Coriolanus Planning

A more pragmatic post

I have a tendency to get in over my head and giving myself new jobs. Occasionally, people reach out to me on LinkedIn where they knew me as a hacker computer security professional. There was a message request from a prospective client. I’m retired from hacking anyway. But I noticed they deleted their message after I posted video clips from Poetry on Tape.

I was about to invite them to participate in Coriolanus! It was a missed opportunity.

In the last three days, I’ve had more conversations here than my entire time on Substack. Thank you everyone who has express interest!! The call is still out there:

We need voice actors, we need visual artists to make playbills and artwork for the posts, we need Shakespeare consultants, we need promotors to push the play on all types of social media, we need podcasters to conduct crew interviews, we need music, and we need engaged supporters who will help keep us on course if we drift — a sailor is not made in calm seas. I will credit everyone who helps by name in whatever capacity they can on each episode.

Poets, use each episode as a prompt to inspire a poem and I will restack it! Writers, discuss the episode’s source material and I will amplify it! The pilot is up. The “thankless country” monologue should inspire a poem or two.

There’s a few offline commitments coming up, so I’m sending many posts this week. They will calm down but my excitement will not!

The Goal of this Project

The goal for this project is to finish it. This may sound obvious but it is a big project and no one wants to listen to half finished production. A finished production from this effort will give us pride and a sense of accomplishment, even if there are compromises.

The biggest compromise is that I will cut the script for time.

Part of me says, “Josh, just go for it, it would be so epic.” We have a lot of energy now. But come scene 15 of 29, I feel like I will be on everyone’s block list.

Also, some scenes do not work in audio. I said last post we shouldn’t try to out BBC the BBC from that production. I think, we will end up out-BBCing the BBC! I first listened to it awe. The actors are so talented and the production is so clean, how can we come close?! But then I regained my confidence and I decided I don’t like their audio design. There are some personal quirks, for example, their trumpets are horrible. This coming from a trumpet player. But more importantly, some things do not work in audio, specifically theatrical combat scenes.

So, I’m tempted to just start. But I’m showing uncharacteristic restraint. I don’t think I need to cut the entire script now, it can still be serialized.

The Other Goal

We will cross the finish line, but it’s better to cross with a bit of grace. And that grace is producing an audio recording that is enjoyable to listen to.

The BBC version is 2.5 hours. That’s not too bad for an audio book. I think full productions are closer to 3.5 hours. Asking friends, colleagues, and family to listen to 2.5 versus 3.5 hours is a big difference. I think 2.5 hours is the upper limit. Two hours might be better.

This is one issue with audio design we have to be careful about. When there is something grating, like annoying trumpets, it really bothers the listener.

In any case, I think cutting is the right decision not only to accomplish the first goal but for this one.

Respect

I would also like this to be a fun and pleasant experience for everyone involved. We can have serious fun, but fun nonetheless. We are all creative people with lots of ideas and I hope we can be respectful and kind to one another. We may never all be in the same room, but I want that crew photo of us all cheering together at the end in our minds.

The challenge will be in the compromises and we all, including myself, will have to make them. How we handle them, and each other in the process, will set the tone.

This is the first time I’ve taken on a project this big. So this section is really a reminder to me. When I get excited about things I am full of energy and a bit like a bull in a china shop. If this is fun for everyone, we will want to do it. People will join in and support us. This is important too.

Adapting for Audio

Brock Eldon in his recent Odyssey review, said the following:

Shakespeare has been performed in modern dress for generations, relocated to fascist Italy, contemporary New York, postcolonial Africa, and countless other settings without provoking comparable anxieties about historical fidelity. Few serious critics argue that Hamlet ceases to be Shakespeare because the prince wears a military uniform rather than a doublet, or that Julius Caesar becomes invalid because its conspirators carry automatic weapons instead of daggers. Shakespeare has endured precisely because directors have repeatedly discovered new ways of staging them for new audiences.

