Well, dear readers, I must write these here notes in a hurry, for shortly I must be on my way to the Ahmanson Theater for the orchestra read-through of The Drowsy Chaperone. This in preparation for our little recording session on Monday. I’ll be met by my engineer, Michael Parnin (Vinnie is working – Michael has assisted on tons of our albums and knows the routine), and then we’ll all have a little meeting after the read-through, to make sure we’re all on the same page. How we’ll all fit on the same page is anyone’s guess. I mean that’s quite a few people to fit on one page, don’t you think? But before we get to that page, may we just discuss yesterday? Yesterday was a day, let me tell you that. I awoke early, finished addressing a few outstanding packages, and then waited for the call about when the CDs would be delivered. Said CDs were delivered precisely at one-thirty in the afternoon. Prior to that, I’d already done several important errands, picked up a couple of packages, and was ready to begin packing up the CDs. I managed to get everything packed up in one hour, and then lugged two big boxes to the post office. I was done by three-thirty, with only eight packages left to ship out today. That is a big load off my mind. I then had my four o’clock meeting with my co-director of the LACC benefit. We discussed many things, and then laid out index cards for everything we know will be in the show. We arbitrarily put an order together for acts one and two, which was very helpful to see. We then shuffled a few things around, and now we have a tentative structure and order for the show. We can swap things around if they don’t work in this order, but basically the frame of the show seems sound, and just doing a rough timing of what we think things will run, each act should be around an hour, which is just what I want. There are probably going to be fourteen musical numbers all told. All in all, a good meeting. Directly following that, we had a production meeting for the play, and I said what I had to say about things that I felt were not moving smoothly enough. Hopefully, that has done the trick, and we’ll be into serious casting as of next Tuesday. I then had a bite to eat and came back home and staggered to my couch, where I sat like so much fish for the rest of the evening.
Last night I watched a motion picture on DVD entitled Two For The Road, a film of Stanley Donen, but equally a film of Fredric Raphael, the screenwriter. I’ve loved the film since I saw it on its opening day at, if I remember correctly, the Pantages Theater. I’ve seen it many times since, but haven’t seen it in quite a few years. It remains a wonderfully written film, with great dialogue, and interesting characters, and a brilliant cast – Audrey Hepburn, Albert Finney, William Daniels, Eleanor Bron, and many others. Mr. Donen’s direction is terrific, as is the fantastic score by Mr. Henry Mancini. It all works perfectly. What isn’t perfect is the transfer. Of course, on one of those DVD sites, the doyenne of film restoration has pronounced this DVD tops, so everyone believes that and simply doesn’t see what’s in front of their eyes. The transfer and source material are sharp, and some of the colors are very good indeed. But, the flesh tones are off (this is a big bugaboo with me – the players all look like cadavers), and all you have to do is look at the sky or the ocean to know that the “blue” needed to be pumped a bit. That’s all it would have taken in the telecine room. The sky should be blue blue, not white or sort-of blue – same with the ocean. It’s not a bad transfer by any means, but one wishes they had a colorist who understood what the film should look like. They admit the negative had pretty faded colors, and that a colorist worked to get it to look good – and it does look better than the laserdisc, but, I’m here to tell you, it could have looked better with the turning of a knob or two. It’s a minor annoyance, but an annoyance nonetheless. If you’ve never seen the film, you really should check it out – it’s under ten bucks at most online shops.
What am I, Ebert and Roeper all of a sudden? Don’t I have to go to the Ahmanson so I can be on the same page with a crowd of people? Why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button so we can all be on the same page of the next section.
Here we all are on the same page. It’s crowded, but it feels cozy and comfy, not necessarily in that order. Today I have a non-stop day, starting with the orchestra read-through, then coming back home and shipping the remainder of the packages, then going right over to LACC to meet with a potential sound designer, and then to a production meeting. Then I’ll be supping with our very own Mr. Mark Rothman and his ever-lovin’ wife at Musso and Frank. I also have to find time to have a conversation with my set designer about little changes to the Deceit set plan. And then tomorrow is equally busy, with the entire morning being taken up with my music copyist – making sure the three pieces of sheet music are absolutely correct.
I’m pretty happy with the final version of Kevin’s CD – there are a couple of little things I’m going to have Vinnie do, which shouldn’t take more than an hour, and then we’ll be done with that. I also happened to check out the raw footage from the video of the show, and it looks really good and I think it will edit together wonderfully, and we should have a pretty spiffy DVD when we’re done.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, go to an orchestra read-through, I must ship, I must meet, and I must eat. Today’s topic of discussion: Who is the single most memorable person you’ve ever met – what were the circumstances of the meeting, tell us about what transpired and what was special about it. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, and let’s all make sure we’re on the same page whilst we merrily post away like a gazelle in a garter belt and fishnet stockings.