A Bit of Aeterno Elementum History

Well, the Kickstarter just went live (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/arakus/aeterno-elementum-a-heavy-metal-opera-november-201) and I'm finding I can't stop looking at it every 5 minutes to see if there are any new contributors or comments.  So far, we're off to a slow start, but it's still very early.  This is pretty big for us.  It could pretty realistically catapult us to another level in terms of our presentation and tech.  We've never really had a budget to work with in the past and we've done some pretty incredible stuff. 

Randy and I met up with BJ (the Priest) last night to talk about a new scene that we're putting together for November.  It's called Tenebrous Absolution, and it goes with the classical guitar/violin piece that I put together awhile back.  We've always had a classical guitar piece in the show, but it's evolved a lot since the first run back in 2010.  Let me give you a little history..

The Priest, circa July 2010

Way back in the olden days of 2010 when Google had just introduced instant search and Conan O'Brien had just been booted off the air, we were first hatching the initial incarnation of Aeterno Elementum.  We had never done anything like it before, and we couldn't find anyone else doing anything remotely similar, so we did what all great artists do: we made it up as we went along.  All in all, I think we did a pretty good job.  It's a little hard going back and watching the video of that first performance, but even as I'm grimacing at our early plebian efforts towards creating a new genre, I can't help but be amazed that we actually pulled it off. 

Back in those days, the story was almost an afterthought to the music and spectacle.  We threw a whole ton of stuff into the mix, and while it may not have made sense in any cohesive way, it was at the very least cool to look at and consistently stimulating.  As a way of showcasing some of our impressive musical abilities, we had added a couple classical solo pieces, including a piano solo by Rachel our keyboardist and a classical guitar solo by Randy.  He was playing a piece called Koyunbaba by Carlo Domeniconi - it had no tie in to the story at all, but it was a good display of talent, and that was really all we were looking for at the time. 

In our post mortem of that show, we determined that we really wanted to change the feel of our so-called Heavy Metal Opera.  We wanted it to be more opera-like and less like a bunch of performers vying for a spotlight with some semblance of a story in the background.  We still wanted the acrobatic ass-kicking fight scenes, but we also wanted to know why that guy was so motivated to take the pact from the evil demon and gain the power so he could become a one man wrecking crew jump-kicking people's eyeballs out.  So we spent a lot of time brainstorming and reworking the story to fit within the framework that we'd already established.  The characters started to become three dimensional, rather than the flat caricatures they had been purposely designed as.  We pretty much revamped the entire show, and while the essential elements of the story were relatively intact, everything else surrounding was new, more cohesive and better thought out.  The only thing that did not change were the solo pieces, because at this point in our development we still felt they stood alone as performance pieces. 

Well, to be fair, there were some minor modifications to the solos.  We had a clever little intro that we came up with during a rehearsal where BJ brought Randy's bench on stage and had a little confrontation with the Imp.  It was always good for a few laughs, but really had very little to do with the story.  It is something we've kept to this day, however. 

Syren's Embrace, Nov 2010

Overall, the second run of the show (Nov 2010) was a huge improvement in almost every way.  People were actually starting to understand the story we were telling them and taking something away from the theater other than simple sensory overload.  The feedback we got from those in attendance was still not perfect, though.  We knew we still had a long way to go before the show was where we wanted it. 

We determined that one of the major factors that was derailing the story was that the band was constantly in the middle of all the action.  It created an unfortunate and unintentional sense of chaos throughout the show that made it very difficult to distinguish what was part of the story and what was just a musician rocking out.  Putting the band in an orchestra pit was not an option, but we came up with another solution.  We built a second stage on the back half of our existing stage where we could isolate the band when needed.  This created a distinct separation between the band and the actors, yet still allowed the musicians to move up closer to the audience when appropriate.  This seems like a simple thing, but it made all the difference in how we and our audience viewed the performance.  Suddenly, the band was no longer the center point of the scenes.  We were the musicians telling the story, but the audience was able to fully focus on the actors and the drama that was unfolding center stage without getting an eyeball full of wind milling hair and guitar headstocks.  This changed everything, including how we thought about what we were doing.

