Theatrical Development Centre

Here's an older page from the Gnome of New Hope Storybook. It has contact info, but more than that, it points out Gnome Gnog, a product line that involves creating a brew. If you are interested in participating in creating that product line, let me know.

I had a most interesting thought today. For many years I worked as a traveling (and stationary) theatre technician. I ended my work in that arena as a Technical Director for The New Hope Arts Commission, working for nine years in that capacity, also doing set construction, lighting design, stage & house management and show operation. When I say ended, it is not so much that I quit doing it as it was that I got tired of building other people's shows and began writing my own musical. Over the years I managed to put over 350 shows under my belt. That's shows, not performances. So, getting wrapped up in The Gnomes of New Hope left little time for doing other shows. For a time, I was doing a fair amount of Gilbert and Sullivan, as a performer, but it got to the point where doing chorus was no longer acceptable and I concluded that I simply could not dedicate my energy to what needed to be done to pursue performance as a principle. My work with Image of the Mind Studios, and the creative projects on the boards, had to take precedence. Quite simply, I am getting old fast and I have a lot of things that need to be finished before I run out of energy and ability.

So today I realized that what I have been doing, in terms of setting up my shop, is precisely what I did for so many years, only now the environment is going to be under my control. Of course, I need to achieve certain business milestones before I can actually achieve that, but I am well on my way to doing that. It all revolves around sufficient capital influx to secure long term stability for the facilities. All else, in large part has been garnered. Of course, upgrading equipment is an ongoing necessity and establishing an HR operation, along with Marketing, Sales and Distribution is also needing to be done, but the foundations for production, not only from a historical standpoint, but from a current status standpoint are moving forward very nicely. There is a very clear overall plan and a work process that advances toward an ultimate goal that is well defined. I just found it interesting to observe how much of what I am doing is solidly founded in my career history. Somehow that was not as clear to me while I was very wrapped up in the publishing end of things. I sure hope that we can create a cash flow scenario that funds the overall plan.

AG

Shop Activities

Well, the concentration is still publishing The Gnomes of New Hope, and in that regard, I am setting up the book binding aspect of that project. I am gathering the tooling for being able to punch binding holes, one full book at a time. If my punch press tooling designs work to do that, it will be a big plus to the production line. I want to be certain we can do that before the product lines are released, since the uniqueness of the books is important for it's overall appeal.

 I have endeavored to rearrange the floor plan of the shop, something I was putting off because of the magnitude of doing that, but it had to be done. I was thinking it through for some time and finally determined to go ahead with that.  I installed shelving to delineate the work areas and get supplies, tools and such off the floor space. Initially, the space was mostly for storage, but since I rather intend on dying here, I concluded that I might as well set it up right. I've set up, an ongoing process, a wood shop (for set construction and furniture restoration), a metal shop with welding (for general fabrication, prototype & animatronic work). I'm still needing a good lathe and milling machine, since I don't have access to our family's machine shop (for reasons I won't go into). But I have been delineating the space for these functions. I have been a Corvair enthusiast since 1970 so I have two work bays with  a '61 Corvair Rampside and a '66 Monza Convertable resident in those work areas. One bay will become a paint booth, for both the cars and the theatre work, the other is for mechanical and other vehicle and other restoration work. I also have a '64 Greenbrier, which I will be converting into a parade float for The Gnomes of New Hope. In addition to the service bays, I am setting up a third bay area that is dedicated to my 1931 Model A Roadster, which right now is in pieces.

There are many other work areas in the shop that are in stasis. The product showroom, the exhibition gallery, the puppet design & fabrication area, a sound stage and sound booth, paint area, lighting and electrical closet, a future control booth for the stage, a peanut gallery with around 80 1930's deco theatre seats (needing restoration). Add to that two motorcycles, both of which are disassemble and need attention. 

So as you see, I've got my hands full and the primary objective above all this (and more) is to generate enough capital to get this done and hire people to work on these projects. In addition to The Gnomes of New Hope, I have other projects that need to be worked on, but everything is pushed aside in lieu of completing The Gnomes and getting that into the marketplace.

One very important goal is to create a remote location for The Theatrical Development Centre and Spiritual Retreat.

 I will likely post more about other work areas, like the back lot and some of the projects taking place there too.

That's all for now. AG

AG

Exhibition of The Gnomes of New Hope

The Gnomes of New Hope was originally designed as a Legit Stage Musical, but I'm beginning to think that the stage production in a theatre may not be our primary market. 

