Surprising!

I am pleasantly surprised by the number of people who have expressed an interest in this project. I had imagined (wrongly it seems now) that getting a cast together for this production would be hard push; given the subject matter and I had anticipated press ganging people into roles. Yet I am getting a steady flow of enquires from people for various roles and rather than scratching around so it seems that I will be spoilt for choice.

I feel that the key to pulling off this production (well any production actually) lies in the preparation and its going... okay. There are a few curved balls (see previous blog) but things are generally going fine. I may lose someone who I had hoped would read for a part due to circumstances beyond my control, but I suppose that opens up other possibilities I guess. Another individual who I had hoped to garner some interest from has graciously declined the opportunity and I understand their reasons perfectly. On the other hand another individual has spoken to me about a role and I am really interested in seeing what they can do with one of the characters.

As for other areas of the show, I now have a final set concept which is now almost "locked", subject to a bit of tweaking here and there. I have fifteen of the twenty three music cues programmed (although there will be some trimming there) and I'm half way through a lighting design. Hopefully my SM will be free to come on board soon so we can start to fill the technical jobs. Costumes are going to be easy... other than Roy... which is going to be... ahem... interesting.... So its all coming together and I think I'm still on course to have pre-production finished on time (which at the moment is scheduled for mid May). That of course could all change....

sounds demanding!

Well the best laid plans....

I have very clear ideas on how I want Normal to sound, aurally. Now I've had some musical doodles kicking around for ages, but I decided today that I really wanted to get them nailed, so it was one tick in the job done box. I thought it was going to be easy; after all I had all my ideas already didn't I- so it was be just a case of finalising the mixes and the edits. Easy.

Wrong.

There's always a problem child, and I think I've just found it. You see I have very clear cut ideas on how sound design should be done, and my first guiding principle is always stick to the same source; the same soundtrack, CD, whatever. Except that I have one particular "need" that I can't seem to find in my desired source; any ideas that I find are too long (and can't be edited without compromising the structure of the music), have something going on that doesn't sound right (like a piece of vocal or backing) or just doesn't sound right! Could be worse I suppose; I could be using some old discos hits.....

Pre- production

It seems actually quite scary to think that in less twelve short months this show will be in an advanced state of rehearsal and may of the the ideas that I have had scribbled down will either be actioned or discarded. 

Putting on a show is a very organic process. Although I've been playing around with ideas for this piece oh, since last Autumn (and before that there were concepts that were dancing around my mind) its only now really that I'm starting to correlate ideas. Some - like a having a heavy rock guitar riff for Wayne's first entrance-have already made it into the garbage bin, as has my original (overly ambitious) thoughts  on set design. 

Now my plan is at time of writing to have pre-production "locked" once the audition and casting process is complete. That means in the next six weeks I am hoping to finalise all the conceptual work which means having a lighting design, a set design, music cues all in place by the beginning of May, so that I can then put the whole thing on the back burner until later in the year and focus on other EA projects that precede Normal. Thats the plan anyway... ask me again in six weeks and I may be telling a different story....