The third run (August 2011) ended up being another huge leap in our evolution.  With the separation of band and actors, we were free to expand even more on the development of characters and the overall story arc.  BJ managed to milk an unbelievable amount of depth from his plight as the Priest, and for the first time, the Demoness was no longer a force of pure evil, but a multifaceted anti-hero who was simply doing her part to restore order to the world.  It also marked the first time we were able to use live fire in a performance, which was exhilarating to say the least.  Based on feedback from previous shows, we decided to drop the piano solo - not because it wasn't good, but because it had been described as being a little too non sequitur.  The guitar solo had been under similar scrutiny, but the scene with the Imp and the Priest was too popular to drop, and people did seem to enjoy the piece for the most part. 

We performed again in November 2011 with a largely unchanged show, albeit with quite a bit more polish.  The feedback was getting better and better, but one thing that was becoming clear was that the guitar solo seemed to be a large gap in what was now a fairly cohesive and compelling story.  Not only that, but it was the only non-original piece of music being performed in the show.

We thought about this problem as we prepared for our next run, and though we didn't come up with   Carrole, our Demoness and Vivian, one of our lead sopranos, created a fire dancing routine that occurred during the song.  This filled out the scene a bit, but still didn't provide any link to the story.  People enjoyed it, but they still noticed that the gap remained.

any real solution, we did make a very valiant attempt to plug the hole with awesome spectacle.

Meanwhile, this show marked the pinnacle (to date) of our understanding of the characters and the story.  We'd incorporated a few new musical pieces that showcased the interactions between the Priest and the Demoness, and hinted at a much more complex relationship than was initially obvious.  This seemed to be one area that we could flesh out a little more, and one of our friends/fans suggested that we turn the classical guitar solo into an extension of that story thread.  Unfortunately, the existing music didn't lend itself very well to that, which meant we needed an entirely new original piece. 

That brings us to where we are now.  I wrote the classical guitar piece based on the outlines of the scene we'd come up with, which we finished fleshing out last night.  I think it's one of the final pieces in the Aeterno Elementum puzzle that we've been trying to solve for the past 3 and a half years, and I'm beyond excited to see how it plays out this November. 

Kickstarting Aeterno Elementum

This week, we've been working on getting the details of our Kickstarter ironed out.  We've determined that we'll be asking for $10,000.  The initial amount that we'd calculated was a bit higher, but $10k seemed like a more reasonable number, and we can still make some incredible improvements to the show with that sum.  We filmed a bunch of interview footage with some members of the cast and Randy's piecing it together into a remarkably coherent intro video.  I really enjoyed hearing our peers talk about the project and why they continue to do it.  It's always amazing to me how much Ara'Kus has taken on a life of it's own over the past several years.

The official launch date for the Kickstarter is the 16th of August, and we'll run it through the 14th of September.  The dates were chosen intentionally to coincide with military paydays and to end on a Saturday, which tends to be the best day for contributors.  We've sent out our soft launch press release, and are getting ready to blast all of our social channels with information about the campaign.  I think it's pretty realistic for us to achieve our goal, but I have to admit I'm still pretty nervous about it.  Whether we succeed or not, though, the show must go on. 

We had a tech meeting last month where we discussed some of the improvements we're hoping to make to the show.  One of the things I'm really excited about is creating a more dynamic set.  We're hoping to have some destructible objects, like pillars that can burst apart, and walls that crumble.  We're also looking into things like projected backdrops that we can fully animate, snow, rain and improved fire effects.  I'm not sure that we'll get all of that up and running, but at the very least we've stimulated our creative juices. 

So when we say our cast is large, we aren't kidding.  This shot
doesn't even include our tech crew.

 I just finished up a couple new musical pieces for the November shows.  One is an instrumental that will be played over the curtain call.  Randy had suggested this awhile back.  He's always felt that curtain calls were a really unpleasant experience for the audience, and often times just dragged on far too long with nothing interesting going on.  Recently he saw another show where they had music incorporated into the call, and it made the entire experience much more bearable.  So, with that in mind, I composed a new piece that reprised a lot of the themes from the show.  We're scheduled to start rehearsing it tonight.  I'm excited to hear it start coming together.

Here we see the Demoness giving our
Lead Soprano Vivian a tasty mid-show
snack of fire and brimstone. 

The other piece I composed was a classical guitar and violin piece.  It will be replacing the only non-original piece of music in the show, Koyunbaba (Carlo Domeniconi).  Historically, Randy has played this song during the first Act of AE, and we've always struggled with a way to make it fit into the story, since it wasn't written with our show in mind.  This the first piece I've written for classical guitar and violin, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.  It will serve to expand on the story between the Priest and Demoness slightly, serving as a link between the scenes in Silence and Darkness and Tapestry of Fate.  I've named the piece Tenebrous Absolution.  Randy has looked it over and feels confident he should have it ready to play before November.

