#lord2

STATUS SO FAR:

Day 1: Kicked the Rebel song in the ass – finally named it “Injustice!” I was waiting to find a part of the song that worked. Once I found it I built up the chorus around that moment and that word. It worked really well. I’m 90% done but that last 10% is a little tricky.

Creative Time: 60mins, in the early morning (Have to work whenever I have a window of time.)

 Day 2: Wow! Rebel song is actually done and I spent the morning combing through every song and the script up to the “Amendment to the Finale” moment. I had no excuse now but to actually work on this song.

Creative Time: 120mins, in the crazy super uber early morning; 20mins, to work; 60mins, during lunch; 30mins train from work 20mins, before work; 20 mins, after work

 Day 3: While my son was playing this morning before breakfast I managed to write out a few notes. Then I managed to work on the train for a solid stretch. All of that is on the Amendment to the finale song. I have some interesting rhymes and melodies but they are all very inconsistent so I want to create consistency. I continued this during my lunch break. I spent lunch time mostly trying to figure out how to turn the existing content into the rhyme scheme that I like the most from this song, but its difficult. Also, I don’t really have a chorus I have for this song. It needs that and I need to organize my thoughts in order for that to work. In the evening I went through the final song and worked on parts of the verse structure but mostly figured out a chorus I like. I’m still not 100% but I think it’s a good starting point and once I reorganize the song and clean up all the chaos, I will be able to see if it works or not.

Creative Time: 10mins, before breakfast; 20mins, on the train; 45mins during lunch; 20mins on the train home; 90mins, late at night

 Day 4: This morning I quickly completed two important tasks: First, I zipped through the set of songs once more to finally, and as definitively as I could be, decide on the few minor outstanding lyrical issues or issues with song structure. By making those decisions, I really have no excuse to do anything but finish the final pair of songs and dialogue in them. Due to that, the second big task I did was officially organize the remaining sections of the Amendment to the Finale song. I also made a point of highlighting which content really needed to find its way into the song, whether in the form of lyrics or the form of dialogue. During lunch, I combined the chorus that I started working on the other day into the music file. I also made some quick formatting changes to a few songs on the set list that still have shorthand character names like sec 2 instead of Secretary 2. Usually when I am working quickly I will not write out all the names or format everything properly. That’s also part of the reason for writing in a program like Word or OpenOffice before I switch over to Celtx.

 I find similarities between my architecture design strategies and the ways in which I write or create in general. When designing a building, I always prefer to have a physical sketch or even a loose digital model without construction type constraints and concerns before I model within a complex program like Revit. I’ve said it occasionally on this blog, but I think that iterative process between mediums forces me to before aware of different things. It allows me a lack of structure in the one medium that lets ideas flow without hit some logistical wall. Then the structure of the other media forces me to make decisions and streamline.

 I worked on revisions to the stage directions in and around the Amendment to the Finale

 After work, I spent a little time in the evening still working out the outstanding notes for the songs.

Creative Time: 30mins, early in the am; 20mins, on the train; 60mins, during lunch break; 20mins, on return train; 60mins, in the evening

 Day 5: In the morning, I spent my time on making sure the structure of the amendment song was how I wanted it. It took a lot of moving and juggling but I finally feel like its in a good place but now I'm in the position of trying to fix and change existing content and ideas to match the correct rhyme scheme and then working on the dialogue. Those are all my goals. During lunch I managed to work on the Amendment song and picking up a few technical formatting issues throughout all the songs. After everyone went to bed tonight, I managed to start working on the hardest part of the Amendment song. I started around 10:30pm and worked straight through until 3:00am. Crazy! But I finally finished all the lyrics and melodies in every single song in my show. The look good on and paper and they feel song out loud. Some of the more complex rhyme schemes, particularly the first verse just after the first chorus is really hard. I wanted to match the earlier scheme and I did. I'm very happy about that. Then I also still had enough motivation to finish the Out in Your World Remix. This was a fairly straightforward song that uses a few previous elements but with some changes and more power. But I also wanted to soften the very end to be hopeful and I think I have a song that does that. We shall see if I'm right. I flipped the deny song and undefined in the music list but not in the script yet.  Lyrics are so much more difficult than scenes. I think I will make light work of that switch, especially because I know what I want to say. Same goes for the short chunk of dialogue that will be added to the Amendment to the Finale song. I will pick those up tomorrow and hopefully start integrating the new lyrics and stage directions into the CELTX file, so everything will finally be in one place.

