Well, that would explain it

[hobgoblinn]

Some random observations for a random night.

First - Wow. Alan Rickman can sing.

I haven’t seen Sweeney Todd yet, but enough conversations on my flist and elsewhere have caused me to seek out some clips, and there’s a behind the scenes clip that has Depp and Rickman meeting and singing about love and -- other things-- as the demon barber prepares to give his nemesis a very close shave indeed. Excellent diction, as well. Sondheim is my all time favorite Broadway composer, for lots of reasons I will go into in another post, later.



Second - Outlines. Use them, love them, embrace them as the path to salvation itself.

I finally decided to make one of my bogged down sequel to “Lost Boys” and discovered some serious imbalances of POV, and total lack of coherent structure. I’m starting to cut scenes and reallocate POV and rethink my half-baked ideas of who’s where when. Where “Lost Boys” was from Snape’s POV until Harry entered, then mostly from Harry’s with some returns to Snape in key moments, this one has to be from David’s and Snape’s alternating points of view. Which means they need parallel journeys when they get separated - Snape with the villain who’s stolen his body for a dark ritual, and David with his grandmother Petunia Dursley. David needs some material at least as compelling as the already shared scene between Minerva and Snape that includes the flashback.



Third - the project for K is starting to come together, and I think we’re going to be getting the husband involved in the thing, as censor for content he wants his son to see and as having some very cool stories of his own he’ll want to make sure get placed in the book. I’ve been pleased so far with the contributions and more with the promises of more to come from several individuals.

Mostly, I just need to get disciplined about sitting down and writing Every Day No Matter What. I have 3 stories bouncing around my brain and they all need to get finished before Nano next year. 4 if you count my original novel idea. Which could probably also benefit from a preliminary outline.

So, my pre-NewYear resolution will be to write every day for at least an hour, which will be lunch if nothing else. More’s fine, but at least that long. May have to adjust it if it gets too daunting, just to get me started. wrisomifu was 10 minutes-- just enough time, usually, to get me past the pain and into something interesting. We’ll see how it works out.

ETA: Clips from Sweeney Todd here:
http://www.iesb.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3789&Itemid=99

The second "Behind the scenes" has the singing; Alan is also featured in "You gandered at my ward" where he is at his creepy and menacing best. Enjoy.

Comments

[hobgoblinn.livejournal.com]

What impressed me most about Alan was-- it's Hard to sing harmony if you haven't the ear for it-- there's a place just before Sweeney puts the shaving cream on the Judge where they end up in thirds for a couple of bars-- you either nail that or-- not. Most non-singers get caught on stuff like that, having to stick to a part when someone's singing something else, more so than in solo work. Have a look at "Once More, with Feeling", the season 6 episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer to see what I mean. Sarah and Nicholas in particular are non-singers, though they have some natural ability, and it shows every once in a while.

Timothy Spall was another surprise, vocally. And of course, Johnny and Helena were great. I can't wait to see it all. I love the show.