I have begun the process of constructing a Parade Float which will include animatronic puppetry, although I am still heavily engaged in publishing and crafting an online presence for the e-Storybook. I'm thinking along the lines of moving from the Parade environment into the Feastival and Environmental theatre arenas, before approaching any theatre. Stepping into the Legit environment brings a debt load that makes it questionable, uless you know the audience had been developed to support those expenses. I'm not willing to fund that operation via traditional methods without the audience to back it up. So I'm taking a more gradual approach to building the audience, starting with publishing. I am open to other options offered by participants, so long as those opinions bring with them significant funding. I have a significant overhead for the studio which needs to be satisfied and that is the priority.

More later. AG

The Substance of The Studio

For some time, I off-handedly referred to The Lord as the Executive Producer and true owner of Image of the Mind Studios. I do believe that to be true, while I perform the principle role of Artistic Director. In a way, I serve as Executive Producer as His agent in this world. 

All that being said, the work I am doing is to setup and structure the Studio so that other delegates who have the same perspective can join the team, working for the Lord in the creative environment that is Image of the Mind Studios.

As I have said before, the larger objective is to construct a compound; The Theatrical Development Centre and Spiritual Retreat. That concept has come into greater clarity and is moving toward becoming a reality, although it is very far off.

But the idea of delegating the personnel structure is one that needs to be addressed, particularly in the arena of establishing a Board of Directors. I take the position that for my role I must continue to work on refining the Studio's working space and leave the Board of Directors up to Providence. Having said that, it should be know that the circumstances are ripe for implementing the larger management structure, which is defined in my Business Plan for The Gnomes of New Hope, with only minor adjustments needed to accommodate the epithany regarding the Executive perspective I just outlined here.

In Providence, I leave the impedus up to the individuals who wish to participate and contribute to creating the environment I describe. I for one, realize that my lifespan is limited and I want to see Image of the Mind Studios grow into the entity I envision, understanding full well that it is not in my power to do so, on my own, without others becoming involved in the vision or without all persons involved giving deference to the Lord alone. 

I remain open to discussion in this regard. 🎭🎶🎬📚🙏

Thanks to; "Off-the-Left Eye" for the photo/text panel above.

Partnering

Now that I am finishing g up the e-Storybook, discussions have picked up about presenting the music. This is a good thing, since once the delivery of the e-Storybook is established, I will be focusing in finishing the score to the music.

 But that brings us to gathering resources. With a number of people anxious to work on the stage musical, I need to secure the funds to advance. I prefer to do that in ways that do not require me to pay any of that money back or manage the investment parameters. Licensing the rights is one way, but that too requires management. I am engaged in crafting the materials, so I will be looking to job out or license the management functions. I can build those functions in-house, but that will take time and distract me from other creative work, which must be done. 

So, I'm just posting this to state that I am open to discussing management and funding. My primary goal is to fund the overhead of my studio facility first and foremost, for the long term, meaning the rest of my life (30 years at most). I want that burden gone.

Once that is achieved, then other activities can proceed. I continue to advance with internal operations, but introducing external forces, such as management, on a contract basis, requires satisfaction of long term facilities overhead as a prerequisite​. I will discuss those numbers in person, but a clue is that it costs $100k per year minimum, not including other studio management and facilities maintenance expenses.

Let me know if you want to be I involved. I need to focus more on the funding end of things. We're working off of Front Money, leading into a Joint Venture, and possibly a Limited Partnership. I have a Business Plan available.

I am willing to contract for representation, so long as it's understood that I control the creative content and my economics are met. 

This project has very high potential, but I only need very little in comparison. So this is a peach ripe for the pick'in.  AG🎭🎬🎶🇺🇸

IMS Producing Partners

I have been posting on IMS Producing Partners. It is a site for Classified information intended for our investors, but it is also (supposedly) a restricted site. If the link above takes you into that site, I'd appreciate your letting me know. Here is my email; image.of.the.mind.studios@gmail.com

 If you find that you need to register, you  can send me your email to the same address and request access if you want to read what is there. I will be focusing more on this site and giving limited access to Industry Professionals who request to see the information posted there, as I will be posting contracts and management documents in due time. I will also be posting the Business Plan, which outlines The Elder Gnomes Joint Venture and the Front Money Agreement. I expect that there will be multiple layers of security on that site.

I am still working on the basis of Front Money and the returns under that agreement are substantial. As it stands now, I will be working to raise around $100K to support the Illustration work that needs to be done. I am also pursuing Licensing, as I need to support the Studio Facilities and get the show on the road.

IMS Producing Partners will be THE place for business documents, so anyone considering involvement will need to request access. Now that other matters are coming to a close, I will be focusing more on those business aspects of producing this show. AG

IMS, Shop Space

Here's a cool shot of a stage, just because it's cool.

