Last week saw me stuck sick in bed for a couple days, but also saw two good meetings. The first was with Rose Ginsberg, director and chief brainstorming-buddy for Summer’s Twilight. I’ve finished a significant re-write of the libretto of the first scene, and wanted to bounce it off of Rose before I dug into the music – that way I could be sure I’m not crazy. I like to start meetings after work by cooking dinner for whoever I’m meeting with, and after burgers and salad I walked Rose through the scene.
Unlike the version we did at the reading in December, this version starts with Puck and Oberon instead of the lovers, and starts with a dumbshow instead of melodrama. The four lovers go on a picnic, and after they’re through the two couples get some time alone together in the woods – observed by the fairies. I also brought back Theseus and Egeus as characters, and put in some quotes and parodies from The Marriage of Figaro in the piano part for the dumbshow. Rose had some great feedback, trimming some of dialogue, improving a bit of mime-comedy to make the characters more real and more funny, and other lovely things. Now I get to refine the libretto and dive back into the music.
The next night I met with Zach Herchen and Mike Feldman to go over the next round of sound design for the film adaptation of The Seafarer. Zach is basically learning sound design as he goes, and he’s coming up with some really creative solutions that add a lot to the film. Needless to say, I’m also making it up as I go along – Mike’s the one who knows what he’s doing. That’s why he’s directing. Zach’s going to do another round of sound design before our next meeting on June 5 (after which we’re going out for my birthday)- and then we’ll start working with Victoria Nece on color correction and titles and everything else that goes with finishing the film properly.
And now, because it’s Sunday, back to work!