(c) photo by SR Jak

Playing around with a new character and story line tonight:

The Life and Loves of Leticia Leighton

Chapter 1

“I’m leaving.” He stood at the foot of the chaise, bristled and puffed.

“Of course,” she answered, and ignored him. As she turned the page of the book in her lap she barely glanced his way. “While you’re out see if you can get more champagne, there must be a store open somewhere in town.”

He frowned. “You don’t understand. I’m leaving.”

“Yes, you said.”

“No. I’m leaving you.”

She turned another page very, very slowly, letting it drip into place on top of the pages before it. When it found its resting place she looked up.

“Really.” She settled back into the chaise cushions.

“Yes, you.” He turned and walked across the room to the door.

“Hmm, leaving me.” She said again.

He whirled around to face her, obviously ready for a fight. “You think I wouldn’t? You think you’re so wonderful a man can’t walk away from you?”

She tilted her head left, right, then looked through him as if he wasn’t there. “I think you flatter your importance.” She turned another page in the book.

Shocked, he could do nothing but leave as he realized he’d been dismissed. When the door closed after him, Leticia looked at the book in her lap a moment. But she stopped to look around the room, her eyes lingering on the unrumpled bed.

With a small sigh she reached to the phone on the table next to the chaise. A touch and the ring tone sounded once, twice… and stopped as the phone on the other end of the line was answered.

“Giancarlo.” She said.

“Cara mia.” He replied.

“Fancy a little snuggles tonight?”

(c) Sable Jak 2013

(c) photo 2013, SR Jak

The velvet in my life

is measured

by the love 

in your eyes.

(c) photo 2012 SR Jak

(c) poem Sebastian T Sweet

THE GIGOLO OF DANBOIS PARK (PART 41)

     Elliott leaned his full weight back against the door. Considering the various fighting skills he’d seen so far, he was reasonably sure she had a way to move him, but he took the chance.

     She tilted her head, eyes narrowed.

     He gave her a quick half smile and repeated himself, “Lydia said you know why the man at the carriage thanked me for killing him.”

     His eyes stared straight into hers, and she stared back, unwavering at the challenge. Finally she exhaled, pursed her lips slightly and slowly slapped the gloves in her right hand on the palm of her left. When the slapping stopped she answered him. “You released his family.”

     His shoulders drooped a little as he stepped away from her. He completed the separation by walking to his work table.

     She said nothing more and made no motion to leave despite the fact she’d just told him she had urgent business elsewhere.

     At the table he sat and began to move the variety of clockwork pieces on it. It was an aimless gesture. He knew it. She knew it. But he did it anyway. She made no motion to leave.

     “They were being threatened?” he wanted clarification.

     “They were being held,” she said.

     He shrugged. “Same thing. By whom?” He held his breath. It was an unconscious action.

     “We don’t know.”

     He exhaled slowly, and softly, as he turned in his chair to face her. Leaning on the back of it, his arm resting across the top, he looked like any other young society man, except for the hard glint to his eye.

     “Is that the royal ‘we’ or am I never to find out who ‘we’ are?”

     “The people I work with.”

     “With.” He nodded, as if suspicions had been confirmed. “People you work with not for.”

     She frowned. “Does that present some sort of difficulty?”

     He nodded again. “Working with someone implies a certain – collusion?”

     “And does that present a difficulty?”

     “I don’t know yet.”

     He turned back to the table and the cogs and wheels there. She waited for more but it was not forthcoming. At the sound of her hand turning the latch and opening the door…

     “The man’s family is safe?” he asked.

     She stopped. “Yes.”

     “Bring them here. I’ll tell Lydia.” He stood up and walked out the opened door ahead of her. As he passed her he said, “Children should never be blamed for the sins of the father.”

May 2013 be your year to bask in the sun!

In case you’re wondering what the background picture looks like in its entirety, here it is. 

     Sometimes the simplest thing makes you stop and think that maybe you’ve been rushing through life just a little to much.

     Such was the leaf you see in the picture above. Raindrops glistening on it, it was caught in a moment of time that would never happen again. I came across it while on a walk. 

