Well, dear readers, this week is flying by, like a gazelle eating a salami sandwich. How can this month be almost half over? How can the year called 2012 be in its last six weeks? I must say that the reaction to the season premiere of Outside the Box has been wonderful. I wish I knew how to get the word out more, but I don’t. I know some web series get so many views but how they are getting them is anyone’s guess. Maybe someone will clew me in someday, because Facebook, which used to work for these kinds of things, doesn’t anymore. If you put a link on your timeline it shows up in your friend’s news feed, but if they’re not there at that precise moment it moves down the page so fast and most people don’t scroll down that far, so basically you just have to shamelessly repost it all the time, which I hate doing. I don’t think these other shows are spending money on promotion. Maybe I need to make the show an exclusive to a particular Broadway site – there’s another show that does that and they seem to do okay. It’s like I send out an eBlast to two hundred friends or 2500 Kritzerland customers and about twelve watch the damn thing. I understand that completely for the Kritzerland stuff, but friends who can’t take the six minutes to watch it? That’s just really amazing and completely off-putting. Because I’d assume if they’re actually watching it that I’d hear from them. I’ve heard from my friends who HAVE watched it, but I’m just very disappointed in some people right now. VERY disappointed. But why dwell on that – people are who they are and that’s the way it is. I dwell on the people who are loyal and friends in the best sense of the word. But one learns and then when one is asked to attend an event or watch something it’s kind of fun to reply and say, “Oh, remind me when the last time you attended something I’ve notified you about or when you watched something I’ve sent you?” I’ve already done that several times and it’s grand fun. I do think we’ve actually had about the same kind of numbers for the first two days that we had last season. Well, if someone understands this game, please let me know. We have incredible people in the episodes, and usually have a “name” actor. As the King would say, “Is a puzzlement.”
Yesterday, I was up at seven, fell back asleep at eight, had a telephonic call at nine-thirty, and then was up at ten for good. The helper came by and we did our Costco run, which we do once ever couple of months now. I got a vat of low-fat cottage cheese, I got some frozen pepperoni pizza bread things, I got a lot of waters and some Diet Coke, some flowers that actually had fragrance, and a few other things. Then the helper and I had lunch – I had my usual Cobb salad and a bagel, and she also had a Cobb salad sans bagel. After that, I picked up a package, and then came home. Once home, I did some work on the computer, we had to make a couple of tiny adjustments to the packaging of an upcoming release, which I hope can now be approved this week, another project came to us, which I’m VERY happy about, and I’m just starting to think about how we’re going to do the eventual Blu and Ray release of the first two seasons of Outside the Box – what the extras will be, who will take part in the commentaries, etc. I can see no downside at all to putting it out, frankly. Then I sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I finished watching a motion picture on Blu and Ray entitled The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, directed by Fritz Lang. Mr. Lang is a real favorite of mine, and I really enjoy this film a lot. Lang was an expert at moving a camera so I truly enjoy the visuals and some of them are astonishing, considering this film was made in 1932 and was a sound film. The performances are, of course, of that era – nothing natural about any of them. I do like the actor who plays Inspector Lohmann. But it’s just the whole atmosphere and the plot, about a master criminal who is not interested in the spoils but instead interested in causing world chaos has odd parallels to the people today who do Internet crime – hacking into established websites and trying to wreak havoc with banking and other things like that – just to cause chaos. The transfer, which they take great pains to explain in terms of sources, is pretty terrific for a film of that vintage. The Blu and Ray is from the UK and is region B.
Then I finished choosing and assigning the songs for the Kritzerland Christmas show and I used some of the ones I was not familiar with that were suggested by you dear readers. I also got the new piano track and sheet music for a song for an upcoming Outside the Box episode – the cut I made saved about fifty seconds, which is great. Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I’ve got a long day ahead of me and I need a good night’s beauty sleep.
Today, Mr. Nick Redman is coming by, and then the East Coast Singer will be here for our first rehearsal. This is going to be an intense couple of days, for I have to assemble and stage an entire sixty-minute show in two days. We’ll see how THAT goes. At some point early on I’ll have to grab a bite to eat, as I won’t have any time to do so after we start rehearsing.
Tomorrow is another rehearsal full day and after I have to attend our Outside the Box rehearsal to see what our choreographer has done with her three numbers. Thursday is our first shoot day doing two set-up scenes – one shot at The Federal with Kevin Symons and Damon Kirsche, and one at my house, with John Sloman. Since we’ve already used my living room, we’ll shoot this one in the den. After the shoot, we’ll have our final rehearsal with the Singer, and Friday we shoot six musical numbers, after which I am going out for a good dinner. And the weekend nobody better need anything from me.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, have a visit, eat, rehearse and hopefully get over to the mail place at some point to pick up some packages. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your all-time favorite performances given by child actors (anywhere up to the age of sixteen), on stage and on film? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland where I shall ponder how to get more viewership for Outside the Box – is a puzzlement.