Cycloramas

A Gnome Home

I've decided that we will build 

"The Gnomes of New Hope; 
Zach and Zebby's Grand Adventure"

as a walk-through cyclorama. 

I have been thinking about this type of show for years. 

That being said I will be looking for model makers.

send me an email.

    As you might have seen in other posts, I have been working (sporadically) on the puppetry aspect of the project. I have been him'n and haw'n about how to approach this. There are at least a half a dozen approaches, which amount to as many different shows. Each of these shows can (effectively) be promotional for the full (live) musical. Of course, all based on the Illustrated Storybooks.

   What it gets down to is this; I need to build the show that can be done most effectively in my studio, with the resources available to me. Doing that will also allow us to do a documentary film about the process.

   Yes, I am working toward setting up a sound stage with a green screen. I have the HDV, for a three camera shoot, to go with the sound stage. It has been my intention to build the puppets on a three foot chassis and for them to be both stick puppets or marionettes. I figure the stick puppets would be used for shooting against the green screen, but we could also do that with marionettes. I do have more that one bridge.

   So now I am working out a smaller representation of the show as cycloramas that can travel. I'm thinking of puppets that are 6-8 inches in height. Doing that can also turn into figurines that can be sold.

   That is the direction if things right now. I would be interested in discussing this with anyone who is a model-maker and may like some employment, working out of our shop in Southampton. We have 20 scenes (at least) to create.

An Invitation

 Here is an Invitation I found in my files. 
It was composed years ago 

when I was working on Business Structure

and I didn't realize just how much energy 

the Illustrated Storybooks would involve.

I see that I will be returning to the Business Documentation, 

as the publishing is nearing completion.

So, I updated this some and figured 

I might as well Post it here.

I can send it to you as an attachment,

without the decor.

PRODUCTION BREAKDOWN: Act One - Musical Numbers

 Here is my analysis of the 
Act One: Timing and Musical Numbers

I'll add more later, 

AG

Status Report

   We are making progress in completing the artwork. I am focusing on completing Book Four, while Jency continues to watercolor and refine the sketches into line drawings. Some of the material needs to be done over again, because the drawings do not actually match the requirements of the text. But that's just part of the process. It's rather like the way I needed to create backstory to reach the objective of the current storyline. There's a divergence of conception that naturally occurs, so in order to reach the right balance some material is created in order to get to the right place. It costs more to have to do that, but that's the price that needs to be paid.

   I'm somewhat stunned by just how much work is required to complete this project and I am anxious to be finished with the publishing stage of things, but it cannot be pushed beyond it's natural flow. I supposed that if I had more funds to work with, we could hire more people to work on it, but I'm not really set up yet to be distracted by trying to supervise other operations. As it is, I need to set up the book binding in a more productive fashion. I'm looking at manufacturing from a new perspective and if things work out the way I hope, the Hand-Stitched binding will become viable with the changes in the production line.

 

 I'm working on the Gallery Exhibition of the Artwork for the Storybook Collection.  This panel setup needs to be finished to accommodate a presentation of the material. I've decided to use wall paper to cover the panels. You can see from this one panel (in the front) that staining the panel looks rather mediocre. I wanted to apply cork to the panels, but the cost is prohibitive, more so because for that cost, I can't achieve the effect I want. But, after putting wall paper in my kitchen, I find that the old barn wood design I used works very well on these exhibition panels. So I will be looking into other wallpaper designs.

  On another front; I have been thinking about the sound-stage. I can't set that up so soon. I have a number of vehicles that need to be completed and parked inside Building Four for the winter. I will need to secure another facility in order to remove machinery from the space (which I want to set up as the sound stage). So there will be a delay, until I find a solution, or finish putting those vehicles back together. It's a drag, but working on "The Gnomes of New Hope" has distracted me from other things that have needed tending. Now it's getting out of hand and I need to shift my attention to other things, as soon as it is possible. That being said, I would like to pass off certain Gnome projects, so I can be free to address other matters.

That's all for now. AG