Adaptions of classic works are on everyone’s mind right now. And I agree here with Brock. It’s why the BBC radio edition feels a bit off to me. There’s too much clashing of swords and neighing of horses. Coriolanus starts off with a riot. We all know what that’s sounds like from the news these days.

The audio stage is just as big as the wooden one. There’s much one can do in audio and I tried some of this in the pilot. Justin Patrick Moore has also written in detail about audio dramas. So I have a lot to study here still.

Casting

Casting is secretly happening in the background for those that reached out. Since the goal is to finish, I’m vetting out time commitments per role. We all have things going on and many of you want to be involved but with a small role. Perfect! There are 60 characters in Coriolanus many of them like Second Citizen. So, if you want in, but want just a few lines, this is great.

Some of the best lines are spoken by these small roles. Like in the pilot, the Servingmen have the best commentary on why we hate peace.

The “major” roles are a bit more tricky. We are trying to balance normal casting criteria with the additional struggle that this is all volunteer.

But I will tell you this, there are some amazing voices here. This is why you should add voiceovers to your posts. People listen to them :) I’m working down the roster and you’ll be very excited to hear whose who!

Copyright

There is nothing that is more of kill-joy than this topic. But better to be up front about it.

Obviously, there are editions of Coriolanus in the public domain. But I’m not choosing these. I like the Folger edition, specifically because of its copyright restriction. Also, they have prepared various digital editions, in markup languages, that will make it easier for me to work this to produce alternative scripts.

That’s a bit odd, I know. What are the restrictions? In plain-speak, we must attribute it. Ok, no problem. Next, by committing to that edition we can not use what we create for commercial purposes.

This is a Cortez-like burning of the ships decision for me. This is legal commitment to this project and one that I feel is completely aligned with the spirt of the production. It is also a promise that, not I, nor any one else, is going to profit from our work. I am not against money, but it is sometimes nice to do something for the love it. And this decision is locked in.

But, and this is the one technical point to address, it effects how people use our collective recording. We have to pass down this license. So our recordings, if we use Folger, can be used freely but they must not be used for commercial work.

I’m not sure how many people have studied Creative Commons licensing. As a prior software developer, who worked on free and open source software, there is a large movement around “open culture.”

I am more than OK with this myself. It’s a feature to me. But it applies to our final recording so it’s more than just me. Here’s their copyright policy and here is the final license I intend on publishing the final recordings.

So voice actors specifically, you own your recording. I’m going to edit them, mainly on the sound design side, to fit the scene (reverb, effects etc…). The final mix goes out with the license above.

But there might be new writing in the script, in the form of a narrator. These contributions end up in the final recording as well.

Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease, don’t make me talk to a lawyer. This is already international and lawyers have dollar-signs in their eyes. Every hour spent there I could just to improve the audio. But nonetheless, it is important and needs to be discussed. If it really is an issue, if there will be a crew mutiny, we could get the public domain version. But the commitment to making this production open and passing it forward I think also works in our favor.

Audio Recording

All of the voice acting will be recording asynchronously. I recorded the pilot in sweeps. First sweep as Coriolanus, second sweep as Aufidius, etc… This helped me somewhat maintain characters (I was playing five of them). The pacing I can somewhat control in the audio editing. I can make rapid dialogue very tight.

For example, when the servingmen are pestering Coriolanus in the beginning of the scene I added pauses before Coriolanus spoke. He is measured and calculating. But the servingmen respond reflexively and quickly.

Consistency will be challenging this way. I will admit. I will ask voice actors for a test scene and we can hopefully make adjustments before we commit. (I have some spare microphones I can send in the U.S. even).

Sign off

There are many more things I’m thinking about but this will have to suffice for now.

I’m intending on this “building in public” mindset with these posts. I think it allows people to offer help along the way and support. It’s the best way to get people involved I think.

But I will tell you this. I have never felt this energized for a project in a very long time!