Well, dear readers, this week is flying by, like a gazelle wearing a double-knit Chastity Suit. It’s late and I am very tired and therefore I shall write these here notes in a hurry. I must say yesterday is a blur (rulb, spelled backwards). First of all, I didn’t fall asleep until four in the morning. I got up at about nine-thirty, so not much sleep. I’m just so wired after the Kritzerland show, that it takes forever to fall asleep. Once up, I had a couple of telephonic conversations, and then I finessed the previous day’s writing, which took a while – making deletions, additions, and little fixes here and there, getting it to where I thought I was good to move on. This is a critical little section because I am setting a whole bunch of plot stuff in motion and it’s very hard to keep track of every little thing, and I keep having to go back and add stuff to previous pages. So, I only managed to write one new page before leaving for the editing room.
Once at the editing room, my wonderful editor, Marshall Harvey, showed me the first cut of episode five of this season’s Outside the Box. He’d warned me it was long and long it was – coming in at about 9:30. I knew the musical sequences were about 1:15 longer than we usually do, mostly due to the opening number, which is almost two minutes just by itself. It was originally 2:30 but I cut an entire verse before we even shot. In any case, we began by watching the whole thing straight through. The audition scenes were hilarious and laugh-out-loud funny – I saw stuff to lose immediately, both in dialogue and repetition. The musical numbers mostly looked great and other than I’d already thought about lifting the first verse of the final song, I kind of really liked the way they played. So, I knew that most of the time had to come from the auditions. We began there and spent quite a bit of time trying different things, eventually losing about a minute. Then we finessed from there and got out a few more seconds.
Then we went into the musical numbers. We began by swapping out just a handful of shots in the opening number, and then I was very happy with that. The second number was great to begin with and we did very little to that one – just swapping out a couple of shots and finessing some reaction shots. Then we made the lift in song three, removing its entire first verse, which was surprisingly easy and when we watched it we didn’t even miss the lift. Then we ran the whole thing over again and it played much better. We made a couple of more snips and we managed to have gotten 1:30 out of the piece, for a running time of eight minutes (with the front and end credits). That’s a good minute longer than I care for, but I have to say it didn’t feel long to me just viewing it. So, I’ll live with it for a few days, and get a couple of guinea pigs over to watch it. I watched it twice after I got home, and I actually thought we cut the first audition sequence (which really sets up the rest of them) too close – I’m thinking about putting back the couple of lines we took out at the end of it, which I think will make a smoother transition into the rest. Then I saw one audition that I thought could go if we had to, and I found one line that could go, although the more I think about it the more I think I like it the way it is. I really can’t think in terms of minutes and seconds, I can only think in terms of does it hold my interest, is it funny, and is the pace good, all of which I think are in the affirmative, but that’s just me (although I am a very tough critic on these episodes), so I’ll just wait to see other reactions. We can always go into the numbers and make cuts, although I do like them. They’re not especially funny, but they’re good songs and they serve the story well, and that’s what it’s really about for me – as long as it elicits smiles I’m fine. It’s like the final song in the current episode – it’s not laugh-out-loud funny, but it does make you chuckle a couple of times and it’s important to be there, and several people have just told me they flat out like the song itself, which is very nice. I was there about four hours. I do love the editing process.
Then I picked up no packages, ate a sandwich and no fries and finally came home. I had two telephonic calls and then I finally began writing again. I got about four pages done and then I watched two episodes of The Killing III, both excellent. Then it was back to the writing and I did a few more pages – I ended up doing ten, but with the ten from yesterday, that put me four pages behind my pace on this book, but that’s absolutely fine as I’m way ahead of where I normally would be if I was doing my usual seven pages a day. Once I get past the rest of the current chapter, it will get easier for the next twenty to forty pages.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I must get a good night’s beauty sleep.
Today, I shall try to be up by nine-thirty, I’ll try to write four more pages, then I’ll print however many are done, Xerox them, and drive them over to Muse Margaret, after which I shall anxiously await her opinion of them, which I hope will be favorable. Then I’ll eat something light and amusing, then I’ll write more pages, then I’ll hopefully pick up some packages, then I’ll write more pages, then I’ll watch two more episodes of The Killing III.
Tomorrow, I have a lunch at one-thirty, otherwise it’s writing and more writing, same with Friday and same with the weekend. I will have a couple of meetings and I’m going to try and go out for a nice dinner on one of the weekend nights.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, write, print pages, Xerox pages, deliver pages to Muse Margaret, await her opinion, which will hopefully be favorable, eat, hopefully pick up some packages, write, watch episodes, and write. Today’s topic of discussion: If you could get rid of one of today’s current technological “innovations,” which would it be and why? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland where I shall dream beautifully edited dreams.