Terrance Zdunich's Blog, page 4

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Repo! – The Devil’s Carnival Double Feature

Paper Trails

I’m a luddite. I want a phone to be a phone, not a camera or entertainment device. When reading fiction, I want to hold a book in my hands, inhale the smell of paper and ink, and manually flip the pages, not gaze at a glowing electronic screen. And when I write, I always begin everything on paper, including this blog.

In the late ’90s, I graduated from a private art college in Los Angeles. This was an interesting (if not obsolete) time to be studying the commercial visual arts as it was right on the cusp of when everything in the industry switched from traditional to digital techniques. I may very well have been in the last graduating class whose illustration curriculum wasn’t rooted by Adobe Photoshop.

I’ve been fortunate and creative enough to twist my traditional drawing skills into somewhat of a career, but if I were only now attempting to break into the commercial arts biz, my outmoded disciplines would most likely make me unemployable.

I have friends currently working in animation—an industry that provided my first real post-college gig—where the productions are entirely paperless. Even though my colleagues’s finished animated products are impressive, it’s weird to imagine an animation studio where pencils, brushes, and paper are not included in the company-issued tool belts.

Speaking of paper, I’ve been jotting through a lot of it lately, writing the script and music for Episode Two of the musical film series, The Devil’s Carnival.

It was around Thanksgiving of last year when co-composer Saar Hendelman and I began working full-time on the music and lyrics for the upcoming episode. At the time, we we striving towards an early March production, which meant that over a three month window, all of the songs needed to be written and recorded, with the actors, for on-set playback.

With Episode One, we had a year to write the tunes. Most of this time was not spent composing, however, but developing the sound of the world and mechanisms by which each of the characters would sing. The exciting but arduous process not only fleshed-out the sonic landscape of The Devil’s Carnival, but the characters themselves.

A similarly extended writing process was employed with the songs of my first musical film, Repo! The Genetic Opera, where co-composer Darren Smith and I continuously retooled our score over the course of years, including multiple live stage productions.

While I was confident that Saar and I would have been able to deliver Episode Two’s album on time, I don’t know what I was thinking when I agreed to the expedited production calendar. Not only was the deadline mad, but the script was longer than Episode One’s—i.e. More songs. We were also tasked with developing a sonic language for a new setting with new characters: Heaven. I suppose I accepted the deadline’s charge because, like many of you, I wanted to see a second episode come to life sooner rather than later.

Feeling the pressure of the deadline while simultaneously wanting to create content that not only lived up to our previous works, but, hopefully, improved upon them, we began to write at a fevered pace. To put our stride into perspective, during the course of a normal year of writing, I usually fill about one-and-a-half notebooks with scribbles and sketches (note: this is no small feat, as, like a proper serial killer, my handwriting is small, stacked, and sordid). Since November of 2012, I’ve already sketched my way through two-and-a-half notebooks. On top of this, Saar and I have emailed one hundred and fifteen discrete musical ideas back and forth.

About a month ago, in the middle of our composing frenzy, we got word that due to scheduling conflicts, Episode Two’s production was being pushed a couple of months. While this news was a bit of a bummer to my impatient soul, it was also a tremendous relief as Saar and I now had more breathing room with which to execute our craft and make sure each number was as great as it could be.

In the interim, as a tiny writing break, director Darren Lynn Bousman had the idea of hosting a handful of Repo! The Genetic Opera-The Devil’s Carnival: Episode One double features to share some of our ongoing writing process with the fans that have been so supportive of our musical endeavors over the years, as well as demonstrate how our music is then translated into film through the eye of the director.

That’s right; in March, Darren, Saar, and I will be visiting Chicago, Boston, Toronto, Dallas, Denver, Sacramento, Seattle, and Vancouver for eight one-night only double billings. Each night, between the two films, the three of us will engage in a Q&A session with audiences and discuss both films, as well as share some sneak peeks of The Devil’s Carnival: Episode Two.

To make these exclusive screenings different than past Repo and TDC road tours, we’re also going to try something a little crazy: we’re traveling with a keyboard to demonstrate a bit of our writing process live each night, and to perform for you live a number from the upcoming episode… so this is an event that you don’t want to miss!

