Last Friday, Katie, Keir Sarah and I met at Salt Lake Roasting Co. and spent an hour working on the master calendar. Our job was made very easy thanks to Katie who, due to her status as a ballet major, can get us rehearsal space in the Marriott Center For Dance. Therefore we'll be rehearsing two things at once during most of the rehearsal period, making us much more efficient.
We also ran into an interesting challenge this last week, it turns out that the University's insurance policy only covers accident/injury for students, faculty and staff. Due to the amount of cast members that are non-university students we are required to have third party insurance. Unfortunately I'm too poor to afford a short term insurance policy for 20ish people but thankfully a gentleman named John Corser came to our rescue. John owns a motion picture production company in Park City Utah and I interned for him while he was publishing the first edition of FilmUtah magazine. John's company has insurance that he pays for anyway, so he was able to stake my production thus providing me with the insurance I'm required to have. Don't let anyone tell you that interning is a waste of your time, when you do favors for someone, they'll do one for you.
Rehearsals start next week and Sarah and I are working on getting all of the paperwork together. I'm really excited to meet the cast and start working. It's going to be awesome!
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Monday, February 21, 2011
The Score Arrives!
I can't read music, despite 8 years of piano lessons and my amazing clarinet skills in elementary school band I still can't identify notes on a staff. Thankfully I have a very useful composer attached to my team.
His name is Keir Schmidt and that tome he's looking at is the score sent to me from the Jeff Wayne Music Group. It includes all of the orchestrations from all of the songs from the original album, plus a few extra goodies that have been added since the original recording.
Keir is responsible for taking all those notes and making them into music. He will orchestrate all the violins, horns, drums and huge number of synthesizers into a final mix for me. He'll also be playing the guitar himself on the track in order to get that awesome live sound necessary for the "heat ray" guitar.
Keir will be working almost nonstop over the next few weeks and I'm not exaggerating when I say that the whole production is relying on him right now. Without the awesome prog-rock music, the show would be quite boring. A lot of silence would follow some off-key a'capella singing. Keir is the lone warrior, shielding us from disaster.
Expect to hear some previews of his material soon!
 |
| From WOTW |
His name is Keir Schmidt and that tome he's looking at is the score sent to me from the Jeff Wayne Music Group. It includes all of the orchestrations from all of the songs from the original album, plus a few extra goodies that have been added since the original recording.
Keir is responsible for taking all those notes and making them into music. He will orchestrate all the violins, horns, drums and huge number of synthesizers into a final mix for me. He'll also be playing the guitar himself on the track in order to get that awesome live sound necessary for the "heat ray" guitar.
Keir will be working almost nonstop over the next few weeks and I'm not exaggerating when I say that the whole production is relying on him right now. Without the awesome prog-rock music, the show would be quite boring. A lot of silence would follow some off-key a'capella singing. Keir is the lone warrior, shielding us from disaster.
Expect to hear some previews of his material soon!
Meeting with Jann Haworth
I've got some fame attached to the project now.
You probably don't know the name Jann Haworth but you probably know her work. A few years ago, she and her husband were commissioned to design the album cover for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band!
You've probably seen that mural in downtown SLC by the Gateway that mimics the Sgt. Pepper's Album Cover, well she did that as well. It's not a total rip-off if that's what you were thinking.
Jann was nice enough to meet with Producer Sarah Young and myself and discuss the different possibilities for designing puppets. I showed her a few ideas that I had and she got back to me with a few great ideas of her own.
I'm not going to reveal anything until the final products arrive but I will share with you the scratch pad that the two of us worked on during our meeting. It should give you a bit of a glimpse of what is to come!
You probably don't know the name Jann Haworth but you probably know her work. A few years ago, she and her husband were commissioned to design the album cover for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band!
You've probably seen that mural in downtown SLC by the Gateway that mimics the Sgt. Pepper's Album Cover, well she did that as well. It's not a total rip-off if that's what you were thinking.
Jann was nice enough to meet with Producer Sarah Young and myself and discuss the different possibilities for designing puppets. I showed her a few ideas that I had and she got back to me with a few great ideas of her own.