Well, even though almost all of my time is taken up with finishing the layout for The Gnomes of New Hope, I am still gradually getting the shop set up. I currently have two 5k sq ft buildings and maintaining that space is costly in a number of ways. Hence completion of The Gnomes and getting it out there producing income is the priority, but I still need to tend to other matters. The property has 4 buildings, my goal is to wholely own and maintain the building and the business in the front two buildings. Buildings 1&2 contain a CNC machine shop, which is closed down right now. My goal is to oped that shop again as a division of IMS, so that's going to require a couple of million to do. But in terms of the two back buildings, in bldg 3 in setting of a scene shop, with wood & metal working areas, a paint booth, a work area that matches the stage turntable in The Bucks County Playhouse, a conference room, refinishing area for furniture, an assembly line for bookbinding, and dhipping/receiving, and of course storage areas for supplies. Also, I have the paint booth area serving as a service bay for vehicles and I have an area set aside for rebuilding a 1931 Model A Roadster. I work in the offices of Bldg 3 and my workstation has three Macs set up for GFX, publishing, FCP, DP/Mach Five, Poser and around at least a dozen other programs. What I can and am striving to achieve has been posted elsewhere, but all of my facilities and resources are dedicated to The Gnomes of New Hope and other projects I already have going. I do not take in outside work, only upon occasion, because my studio rate has to be $250/hr plus expenses that rate covers only the overhead no production expenses or personnel. I've not come across too many people willing to pay that rate, so I don't bother. I'll discuss that in the page IMS Management, which I will embellish after I finished the layout work on The Gnomes of New Hope.

That's all for now. AG 🎭 🇺🇸

Recent Activities​

  It's sometimes difficult to keep all the various blog site active and up-to-date. So, I'm just going to touch base here.

   Work on the e-Storybook is continuing. It feels like a never-ending project, but it is advancing and it is moving along nicely. It is a far far bigger project then I imagined. An example here is that the most recent edition is a result of discovering 153 pages that were eliminated from the previous version. Apparently, in an effort to expedite the matter, I removed the pages that were drawn from "The Gnomic Tales".

    Of course, doing that changed the page numbers as well as expanding Volume Three. But the end result has been redoing the page numbers and making sure the right and left gutters are correct. I'm finishing up the page numbering and will need to build a new PowerPoint presentation.

I mentioned elsewhere that I discovered iMovie will import a .PPTX file, thus making it possible to export that .MOV file into Final Cut Studio. So, I have also been busy setting up the multiple xServe arrays I have and rebuilding my Mac workstations. I recently bought a G4 Mirror Door to replace the Quicksilver that we used to compose the music and will use that as a server for the older files. The Quicksilver seems to be working now, so I will reestablish that workstation. It's still good for many things, incLuding arranging music. Of course, I have the most recent programs on my Mac Pro, but I need another  I workstation for  a someone else  a to use. I still have the G4 Audio Mac that I used for some time and I am using the dual boot function to connect to both the Quicksilver and the older 6400. I use the 6400 and older machines for OS9 and a number of the programs I used in those operating systems. I have an affection for programs like Graphic works and Hypercard.  Used them very effectively, but of course they don't run on the newer systems, so I have kept all my older machines and am putting them to use for things like inventory, scheduling, and some project management.

    Little by little I am setting up the Sales & Accounting Office. That is connected to the showroom and gallery exhibition area. I haven't worked much on the gallery exhibition, mostly because I'm tied to finishing g up the e-Storybook and getting that to produce income. Once that happens a lot of other projects can be attended to.

Little by little I am refining the floor space and setting up multiple work stations. I'm designing and setting up woodworking and metalworking areas, as well as a staging area for set construction and a soundstage with a green screen. I expect to be acquiring a set of borders and legs... and so much more.

AG

Facebook Pages

Here are some links.

Arthur Greisiger
Artistic Director/Proprietor
Image of the Mind Studios

There are also pages for;
Image of the Mind Studios
and
The Gnomes of New Hope

I'm trying to learn how to effectively manage these pages to the best advantage and link everything together.

AG

Photo Stock Library

   I spent many years and a ton of money as a photographer. My photo stock library has thousands of images in it. When it all became digital, I mostly quit doing it, partly because my investments in film cameras were becoming nullified and I wasn't happy about that. I didn't want to invest in new digital equipment.

    I stopped working on photography, or sorting my library, figuring that would be best left for my older years. But also, I was busy with building other aspects of IMS, writing, designing, and addressing production management issues.

   I began to set up a Gallery page, which I may work on again, since I will offer photography and other art for sale as framed works.

