Well, dear readers, we had us a stumble-through. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s almost my favorite part of our process with the Kritzerland shows, where the cast runs the show start to finish (sans my commentary) just performing for each other. There’s something very magical about it. It was mostly terrific with only a few lyric fumfers, so we ran some stuff and smoothed things out afterwards. But the structure and show order worked really well. So, now it’s on to sound check and show.
Before I go any further, I must tell you we had us a real LA rain about an hour ago. Well, drizzle. Well, not quite a drizzle, perhaps a driz. This lasted about ten minutes. It was still about eighty degrees out. I do hope we get some more. I’m sure the brilliant media immediately had Storm Watch 2014 on the news. In any case, we need it to rain all night long and then for about a week thereafter – that would be ever so helpful.
Yesterday was very nice. I got nine hours of sleep, I did a two-mile jog, I did some banking and then we had our stumble-through. After that, I had a chicken salad sandwich with no onion rings or french fries. Then I came home and sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched a motion picture on Netflix entitled Beneath the Darkness, a low-budget affair starring Dennis Quaid, who really must have needed the work back at the end of 2010 when this was shot. Cutting to the chase, which is more than the film does, it’s horrible. I am a fan of Mr. Quaid and he is somewhat amusing as a wacky insane undertaker. But the rest of the cast is from hunger, especially the mumbling young actors. The funny thing is that when they’re in a scene with Mr. Quaid, who speaks up like a normal actor should, they do manage to be louder and less mumbly. I have two notes. Note one:
Dear Screenwriter
It is not enough to have an idea, albeit one that you’ve borrowed from a thousand other better films. It is not enough to put words on paper and call it a film script. It is not enough to make characters and give them names and leave it at that. It is kind of important to be coherent in your storytelling so that the audience has an inkling of what’s going on. It is not good to have characters behave irrationally and stupidly just because you need them to just to have a scene you may want. Try writing something without using Screenwriting 101 rules. It might actually free you into thinking of something original or, at the very least, interesting.
Dear Director
It is important when you are directing a motion picture to have the basic rudimentary skills to tell a story. When you don’t have these skills, this kind of wretched film is the result. But let me be more helpful to you – if you want audiences to understand what’s going on, to be on the edge of their seat in a tense sequence, then it is a really good idea not to make the image so dark that you literally can see nothing whatsoever on the screen – and I mean NOTHING. You don’t know who is doing what to whom in any scene taking place at night – and that’s a good deal of the movie. I have never seen worse lighting and photography in any professionally done film. My suggestion is if you’re watching dailies and cannot see the action on the screen, try some lights, it’s amazing how helpful they can be.
All best,
bk
I thought for a minute that it just might be a bad transfer, but no, the outdoor day scenes are bright as can be. Nope, it’s just bad work by all.
After that, I continued with my Eugene Ormandy festival, this time listening to Scriaban’s Poem of Ecstasy in an amazing performance – it’s not my favorite piece of music, but Ormandy really mines it for all it’s worth. Then it was the Shostakovich fifth symphony. I’ve heard several versions of this symphony and have never warmed up to it until hearing this one – and it’s fantastic. It puts the music in a whole new light for me and I now want to hear all the other Ormandy Shostakovich symphonies. Then it was the Shostakovich cello concerto with Yo Yo Ma and that was quite nice – a later recording done for RCA, as was the fifth symphony, but both sounding excellent.
After that, it was Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. I’d just heard the Columbia stereo recording with Stravinsky conducting his own work and I really didn’t care for it and had little interest in hearing it again so soon. The version included in the box set was from around 1955 and is in mono, as released, but really good sounding mono. Well, once again Mr. Ormandy makes a whole new listening experience – his rendition has clarity and it’s really ferocious when it needs to be – and I absolutely loved it. Then there was the stereo Petrushka suite, which was delightful. The three hours an evening I’ve been spending with Mr. Ormandy have made these evenings unbelievably magical.
Today, I shall hopefully arise after a good night’s beauty sleep, I shall jog, and then relax until it’s time to mosey on over to The Federal for our sound check. Then I’ll have my beloved artichoke and then it’s the show. I think we pretty much are sold out. I’m sure some of us will go out for a bite after the show.
Tomorrow I’ll be up at six in the morning to announce our new title, which is a classic that I know will sell very well. Then I have to finish choosing material, gather music and get it to singers. I have some busy work to do, too, involving a potential project for next year, I have meetings and meals, a show or two to see, and then we have our second and final pick-up session for And the World Goes Round on Saturday morning. Then the plan is to put those fixes into our mixes on Sunday, update those tracks and then we’ll finally be able to send the whole album to New York for Mr. Kander and folks to hear. They’ll have a short period of time to get me any notes they may have, but it’s strictly my decision whether I do them or not. We’re going to start on the packaging this week and the hope is it will be out by the end of September.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do a jog, relax, have a sound check and do a show and then sup. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers get to make with the topics and we all get to post about them. So, let’s have loads of lovely topics and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland after which I will ready myself for our sound check and show.