Tickets are available now for $20 at: http://thedevilscarnivaltour.eventbrite.com

These eight special engagements will be the only chance to see us, Repo!, and TDC on the road for some time, so mark the date on a piece of paper, a real piece of paper, and come out and enjoy the festivities with us.

A REPO! TDC Double Feature!

 

Going To The Dogs

I’m addicted to coffee. Not merely to the caffeine, but also the taste, smell, and—most importantly—the ritual.

I picked up the habit in college. Not as a wakeful aid to all-night study sessions, as one might expect, but as a time-passing distraction during some of the boring, monotonous jobs I took as a student to help pay for tuition and college life.

Over time, my coffee customs mapped themselves onto my creative process. Today, this holds especially true when I’m writing. The ritual of pouring, stirring, and sipping no longer serves as a mere distraction from boredom, but as part of a series of motions and flavors that my body and brain equates with the generation of ideas. Yes, I’m sucking on a cup of joe while penning this blog.

But this post is not about coffee, nor addiction. This post is about the difficulty of coping with an event or individual that disrupts the flow of an otherwise consistent routine, like coffee drinking. Presently, I am contending with one such dilemma and am seeking council from you, fair readers. So… please enjoy the following collisional tale, and then share your thoughts and advice below.

Our Blessed Routines

If part of your routine is to read this online journal, then you’ve probably noticed I’ve been derelict in my posting duties of late. It’s been almost a month since my last entry as I’ve been elbow-deep in the script and song writing process of episode two of the film series, The Devil’s Carnival. The ambitious nature of this musical project, met with the relentless and oscillating moods of our production schedule, has left little time for anything leisurely, including blogging. But since the story I’m about to tell involves an event that’s been disruptive to my writing rituals, I took the opportunity to come up for air and share.

Writing to a deadline is always taxing, and the process of kickstarting the flow of ideas at the top of each day, and then turning them off at the end, can be difficult. I rely on routine to give structure to this process. As mentioned earlier, coffee drinking is one of these rituals.

Since I write from home, I’ve also made a ritual of leaving my house at the start of each day, even if just for a few moments. This keeps me from slipping into the laziness of my home dwelling. I also find that motion—particularly walking—helps get the creative juices flowing. As such, I routinely walk about a mile each morning to my neighborhood coffee shop. It’s on these habitual hikes where I conceived most of The Devil’s Carnival‘s songs… so it’s upsetting to share that it’s also along these trails where my writing rituals have recently fallen under attack.

I’ve been living in my Van Nuys apartment for almost five years. It’s not the most scenic of cities, but it’s also not a complete slum. My walks towards java and inspiration are down fairly treaded sidewalks, past rather ordinary buildings and businesses, including a quaint, block-long apartment complex.

With its manicured grass frontage and gated entrances, one might be tempted to call this expansive living establishment a community… but, like with all communities, there are those living within that fail to respect the premises, themselves, or their neighbors. Evidence of this is apparent in the lumps of dog shit that careless pet owners have left to pepper the lawn along the winding walkway that runs the front of the complex’s many dwellings.

When I first began my creative walks, I would occasional notice animal excrement along the path. With time, the filth worsened, becoming difficult to ignore. Aside from the unsightliness of having to pass old and fresh turds before breakfast each day, my brain powers were also shifting from creativity towards caution: I now had to keep one eye peeled so not to accidentally step in shit.

Considering the isolated area of the paths in question, it is all but certain that the majority of the dog droppings were left there by pet proprietors living within the complex. In other words, animals were letting their animals shit in their neighbors’ front yards. As such, surely I couldn’t be the only one disgusted by the behavior? Certainly others must’ve been outraged by the inconsiderate, unhygienic rituals of their fellows?

The owners of the complex eventually took notice and planted a series of signs on posts along the lawn of their rented property. The signs asked folks to please clean up after their pets and dispensed complimentary dog doodie-bags. While the necessity for these signs irritated me, I was relieved by the prospect of feces-free strolls.

Remarkably, the signs did little to deter the behavior of the irresponsible pet owners. The shit drops not only continued, but worsened. It was as if the befouled lawns had encouraged other folks to do likewise, as if the greens were now a sanctioned dog toilet, as if the signs and bags were a message that others would be cleaning up any left-behind messes.