     It wasn’t a great painting that brought me to my knees (I’ve had a couple old masters do that to me in the past) it wasn’t a single, double or even a triple rainbow… I’ve seen all three of those. It was just a simple little leaf in the middle of the sidewalk and it set off an epiphany I couldn’t ignore.

     This year I spent a lot of time working at break neck speed and I just don’t feel like I’ve really accomplished much. I have, when I really take a look at what’s happened this year. But I still can’t shake the feeling that I’ve been doing the hamster wheel run.

     So, for 2013 I hereby vow, I’m going to take more leaf moments. Maybe even full days. Maybe even a week or two, or even more. 

     Of course, the fact that no one wants to keep up with me might have a little to do with that decision, too. :)

(c) 2012 SR Jak

One of the advantages, I’m finding, to adapting another author’s work to audio is that so much description provided gives me sound cues. Such as the descriptions of a room; from its size to its layout and right on down to its carpeting.

The fact that the room has carpeting is a sound cue. The size, of course, and the amount of furniture. The fact that there is a wall of windows as opposed to only one large one, opened or not is a fabulous sound cue.  Of course color doesn’t give you a cue, which is too bad. I could see me writing in: SFX: Full on RED room.

Saying what color the room is could imply a few things, lively (room tone), perhaps sultry and menacing? In general, though, the color wouldn’t help. My idea of what sound would be attached to what color would probably be vastly different than what the sound designer would think. So, best to leave that alone.

However, there are descriptions that a writer doesn’t put in her work because they’re not needed but would actually be helpful for sound cues.

For instance: Bren Cameron works on his computer a lot. So I, dutifully, have been putting in cues for computer sounds, everything from the unit being turned on to the sound of the keyboard. I know that Bren works on a laptop so that is noted too. Then, last night, very late, I thought… wait a minute, does Bren use an auxiliary mouse?

It would be, I admit, wonderful if I had the book as a document in the computer and not as an actual physical book because then I could do a simple search for “mouse.” But I don’t so after leafing through quite a few pages I broke down and emailed CJ. Does Bren use a mouse?

I had to ask her. A mouse, when the scroll button is being used, makes a noise. Some don’t, many do. It is, however, a sound I’m fairly sure my sound designer is going to ask me about and I do try to anticipate what he’ll ask me so that we don’t waste time hunting down these things.

CJ answered me this morning… No, Bren doesn’t use a mouse.

Hope my sound designer isn’t too disappointed. It would make a nice little addition to the sound scape.

Woo!

At page 110 (300 more to go) with the 4th revision of putting in new sound effects and descriptions, new instructions for the actors and yes, new instructions for the director, assistant director and third guy that doesn’t have a title yet.

I was cooking today!

As I work on the adaptation script of CJ Cherryh’s “Foreigner” I am forever mindful that I must be a mimic now. No matter what I write, I am now speaking in another person’s voice.

For those of you who know the Foreigner Universe some of you might think, ‘oh, easy, no contractions and people refer to themselves as “one”, and their speech is rather formal.’

In part, you’re right. But each character has a different way of speaking. Some differences in the characters are very subtle and are heightened by the author’s description of both the characters’ physicality and mannerisms.

Much like an actor putting on the skin of the character she is playing, the writer who is working in another writer’s voice must also “put on the skins” of the characters she is writing.

What? Not put on the skin of the other writer? If this were a totally new work, or a completion of an unfinished work, then yes, step into the other writer’s mindset to complete, to the best of your ability, her thoughts and thought processes.

But to work on an already established, and in this case, well established, series of characters who are active in a completed work, then I find myself “being” Bren or Jago or Ilisidi and yes, big and tough Banichi.

When I have to fill in dialog to cover inner thoughts or descriptions I often leave my desk and walk around, mutter (or speak out loud and scare the cats) the lines I feel would go well in this instance. And most importantly, the lines that will sound 1. As if CJ herself wrote them and 2. As if Jago, Ilisidi, Bren or Banichi is saying them.

Obviously I consume a fair amount of coffee and chocolate whilst doing this.

But there are two thoughts that keep me on my quest to be a super mimic.

1.      To make sure that the work is up to CJ’s standard. Always, first and foremost, it MUST be up to her standard of excellence.

