Jonah and Daniel

The morning after I finished a draft of the Jonah treatment, I took a look at it with fresh eyes. That's always a good idea, and really helped this time. I had some thoughts on how I could flesh out the scenes involving Ninevah (introducing a new character -- the queen, which lets us work in a female role into this otherwise male-dominated story) and how we could have some fun with "Tarshish" in song (which is easy for me to say, but Aaron gets the challenge of seeing if it can fly lyrically).

Anyway, after a couple of additional hours of tweaking, I sent the treatment out to our key people for their review and input. We'll see how that goes.

Watched the first rough cut of "Daniel and the Lions" this weekend. The first rough cut is usually pretty devastating. There's no score, the audio is all over the map (sometimes inaudible, sometimes blaring, seldom balanced), there's no color correction, and other things that can make you depressed about the prospects for the finished movie. However, after having gone through the process a half dozen times, I've learned not to read too much into my feelings after viewing a rough cut. That said, while there were several elements that concerned me about this rough cut, I was not nearly as devastated as I have been. There is still a lot of work to be done, but I think this will be a nice addition to the Liken line up.

This week I hope to start a rewrite of the "Nephi and Laban" stage adaptation based on what I saw on my trip to Edmonton, Alberta for the premiere of the stage version. I also want to start the first draft of a stage adaptation of "The First Christmas," which we hope to have ready for stakes for this Christmas. We have some interest from a stake in Arizona, and hopefully others will come forward. I know putting on such a project is a huge challenge, and that any stake that agrees to undertake this challenge deserves heaps of blessings and a lot of appreciation from their youth.

But first up this week is to work through the pages of notes we'll have on the rough cut of Daniel. That starts tomorrow.