Determined to not let the poor behavior of others impede my work, I continued taking my ritualized walks, but a deep frustration was brewing… brewing like the pots of my precious, precious coffee.

As an adult, I’ve never owned a dog or cat. One of the main reasons for this choice is that I too—like the owners of the pets defiling the public walkway—don’t enjoy picking up shit. I also know that owning a mammal is an large, expensive, and important responsibility, one that I do not have the energy or finances to undertake. Unfortunately, these sorts of rational limitations seem to provide little deterrence to many of my pet-owning neighbors.

For the most part, like the residents and owners of my neighborhood’s shitting fields, I eventually became numb to the problem, going about my walking/sipping/thinking rituals as usual… but every so often on my journeys, when I’d spot a substantial stack of steaming stool, I’d quietly think to myself, I hope to one day catch someone in the act of filthying these walks.

A few days ago, my wish came true. I passed a man walking two dogs. After his mutts dropped a few deuces, he began to depart without cleaning the mess (even though a posted sign with free hanging baggies were a mere steps from him). I looked the man in the eye and firmly said, “Hey! Don’t be an animal. Clean up after your dogs.” Busted, he acted as though the offense was a mere oversight on his part, and then nodded as if he would go about cleaning up the waste.

I continued walking, but, about a half a block up, turned to see if he’d lifted a finger to clean. Predictable, he had not. I called out again, repeating myself, “Hey! Don’t be an animal. Clean up after your dogs.” Now that some distance was between us, he felt braver, and hollered back for me to mind my own business. I responded, “This is my business. I don’t want to step in your dogs’ shit. Don’t be an animal. Clean up after your dogs.”

He nodded again, and I continued walking. Once I was a safe distance from the man, he again yelled out, but this time shouting, “Fuck you!”

I paused for a moment, considering setting down my prized coffee, sprinting back to this disrespectful chap, and shoving his nose in the mess he just left for everyone else to potentially step in. Instead, I shrugged it off, and continued my walk.

Even though a large part of me would have felt completely justified in humiliating this individual, the rational side of my brain knew that he was simply not worth it. He wouldn’t learn anything from an assault, a physical outburst could escalate into something very serious, and from that day forth my ritualized walks would bare the cloud of a potential, cowardly retaliation from a man whose dignity felt stripped.

There was another part of me, however, thinking, maybe a more aggressive form of social intolerance is what all of us should invoke when the behavior of others is socially repugnant. I mean, nobody likes to step in shit, right? Perhaps if people spoke up every time they spotted someone leaving dog droppings on the ground, maybe the offending behavior would change, even if only for the wrong reasons: shame instead of a sense of community or personal responsibility?

My thoughts spiraled down, down, down in dramatic turns, forming parallels between bad pet owners and bad parents, parents whose kids would grow up to sire whole generations of sidewalk shitters, and how the chain must be broken now, and how I, Galahad, am just the knight to do it… but then I breathed, collected myself, and realized that all I really wanted was to create in peace, not to police the world. I wanted to drink my coffee, take my walks, and hopefully write some killer songs… so why was I getting so worked up over something so minor?  Especially when there are very real problems in the world that haven’t commanded my attention in any meaningful way?

I told several friends about the encounter.  Thier responses varied wildly, from “I would’ve kicked his ass” to “Why don’t you just walk on the other side of the street?” to “If the turd offendeth thee, then be like the Buddha and pick it up yourself”. My favorite came from my friend and The Devil’s Carnival co-star, Dayton Callie, who said, in a bad ass growl, that he would’ve flung the shit back at the person, saying, “You forgot somethin’ there, pa’tner.”

I suppose, in a small way, writing a blog is a form of dealing with the problem, of turning chaos into creation, of stimulating discussion over violence. So… in that spirit, I want to hear your thoughts and stories. What do you do when you encounter pet owners behaving selfishly? Do you confront them? Or look the other way? Or are you someone that lets your animals shit in public without cleaning up after them? Perhaps you have a reasoning that I never considered? All opinions are welcome, so share, share, share below.

The Devil’s Carnival: Episode 2 Teaser Unleashed!

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