and Retail on that issue.

I'm just throwing this in there for the heck of it. Back when I was younger than I am now and playing the flute every day, numerous times a day, for forty plus years. I quit playing for the past few years, for various reasons, but I bought a new African Blackwood Bohem System flute to try to get back to it. I'm also working with an Akai EWI 4000s and a Tenor Sax... as well as a new MIDI keyboard that has drum pads! 

But... I think this a cool shot... Not many of them, you know!

The artwork is progressing, with a few hundred new sketches in place, albeit in need of refinement, coloring and digital processing. Looking forward, I realize that someday, I will need to embellish The Gnomic Tales, which are briefly exponded upon in BookFive of the Series. I am uncertain how that will pan out, but that is not important right now.

So, having gained some degree of freedom, I am taking the opportunity to attend to other studio matters, particularly the vehicles that are in the process of being rebuilt. 

It is a delicate balance, because the publishing work must be continued on a regular basis. If I do not tend to the layout matters pertaining to the rest of the collection, at the least, every other day, then it becomes difficult to implement. It sounds strange to say that, but there is a flow to the process that is hard to describe. The number of components involved in the layouts are hard to keep straight and even more difficult to assure that they are not mismatched, if not tended to regularly. So, overall it is best to stay on it. But there are many other matters which must be tended to. So it's a delicate juggling act.

I acquired another engine for the International Loadstar CO1600, which needs to be rebuilt and installed, and the crane arm on the truck needs to be made operational. One of the purposes of this truck is to move sets and other supplies.

I'm also prepairing to move a trailer filled in with theatre supplies to the studio as well as tending to a shipping container used for storage and another storage trailer as well.

There are other matters with the facilities that are underway and once that is resolved, I expect that I can tend to renovations to the building that are required. 

I may have mentioned that I secured a set of stage curtains, which will be used in setting up the sound stage. It won't be a large stage, with a working area of 16' deep and 20' wide. If need be it could be expanded to 20'x30', but that would cut into upstage and wing space. There's no fly space and the ceiling height is only 14'. But it is sufficient to develop a number of dramas (Nunc Licet) television, puppetry, etc. It also matches the size of the Parade Float. I expect to to bring in an orchestra to rehearse the show and record the score for The Gnomes, although the score is already being produced using MIDI.

I expect that; once the book publishing files are locked in for the entire collection, I will be turning to scoring the music. I actually spoke again with someone from The Bucks County Symphony about that, saying I was looking for a Maestro who could work with me to assure that the scoring is up to par. Plus, it would be good to work it out with a Maestro.

Onward and upward. AG

Done?

BookOne is being printed. It's a very limited run, for the Industry Review and the assorted registrations that are required (before release to the public) and to begin building inventory. Also the run is limited in order to allow the resources to be put towards publishing BookTwo and BookThree. The remaining books have more work to be done on the artwork, although BookFour is very close to being ready to publish. 

Multiple files have been created which accommodate a variety of adjustments for the different presses I have used, to make the numerous prototype runs of these books. In addition, I was able to adjust for the differences between RGB, which I used to create the books, and the CYMK used to print the books. 

You might wonder; why the difference between RGB and CMYK? The RGB mode allows for a wider range of editing functions when processing the image, whereas the CYMK is much more limited. In part, the wider range gives functions necessary to shape the art in broad terms, allowing for things like density and a whole array of special effects not available in the CYMK mode. But the real issue there is; a significant color shift between the two exists. So it took a great deal of effort to counteract that color shift and make adjustments to achieve the desired effect. Specifically, because of the subtleties that needed to be retained to achieve the desired overall look of the finished product. In fact, in the effort to retain those subtle effects, other ones were created that turned out to be a nice addition to the look of the layout.. 

It all becomes rather frustrating, watching one's carefully created balance be destroyed when shifting to a different printing mode, but, luckily I endured and went back and forth numerous times, making needed adjustments, until I achieved an acceptable variance on my original theme. I think the end result is quite fine. I am, literally, up to Revision 415 of this layout.

So, all in all, the book series is ready to run. Still, only BookOne is conformed for printing under the present conditions. But conforming the remains books should not be too difficult in comparison. 

In that regard; as I mentioned previously, I am converting the multiple layout files, created in different programs, over to be merged into one layered GFX file, divided up into layers that keep the text and artwork separated and much more editable, given the size of the overall files. This simplifies integrating the new artwork and keeping the original text configuration, which making changes easier, should that be required. 

I won't go into why multiple programs were used, other than to say it was part of the progression into creating an Illustrated Storybook from the Stage Play while separately developing the artwork. Suffice it to say it was unavoidable. Having finally finished the Storybooks (in essence), in hindsight, I might have done it differently, but not knowing what I know now, as I said, it was unavoidable.

So, I will address this further after I finish binding this run of books. 

AG