Next Sunday we're getting together at the Historic Everett Theatre for a full cast run through.  We haven't had any rehearsals like this since last November, so I'm expecting things to be pretty rough.  This is mostly just to shake off the rust and get psyched for the rehearsals we'll be starting in September.  It also should be a lot of fun.

One of my priorities over the next week is to try and fill a few empty roles we have for the November run.  Most of the people in Lure of the Flames won't be able to join us this year, so we need to bring on a new Fire General, a new Samurai and a new Shogun's Wife.  We've been distributing casting notices and have a few responses so far, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.   

Getting the Ball Rolling

147 days until opening night of the sixth run of Aeterno Elementum.  That’s exactly 21 weeks to get all the little details pulled together and get everything polished and ready for public consumption.  That may seem like an excessive amount of time for those who’ve never produced a show of this size, but experience has shown us again and again that this is a deceptive perception.  A six month lead is usually a good minimum.  That’s essentially where we started for this run.  Now, a month into our planning efforts, it becomes really clear exactly how much work is ahead of us.  We’ve got a two and a half hour production with over 50 people involved to fully cast, rehearse and stage and 3,200 seats to fill over four nights on a shoestring budget. 

This week is a burst of activity as we start to get our ducks in a row.  Monday saw myself, BJ (the Priest), Carrole (the Demoness) and Richard (Wretchard the Imp) heading out to Bainbridge Island to do some filming for a promo video with Garrett Gibbons.  I’m always extremely impressed every time we do any work with Garrett.  The location he chose was a little stretch of forested land on a friend’s piece of property and it had some picturesque spots that made for some compelling footage and photos.  Between Carrole’s fire dancing, the Imp’s antics and the Priest’s overall presence, I can’t wait to see what Garrett is able to piece together from it all.  I imagine we’ll see a finished product sometime in the next few weeks. 

Let me tell you, this was a whole lot
less awkward than the painting session
that followed.

As an added bonus, we got some pretty amazing cell phone pictures on the ferry ride back to Seattle.  Imagine ‘Titanic’, but replace Leonardo DeCaprio with the Demoness and Kate Winslet with Wretchard the Imp and you have a general idea of the level of strangeness going on.  All in all, a very enjoyable, though very long day.

 Part of the afternoon Tuesday was devoted to laying some guitar tracks on the Aeterno Elementum album.  I won’t go into the history of the album in this blog entry (though I think that will be a topic in the near future), but suffice to say it’s been a long and convoluted trip.  We’re experimenting with recording guitars using direct input, and so far the results have been pretty promising.  Randy’s got some good ideas for how to get everything polished up and sounding great, so we’re hopeful that we could have a finished product very soon.

Tuesday night we had a meeting at Café Mox in Ballard to discuss promotions for the show and the Kickstarter we’ll be launching in August.  The meeting went really well, but we ended up having to park quite a few blocks away from the café just as the heavens decided to unleash their full fury in the form of torrential rain.  Of course I hadn’t thought to bring an umbrella, and then we got turned around trying to make our way to the café, so we ended up walking about 15 blocks instead of the 5 it should have taken.  I felt like a drowned rat walking into the meeting.  I’m still trying to dry out my shoes today. 

The meeting itself felt really productive.  We discussed a lot of ways to utilize social media a bit more effectively and laid down some very preliminary plans for a couple smaller shows during the summer, including a benefit show.  I’m really excited about the prospect of getting back on stage, and a benefit show is something I’ve wanted to do for a few years now.  Fortunately we’ve got a few people with some experience in staging them, so it could realistically happen. 

The Kickstarter will be launching in August, and we’re hoping to reach out to a bunch of other organizations to help get the word out.  Succeeding at a Kickstarter for a theater company seems like it’s a bit more difficult than with other types of projects – probably due to the limited geographic region you can really market to.  It’s tough to convince someone to contribute to a project in Seattle when they live in New York and will probably never get a chance to actually watch the show.

Next week we meet up in the theater to discuss set design and tech for the show.  I’m really looking forward to it, I have to say.  We’ve advanced the show by leaps and bounds every time we’ve staged it, and I think with the experience we picked up over the last few runs, we’re going to be able to put together some really incredible stuff this time around, especially if we can pull off a successful Kickstarter.