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.