   You will find that I will post offerings from time to time, but I'm not investing a lot  of time in it and I'm not selling it unless I make a fair profit. Whatever I post will be in my showroom at the studio, so if you see something you like, you can always visit me. I expect that the showroom will become the repository for items I produce, but don't push very hard to sell. I  also put prototypes in the showroom. Some items will need to be special order, even after I post them.

   I will be working more on the product lines as a whole, since the HDTV e-Storybook is almost finished and the hard copy books are also nearing completion.

   Here's  link to one image that is available. "The Word"

Business dialogue

You will find postings here which discuss some of the Business Modus Operandi.

What is said here is not cut in stone. Even though it is mostly referring to absolutes, the final language is only fixed in the signed contracts and through direct dialogue. Whatever is posted here is for the purpose of providing the context for productive talks on, not only financing, but production management as a whole.

I set up IMS Producing Partners as a subscription page for our investors because there needs to be Classified Information there, but since some of that information is necessary for potential partners to become involved, I have set up IMS Management as a place for that information. If you've read some thoughts that require more information on management issues, that would be the place to look for further discussions on that subject. It may not be there at first, but it will eventually get there.

With all of this, I am working on a plan to migrate all of the blog information to a IMS domain and to implement an internal server. I'm not sure how long all that will take, but it's on the schedule. At some point, I will need to locate an IT person to oversee that arena.

AG

HDTV e-Storybook

An earlier version of the page layout

UPDATE;

3/24/20

Refer to The Gnomes of New Hope for more detailed information. Posts made here are mostly for reference.

Note that the pages have been consolidated and renumbered so that the numbers do not include the Preface and Appendixes of each volume. This has change the pages to represent only the actual story and reduced the page numbers down to 534. This means that volume One has 78 Pages (plus Preface and Appendix bringing it up to 109) and Volume Two, which is Act One of the Stage Play, falls in at 233, with the balance being in Volume Three (Act Two).I am currently building prototypes of Volumes Two & Three, while Volume One has been published (as shown elsewhere)

AG



ARCHIVE;

 3/21/20

Well, the HDTV layout is finished. The next stage is to convert it to both a PPX and MOV files. It is a relief that the primary files have been rebuilt, recovered, and duplicated after great difficulty with failed hard discs and lost files.

The next stage is raising enough funding to move forward (rapidly) to complete the remaining artwork. As I've mentioned, doing this will also move us into animation and 3D rendering. But other funding is necessary for facilities and looking toward personnel. Keep watch on the Gnomes of New Hope blog.

ARCHIVE:

OK, I'qve been carefully preparing the e-Storybook (for the Industry Review)... and this has been going on for a long time. Yesterday a discussion ensued and I explained that when the e-book goes up on someone's HDTV and little discrepancy between the pages, in terms of color balance, alignment, or inconsistencies in the artwork and other things of that nature, will be readily apparent to the discriminating eye. So I have to make sure it is right, because once I release it, the first response of the audience is what will determine it's success.

Well, one aspect of working on this has been consistently dealing with corrupted files. There seems to be a number of reasons for this. I think one significant aspect is the amount of artwork involved. So I have been trying various ways to secure the files. I use numerous programs and formats to implement the layout and part of the problems I have faced are file sizes. So in order to maintain the resolution I have been avoiding compressing the files until the last stage, thus I have files, particularly those that were created with Word, that are too large. In those instances I have attempted to divide the files into smaller segments, but there is inconsistency there. An example is that I have a complete layout, with watermark and a full complement of artwork saved as, say, Revision 95 which opens fine, while the same slightly edited scene, saved without the watermark as Revision 112 won't open after it's been closed. This forces me to go back to 95 to recover the file if an error is discovered in any component using that file. I can tell you that has been very frustrating trying to figure it out and devise a way to secure the files against this problem.

Well, now I'm into another level of file structure. I'm saving the  HDTV layout as a layered PSD file, which is working very well, but now I am also flattening the the pages, without the artwork. If you've seen some of the sample pages I have posted here in this blog (or above in the title page) you can see the way the text is laid out around the artwork. Well the net effect out creating these files without the artwork is that I will be able to insert animated artwork into the layout. Up until now, I have had to insert the artwork in the layout, in order to craft the text. Now that the text is finalized, as to it's position, font, size, and content, removing the artwork and flattening the text with the background page elements creates a foundation for numerous variation of the product line. The most exciting aspect of this is being able to use the page as part of the animation layout.

All this for the Three Volume, 700 page set. So, you can see why this is taking so long.

Well, that's enough for now. 

AG