Creative Time: 20mins, on the train; 60mins, during lunch break; 20mins, on return train. 270Mins, crazy late

 Day 6: Still on a high about last night's work push! Though I did have a hard time waking up. But on the train ride I accomplished the song flip in the script and the changes to the scene's dialogue. I still need to write out the amendment dialogue. I spent so much time on that song last night that I didn't want to look at that this morning. During my lunch break I made some holistic changes to the songs and their stage directions in preparation for the transfer to the program I'm using. Unfortunately, I've discovered that the CELTX script formatting that I haven't really though much about is in line with the us or international standards as far as I can tell. And now, CELTX has an online version you use for free or you can pay for a membership. I might have to reformat the script though and I need to think about how that will look. For now, I am putting this together for the musician and changing the formatting is tedious, so I will save that for another time. I will format the music to the correct way so when I bring it into the script, there are no issues and I copied all my content from CELTX out into a word processor just in case I have to go the microsoft word route. On my train home, I finished removing all unnecessary stage directions related to the music that will be apparent when listening to the music or by reading the score. I also finished converting all the song text to ALL CAPS. The purpose of this is to easily distinguish it from dialogue in the script without the need for too many stage directions about speaking or singing. That's why I remove all those notes too. Cleaning it up made my life easier doing the transition.

Creative Time: 20mins, on the train; 60mins, during lunch break; 20mins, on return train. 60mins, late-late

Day 7: I have several trees in my backyard that needed to be taken down, so unfortunately, I was helping my cousin, who owns a tree removal company, do some of the work. We are trying to speed things up because this tree issue is linked to sewer line problems that need to be fixed. Either way, I focused on that for much of the day but I managed to find time to do the handful of things I still needed to do. I managed to finish integrating the songs into final Celtx script today. I wanted to have time to print and triple check the latest work but I didn’t get to do that yet. I have some ideas I’m still on the fence about. With the new songs, I may be a tad bit too heavy on the anti-lord 2 songs, but maybe not. I’ll have to get outside opinion or wait a while and come back to that to know for sure. I also am still debating whether or not I should get rid of Drunk 2 and Hobo 2 altogether and take any of their story driving lines and put them into the voices of Guard 2 and Gatekeeper 2. Those two serve multiple purposes throughout the story and so it seems appropriate. Drunk 2 and Hobo 2 are really just exposition realized. Like an old school Greek chorus, which is not too popular these days. I’ve considered this option before when I was looking at turning this script into a screenplay and there were only a few places where the lines couldn’t go to Guard 2 or Gatekeeper 2 and other people would have to be used but I think that would be okay. For the most part it would work. I originally held off from this move because some of my friends who are familiar with the show said they liked the characters and for musicals, having a bigger cast is usually a good thing. Since I’ve revised the script this last time, I’ve elevated the status of several secondary characters to become leads and as such it seems less critical to have Drunk 2 and Hobo 2. Also Drunk 2 is probably not the kind of character that audiences would want in an otherwise kid-friendly show. Anyway, aside from those issues, which I have time to fix, I also sent emails out to 2 musician friends to see how they react to this idea and the general game plan. I have 1 more I want to also reach out to very soon and they I can get moving on the composition.

Creative Time: 60mins, early; 60mins during lunchtime; 90mins in the evening.

 CONCEPT UPDATES/CHANGES: This is the culmination of all the edits I’ve made since that Scientist 2 new story arc idea that I had back in October/November of last year. I’m very satisfied with how it turned out and it has also been wonderful completing all the random outstanding loose end edits that were long overdue. This will truly allow me to finally move forward with this script, once the musical score is completed. That will certainly take time but it will be very nice when I’m at the point of being able to submit this to festivals/theaters/production companies/etc.

 PICTURES/NOTES: I should put a PDF of the latest script here soon.

 THIS WEEK RUNNING TIME: 24.08 hours (CRAZY!)

I said I would elaborate on my plan in the last post a bit. Not that long ago when I rearranged my schedule for this year, I said that I should make finishing current projects, or at least getting them to a good stopping point, the priority over trying to complete a certain amount of projects in a year or during a certain time. While this week would have technically been the first of Month 5, I will be using this first week to resolve Lord 2 cleanly instead. For organizational purposes, this week will now be the 5th week of Month 4. I intend to still use Month 5 for creating the FORUM TV pilot script once this week is done, assuming I succeed at finishing the Lord 2 work by Saturday night.

 I got in a surprisingly large amount of work on Lord 2 last month considering my daughter was just born and I am proud of that work. However, I am so very close to having a clean break in the editing of both the lyrics, melodies, and the script, that I want to finish it properly. I would hate for this to drag out for months or years longer than it already has because I felt the need to start my next project by an arbitrary date that I set. I have no doubts that this will be possible in the span of a week, but I just wasn’t able to pull it off last week without abandon my day job entirely.

