!!! Puppet Movie – Scene 2 !!!
Hello Beautiful People!
I’m feeling really well today, firstly because it’s Halloween, but also because I’ve finally finished the second chapter in my PUPPET OPERA MOVIE!!!
This is HUGE! It has taken quite some time to reach this point. This piece of sight and sound somehow feels like it was meant for this time, this climate, our political, social and everchanging lives as humans of earth. Wow. Have you been paying attention? Things are charged and wild. I’ve been finding messages in the lyrics written 14 years ago during a completely different life I was leading in Ithaca, NY. Times have changed, but the problems remain the same, now as in the distant past, but the weapons are more dangerous, the population is out of control, and the stakes seem to be getting close to all or nothing…
DOWN TO BUSINESS: This was quite a process. As many of you know, I wrote the music for this 14 years ago using a stream of consciousness method wherein I sat with guitar and voice, recording into a cassette the ideas I had that day, stitching each beginning to the previous ending. Each day, when I returned to my writing, I would listen first to the end of the previous day then build off that. After I had done this long enough to fill 23 full pages of paper with lyrics (about 6 months), I took the tapes and reviewed them over and over, learning the whole thing as I went.
After learning it, I began scoring it for four parts, meant to be played in choirs, groups of instruments.
After scoring it, I started recording many people in my home studio (Whenland) and making the soundtrack.
After finishing a soundtrack piece, I take the audio and put it into my video software. I take the synopsis written using lyrics from the music and I make storyboards. From the storyboards I come up with the directions for my puppets and film them. Then I sift through the film and put it in my computer, edit it, move it, colorize it and smooth it over. That is what I’m handing you today.
I have a feeling once I get to the end of this I’ll want to go back and spruce up the beginning, but I’m going to make it first in these small clips for you, then I will put them all together and fix, reshape things. Anyway, I know people like to hear about the process…
This section is about the meeting of the Beast. He was awakened in the last chapter and now the three brothers are coming to see if they can keep the Beast from turning totally sour and messing up the world. Enjoy!!!
with love and thanks,
Seth
Grande Sceme one shot video
Well, well, well, here we are again, me talking to you from the lofty position of my attic studio space. It’s snowing outside, and I’ve got a rare moment alone in the house with no children, no partner, no house guests, no friends. I’ve always loved solitude, ever since I was a little kid. If I don’t get it, I get really crabby. Last week, last weekend was a busy one in which I had my first art show in many years (it is hung and looks great over at Photo City Improv), and at that show my band Multibird performed. The next day I flew to Boston for a video shoot with my friend Emilie Stark-Menneg who is an incredible artist I’ve been lucky to know for 10 years or so now. She and her partner John Bisbee, an excellent sculptor put together a crazy plan (involving a bunch of goats and artists) and had me and about 10 other people trek out to a farm in a town I don’t even know the name of… It features my song, Holy Mother, which is from the #100songs project. On the night after this video shoot, I played a small house show in Boston then got on a plane back home the next day.
I was quite inspired by this video shoot, realizing magic can really happen in a short span of time if the energy is right. We shot this video the night after I got back from the trip. None of my bandmates knew the song previous to this night, and we threw it all together with this loose script I wrote, pressed record and watched it unfold. I believe I’m going to make more and more videos in this manner because of the personal aspect it maintains. I love small events, like house shows or hanging out with friends and getting weird. I want to show this beauty to those in the world who do not have this in their day to day lives. I have a love for this video similar to that of loving a gift you’ve made for someone you care about.
I hope you’ll enjoy it too! It’s a Patreon patron exclusive. I want to THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM TO THE TOP OF MY HEART!!! Seriously, I know it might be tough for some of you, so thanks a ton. I wouldn’t be able to work as hard as I do creating all these odd pieces of art without you. Here’s the song if you’d like to just listen to it, or click on the link above to watch the video and listen!
Big love to y’all, keep fighting the good fight!
Seth
People With Power protest video
I’d prefer to let this video speak for itself. I will say this, I’m very very proud of the giant crew of people involved in the making of this and inspired to no end by the progress we are making as a team over here.
This video is meant to be empowering to the people in a difficult time, bring inspiration to others to not only continue on, but to thrive in the face of adversity.
Holy Mother / Lucky Kids video collaboration
New Song! Purple Peaceful People
Hello lovely people! I’m hoping you are all quite well. I’ve been hard at work on a few things, the main thing is the synopsis for my film, which you all know about. I should be sending you Act 1 sometime next week and Act 2 by the end of the month. Then my plan is to get the actual second scene of the movie to you before I leave for a European Tour August 14th (See accompanying photo or go here to see where I’lll be).
In addition to that, I’ve started a handful of songs. All this writing of the movie synopsis has opened the floodgate and a bunch of tunes seem to be popping out! haha. It’s great. I’ve decided since I’ve developed this whole long set of soft songs that I’ll start writing some up tempo tunes. That is what I’m sending you today! I wrote this song a week ago and have had it stuck in my head and have been developing parts for my band.
So what I’m sending you today is a scratch track. If you don’t know what that is, basically it’s a sketch for musicians to work from. I have scored out the music for flute, trumpet, trombone, tuba, electric guitar and bass. Then I took the weird synthesized audio from that and added a couple guitars and a few voices so that my band can have an idea of where I want this tune to go. I have a really good feeling about this upcoming cluster of songs. This one feels great to me playing solo, so with a band it’ll really rock hard.
Here’s the score if you’d like to take a look or play along…
Here’s the audio of just the score:
… and here’s the audio of the scratch recording including my parts:
That’s it for now!! Much love from overly hot Rochester!! Let’s live our lives to the fullest!!
hugs,
Seth
MY MOVIE! FIRST WEBISODE IS LIVE!!
Let’s see what comes of this leap of faith!!! Weeeeeeeee!!!!!
People With Power video…
I’d prefer to let this video speak for itself. I will say this, I’m very very proud of the giant crew of people involved in the making of this and inspired to no end by the progress we are making as a team over here.
This video is meant to be empowering to the people in a difficult time, bring inspiration to others to not only continue on, but to thrive in the face of adversity.
After this month, leading into April, I am planning on releasing the first 2 minutes of my puppet opera movie. I know 2 minutes doesn’t sound like a lot, but in order to get this stuff up there, I need to record and mix a 10 piece band on music which I’ve previously scored out (see earlier post), then take that music and film my giant puppets, my small hand puppets still need to be made, and the two dimensional painting puppets need to be animated.
To make two minutes will probably take the full month of April, but I’ve been scaling way back on the public performances so have a bit more time.
This is now my priority, so be expecting much from me in this realm. I’m calling this one of my great masterpieces. When it is complete (probably two years down the road if I hit no roadblocks), I will put the full thing together into one singular movie and release it independently, start sending it around to film fests and theaters in order to gain some notoriety for it and potentially take it on the road. The name of this immense project is noneother than 23 Psaegz. I know, a bit confusing, but such is life!
all my love dear ones,
sethy