I'm not going to reveal anything until the final products arrive but I will share with you the scratch pad that the two of us worked on during our meeting. It should give you a bit of a glimpse of what is to come!
 |
| From WOTW |
Friday, January 21, 2011
Eve of the Production
Hello everyone,
I'm a senior in the theatre program at the University of Utah and a long time fan of Jeff Wayne's WOTW. I once had this crazy idea to stage a production of Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of: The War of the Worlds. After a few years of college and no further ideas, I've jumped headlong into the production. I started emailing the Jeff Wayne music group in London in October 2010 and managed to negotiate all the necessary royalties and agreements.
I want to stage Jeff Wayne's WOTW as a multimedia performance, including Music, Dance, Theatre, Film and Visual Art. The performance has two goals; to allow University of Utah Department of Fine Arts students to collaborate with one another and to raise awareness of Jeff Wayne's WOTW in Utah and in the US using the recent trend of multimedia performance.
I have secured the rights to perform the show through Jeff Wayne's company and I have secured Studio 115 in the University of Utah's Performing Arts Building on May 5th 2011. I have also adapted a script from the album, keeping the lyrics and dialogue verbatim, but adding directions for staging. Now the fun work begins...
I need a total of 4 fighting machine puppets to be handled by three puppeteers (one for each leg). I have an idea that one leg will be used to hold the puppet up (that is to say it won't bend) and the other two will articulate in order to make the machine "walk." If anyone has built large-scale fighting machine replicas, I would love to know how you did it.
I need one martian puppet to emerge from a crashed cylinder. Really I just need some disk-like eyes and a lot of tentacles. A children's theatre recently produced "The Little Mermaid" perhaps I can steal some tentacles from them. Once again if anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear them.
Finally, I need lots and lots of multimedia to be projected on screen behind the performance. I'm doing some video work of my own in order to establish locations or showcase the beauty of the Earth but I would love to feature some fan art. If anyone has any still images, animations, drawings or videos that you would like to be showcased, I would love to display your work on the screen during the show.
This project is all about collaboration and the idea that Jeff Wayne's WOTW needs to be showcased to the world. Any help or advice you can offer would be great and I'll try to keep everyone updated on the production process as well.
Thank you so much!
Connor
I'm a senior in the theatre program at the University of Utah and a long time fan of Jeff Wayne's WOTW. I once had this crazy idea to stage a production of Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of: The War of the Worlds. After a few years of college and no further ideas, I've jumped headlong into the production. I started emailing the Jeff Wayne music group in London in October 2010 and managed to negotiate all the necessary royalties and agreements.
 |
| From WOTW |
I want to stage Jeff Wayne's WOTW as a multimedia performance, including Music, Dance, Theatre, Film and Visual Art. The performance has two goals; to allow University of Utah Department of Fine Arts students to collaborate with one another and to raise awareness of Jeff Wayne's WOTW in Utah and in the US using the recent trend of multimedia performance.
I have secured the rights to perform the show through Jeff Wayne's company and I have secured Studio 115 in the University of Utah's Performing Arts Building on May 5th 2011. I have also adapted a script from the album, keeping the lyrics and dialogue verbatim, but adding directions for staging. Now the fun work begins...
I need a total of 4 fighting machine puppets to be handled by three puppeteers (one for each leg). I have an idea that one leg will be used to hold the puppet up (that is to say it won't bend) and the other two will articulate in order to make the machine "walk." If anyone has built large-scale fighting machine replicas, I would love to know how you did it.
I need one martian puppet to emerge from a crashed cylinder. Really I just need some disk-like eyes and a lot of tentacles. A children's theatre recently produced "The Little Mermaid" perhaps I can steal some tentacles from them. Once again if anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear them.
Finally, I need lots and lots of multimedia to be projected on screen behind the performance. I'm doing some video work of my own in order to establish locations or showcase the beauty of the Earth but I would love to feature some fan art. If anyone has any still images, animations, drawings or videos that you would like to be showcased, I would love to display your work on the screen during the show.
This project is all about collaboration and the idea that Jeff Wayne's WOTW needs to be showcased to the world. Any help or advice you can offer would be great and I'll try to keep everyone updated on the production process as well.
Thank you so much!
Connor
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