 The title of Month 5 was to be “Back to the FORUM.” Perhaps it is destiny as that title would technically be relevant for both scripts! “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” was the inspiration for both Lord 2, the family-friendly musical, as well as FORUM, the intense and dark sex-trafficking TV drama.

 THIS WEEK:

Lord 2 Takeover

 1 WEEK GOAL: I will finish the final 2 songs and corresponding dialogue. I will flip the order of the Deny song and the new Undefined song and update the scene to match the new order. I already have a plan for how to do that but I still have to type it out. After that I need to transfer the new lyrics from the lyric set word document to the scriptwriting program. Sounds like a copy and paste job but it’s slightly more time consuming because it involves reformatting things so they match the format we have already and nothing is out of whack.

 BOILED DOWN CONCEPT: It will take some time to get the story organized in the last 2 songs and make sure it feels as epic as I envision it to be. I also need to flip those two songs because Courtesan 2 was behaving contradictory to how she very aggressively claims she will never act again. If I switch the songs she won’t contradict herself and it will make her character appear much stronger and more in control, which is what I want.

 PRIMARY REASON: To finally begin the musical arrangement/composition conversation with some composers/arrangers. Unlike last week, I hope to actually be composing an email to send out by the end of the weekend.

 ON DECK FOR NEXT WEEK:

STATUS SO FAR:

Day 1: For a variety of reasons, I found myself overflowing with free time on Sunday night. Managed to flush out more of Undefined song. I came up with a better bridge than what I had before and I modified the structure of the second half of the chorus. When working with lyrics, it is astounding how long it can take to work through simple lyrical issues. Trying to find not only the right words but the right words that also rhyme and fit the syllabic melody can be very difficult. I will keep on trucking. Creative Time: 120mins, late at night

Day 2: Continued onward with Undefined. So close but still need to flush out Second verse lyrics. Came up with a good line finally for the end of the first set of verses. I must have tried a hundred different ones.  

Creative Time: 45mins during lunch; 20mins, after work

 Day 3: Finally browsed around and worked through some other song issues but I still don't feel like I can move forward until I tie up the loose ends in the Undefined song. Doing that tomorrow and hopefully also finally building up the beginning of the Rebel song.

Creative Time: 20mins, before work; 45mins during lunch; 20mins, after work

 Day 4: Finally had a great line for the beginning of the second set of verses in Undefined! I love this one even more than the last one and it has me wondering if I should attempt to match this more complicated rhyme scheme:

“I'm unsteady

no more, time to run out my door to just stun, shout and floor everyone with who I am insiiiiide!!!

I am ready!”

Out of context, and without knowing the melody that might not have the power that I think is there and will be visible when it’s performed.

Creative Time: 20mins, before work; 45mins during lunch; 20mins, on train

 Day 5: Managed to finally wrap up the big remaining parts of the Undefined song in the morning. That was easily the hardest of the new songs to write. Perhaps harder than the finale song. I was able to focus on the Rebel song during lunch. I basically need to finish a song per day between the rebel song today, the amendment song tomorrow, and then the out in your world remix by Saturday as well as all remaining song tidbits here and there and integrating the new lyrics into the script, which takes a decent amount of time. This is going to be a challenge!

Creative Time: 20mins, before train; 20mins, before work; 45mins during lunch; 20mins, after work;

 Day 6: Got to a great point, I'm working out kinks in the rebel song, after these are wrapped up the biggest changes will be those for the finale song(s). The rebel song is sounding good and I sang Undefined and Instant outloud and proud, and they sounded pretty good. I hadn't really been singing them or any of the songs outside my head for a while since I tend to be working during lunch breaks and train rides. But I'm glad I did. I'm glad I pushed hard on the intense rhyme schemes for those songs. A lot more upfront work but it paid off when I finally heard everything out loud and it rolled together very smoothly. It will certainly be even more worth it when its produced.

Creative Time: 20mins before train; 20mins, before work; 60mins during lunch; 20mins, after work on train; 120mins, late at night

 Day 7: I found some time to work while I was running errands. I stopped at a Barnes and Noble to find a nice uncrowded café, so I had some tea and wrote. I was running a bunch of errands so I thought a short break was warranted. I'm hoping to grab another bit of work time during the kids naps and then much more tonight! Need to finish the finale work and then need to cruise through the clean-up work. I'm hoping to stay up no matter how long it takes.