2.      To make sure that CJ’s fans get exactly what they want out of this.

The two, CJ and her fans, are never far from my mind. Yes, I want to do the best that I can. I want to push away from the desk, sip my coffee and read what I’ve done and feel that this is good, this is right, I am satisfied. But being satisfied with my own work, especially on this project, is simply not enough. I have to be satisfied that once it passes CJ’s stamp of approval it will be satisfactory to the people who are waiting to hear it.

And that would be you.

I think one of the most fun things about working on this Cj Cherryh project and writing descriptions for my sound designer is combing through all the fan sites finding out what the fans love and want and think this world should sound like. 

As tedious as it can be going over and over and over the same pages plumping up the information, adding directorial notes, adding actor notes, etc. Finding out what the fans want and realizing that their wants match what I’ve been doing is one big high.

THANK YOU CJ CHERRYH FANS!!! I love you!

     Rain. Pelting against the window, driven by the wind, a single sound made up of many sounds.

     When writing a scene like this into an audio script there are so many aspects the writer has to take into consideration. .

     There are multiple rain scenes in “Foreigner.” The story of Bren begins with thunder and lightning and the sound of a raging storm sweeping across the Bujavid

     Writing the following does not give my sound designer enough information:

SFX: NIGHT. INTERIOR. RAIN PELTS AGAINST FRENCH DOORS. WIND HOWLS. THUNDER AND LIGHTNING IN THE BACKGROUND.


     You would think that that actually would be enough but… Bren’s apartment opens onto ground floor courtyard. So the rain falling outside has a different sound than if the apartment was five stories up with a balcony outside. Instead of adding “rain falls on stone courtyard” into the main sound design headings I now am writing more detailed instructions in separate paragraphs. This doesn’t mean that I am placing any restrictions on the sound designer. No, if anything, I’m expanding what he can do, and eliminating anything that will waste time.

     Tim Knofler, the sound designer on the “Foreigner” project and I call what we do: Pictures driven by sound. 

     In the picture above (taken during a recent deluge in Seattle) you might think, “Oh, rain on a window. Easy.” Really? It could be, if you wanted to do something quick. But, take a good look at the rain on the window. Does that look like a double pane window to you? No, it’s single, and a hundred years old. The difference between the rain on this window and the rain on a double pane modern window is vastly different. Some of the windows at the Bujavid, and later at the hunting lodge at Malguri, are thousands of years old. Not only are they that old, but they are made up of multiple small panes, (think stained glass windows). I’ve looked through the book trying to find out how thick the glass is.

     Again, you may or may not think, what difference would it make, I’m listening to this, not reading it or seeing it? 

     It would make a subliminal difference. If every sound we work on relates to the age of the building we’re in, we can create that Picture of ancient history for you. For instance, a story taking place in the 1890’s more than likely will not have a spring loaded door knob. You may not notice the sound outright, but as it melds with the rest of the sounds in the story something just doesn’t sit right in your mind.

     Building a rain sound, like other sounds, can take hours. But what eats up even more hours is listening to file after file after sound file to come up with exactly what we need. For every one we pick ten are rejected. 

     Say a scene is five minutes long. You can’t, if you have any care for your audience, do the same sound and just loop it. On the other hand, you don’t have to find a new sound for every second of those five minutes. What you do is find as many sounds as possible — that you want to use — and then you build the track. It could be that you’ll listen to rain falling in Singapore or even record rain falling against your own windshield. Then, slowly, like the notes in a symphony, you’ll start laying those sounds down, one by one, layering them over multiple tracks, bringing the volume up on some and lowering it on others. This is just the sound of rain now. No lightning added nor thunder; those are on different tracks. You may find a file that has just four or five drops on it. They may hit with a certain high pitched sound. Just perfect for a large raindrop hitting a specific section of the window. You never want to use a sound like that just once. You have to use it at least two more times. Why? Because if you use it only once, it sounds like a mistake and it can destroy that picture we’re driving you to.

     Once you have all those sounds laid out on all the tracks (maybe up to 10-20 tracks or more) then you do a mix down and then apply the mix down to the sound session under the dialog. You’re still not done, however, because now, with the other tracks: dialog, other sound effects, music etc. you’ll have to adjust that track so that it takes its proper place in the sound scape. 

     The next time it rains, sit quietly and listen. See how many sounds you actually hear.