Creative Time: 30mins, in morning; 75mins, during naps; 60mins in the evening

 CONCEPT UPDATES/CHANGES: I had a great time pushing through on this one. While I was doing great on Saturday night, which was Day 7, I feel like there is more to be done, but not too much. I think I need to make this a priority and keep working on it through next week. Read the next post for more on how I intend to do that because I’m not 100% sure as I write this.

 PICTURES/NOTES: Zilch.

 THIS WEEK RUNNING TIME: 14.42 hours, (Fun fact: that’s about 8.6% of the hours in a week, and 12.7% of the awake hours.)

The end is near. Time to pull this together. I want to be able to start reaching out to composers after this week is over, so I think I may need to have a couple late nights to ensure that I work out all remaining issues before sending off the latest script. I am also dabbling with the idea of sending this script to an editor friend of mine to get some more red-lines from a new perspective. This would be from someone who has never read the script. I may wait until hearing from the composers and fine-tuning the music before I have the script marked up again. Anyway, marching onward!!

THIS WEEK:

Clean Sweep Send Out for Music

1 WEEK GOAL: To wrap up loose ends in my song lyrics, melodies, and any of the script gaps..

BOILED DOWN CONCEPT: The same old Lord 2 loose ends.

PRIMARY REASON: Literally, in the title. I want to finally send out this script draft so that I can have some musicians compose the scripts.

ON DECK FOR NEXT WEEK:

- OTHER SIDE OF THE BABY PAUSE -

My baby daughter has been born! The birth experience from my wife's perspective was far smoother than the one she had with my son. It was amazing! Much quicker than with our son too! She was healthy and happy and so is her mom. We were all able to enjoy our time together for a little while before I head back to work. And as can be expected, the adjustment period with a second child was substantially less intense. Its obviously been difficult but not nearly as much as the shock of having no children and going to 1 child.

I'm both excited and sad to be getting back into my work routine. I'm sad to be away from my family more than I have been recently but I'm excited to get back into my creative projects again. What follows is my attempt to pick up where I left off...

Days 4-6: Baby distracted time!

Creative Time: 0 mins

Day 7: Manage to crank out some work today. Mostly still working on the Undefined song. Because I really want this done right, I'm taking perhaps more time that I have during past waves of revisions. I know really want these songs to come alive and feel like they are telling the story they need to tell at the same time. For this hour of time, I was mostly working on the chorus rhyme scheme and a pair of lines for Scientist 2 in the end of the first set of verses. I find myself writing out several different versions of each line sometimes trying to one that is both the most on message and the most lyrically well written.

Creative Time: 60mins, from the road on return trip

CONCEPT UPDATES/CHANGES: Nothing Conceptual really, just layering in detail.

PICTURES/NOTES: Some overdue snapshots of scrawl. TBD

THIS WEEK RUNNING TIME: 3.83 hours

STATUS SO FAR:

Day 1: Reviewing songs with wife and tweaking ideas Creative Time: 30mins, middle of the day

Day 2: Worked on blog on way to work but I managed to get to songs during lunch break and after work.

Creative Time: 40mins, during lunch; 20 mins, after work; An additional 40 mins after my son was in bed

Day 3: I managed to get completely and confidentally through the In an instant song and much of the Undefined song. Now I am going to do something unconventional. I am on my way home but my wifes labor is moving along very quickly so I am getting back to her and we will met our little baby soon. This is not conventional but I'm going to take a 1 week hiatus from this blog. I will pick up the slack next week. It'll be a continuation of this week, right in the middle, as if there was no hiatus.

Creative Time: 30mins, before work; 10 mins, after work

TIME SO FAR THIS WEEK: 170mins/2.83hrs

I'm riding a wave of momentum and I don't want it to stop. Baby is undoubtedly on her way. I will have to drop off a little at some point but until that happens, I'm going to keep rolling with this.

 THIS WEEK:

 Finalize Structural Changes

 1 WEEK GOAL: I was so ahead of schedule that I managed to jump on this near the end of last week. I planned on picking up script edits but since I managed to get most of those, I will use this time to do what I set out to. I will continue going through the script and work through the song at each junction until I am done that song or only a few minor superficial changes remain. Once that's done I will continue through the script, picking up as many other notes as I can until I hit the next song. When I finish this cycle of writing, I will printi, ideally by the middle to the end of this week. Once I print I will go through and pick up minor redlines/changes in my revision to both the songs and the script. This final reviewing process might fall into next week.

 BOILED DOWN CONCEPT: Still not sure how some dialogue elements surrounding the rebel song and the amendment to the finale will flush out. Working on that as I go.

 PRIMARY REASON: After this I can get the musicians looped in and start nailing down the instrumentation and the overall feel of the show's music.

  ON DECK FOR NEXT WEEK: