Indyish Assembly 2.0-Full project description

We’re getting an Assembly event page going here on indyish and I’ll let you know when it’s up and running. Until then, here’s everything you could ever want to know about the Assembly 2.0 all in one place.

The Indyish Assembly 2.0 is a collaborative art relay for writers, directors, actors, illustrators, musicians and animators.

Assembly 1.0 was the first Indyish art relay experiment, and Indyish’s first teaming with Celtx.com. It ran from February to March 2007 and brought together more than 60 Canadian artists who passed projects along to create 7 original films with soundtracks and a published scriptbook, projectbook, and (soon-to-be-released) DVD.

Assembly 2.0 is part of Indyish’s special 2007 partnership with the Fringe Festival of Montreal. In it’s 7th year, the Montreal Fringe brings together over 100 different theatre companies from around the world and connects with a total of over 100 000 visitors. Drawing on the Fringe’s Play-In-A-Day tradition, this Assembly will have a theatrical angle, and will connect the local music and theatre scene with the wonderful fringe-folk in town for the festival.

Assembly 2.0 will compliment the huge number of Fringe theatre shows going up between June 7-17th as well as Indyish’s own daytime art markets and special events including the Daily Art Markets, a fashion show, Car Art: graffiti in the street, musical performances, and more.

The Assembly 2.0 games began on May 1st.

On that day a piece by renowned Canadian playwright, TJ Dawe, was given to writers as the starting point for 10 minute scripts to be written in French and English thoughout the month of May. Scripts are being written on Celtx.com, a free, open source film and theatre pre-production software.

Assembly Schedule:

May 1-31: Writers working on scripts, upload to Celtx by midnight May 31 (Pacific Time)
June 1-7: Illustrators create 5-10 images for each script
June 1-7: Meanwhile Assembly Team reads and picks scripts
June 7-12: Gifmakers have a week to animate the illustrations
June 11-13: On Monday, actors and directors meet with Indyish at the Fringe to receive their scripts; they have 48 hours to rehearse their play
June 13-15: On Wednesday, actors and directors come back, perform for the bands, meet and are matched up. The groups plus bands have 48 hrs to rehearse together.
June 13-15: Meanwhile gifs uploaded to Celtx by midnight June 12, bands, djs create music in 48 hours

Friday, June 15 and Saturday, June 16: Performance of plays and screening of animations with live soundtracks.

Writers must use at least 5 elements from TJ Dawe’s piece in their script. This means picking a person, a paragraph or a line they like, or selecting a setting, an object, or an image to carry over into their story. Each word, sentence, paragraph, image, object, setting, person, etc. is one element; writers choose 5 of these. They can all be the same kind of element or they can all be different; it’s up to the writer!

Scripts can be any length, though for the show, preference will be given to pieces around 10 minutes long.

At the beginning of the script, writers include a paragraph with the following information:
-a short bio
-which 5 elements did they choose? (and why)
-suggestions to improve the Assembly
-comments about using Celtx
-contact info (for mailing Projectbook)

All scripts will be published in the Assembly 2.0 Projectbook. Scripts will be chosen to be produced during the Fringe Fest depending on the number of completed scripts versus the number of director/actor and gifmaker teams, as well scripts’ feasibility given the 48 hour time limit for their staging.

Illustrators have one week (June 1-7) to illustrate the script they’re given. The images will be published in the Assembly 2.0 Projectbook to accompany scripts and may be used by an animator to create a GIF. Illustrators must create between 5-10 images to have their drawings used by gifmakers.

GIFmakers have one week (June 7-13, uploaded by midnight June 12) to create their animation using the 5-10 images drawn by illustrators. They will be able to read the script that the illustrations were based on and the original piece by TJ Dawe that inspired the script. They can choose to use only part of the script or a scene from it, but must use all the images they’re given. Animations must be under 5 minutes. After being made, they will have music written for them by bands who will perform at the screening. Animations will also be included on the Assembly DVD with their soundtracks.

Directors and Actors meet at the Indyish Fringe Tent on Monday June 11 at noon to check in and receive their script information. They have 48 hours (June 11-13) to block and rehearse their play. The Indyish Fringe Tent is available for meetings Monday to Friday 12-3 during Assembly week. On Wednesday June 13 we meet again at the Tent to pair each theatre group with a band to work together for the next 48 hours (June 13-15) to prepare for the show.

Actors and directors can sign up individually and will be grouped with others to create a team. They can also signup as a troupe (only one person needs to fill out the signup form) mentioning in the notes how many people they usually work with and what their roles are.

Musicians meet with directors, actors, and gifmakers on Wednesday June 13 at the Indyish Fringe Tent, if located in Montreal. If located elsewhere, they download the GIF from Celtx and work on their song, uploading it back to Celtx at the end. All musicians have 48 hours to work on their piece, either with a theatre group (coming to rehearsals) or on their own. The key is to work toward a live performance for the final shows. Internationally-based musicians will record their piece and add it to the Celtx project to be played at the screening.

Every participant will start by downloading Celtx.

When logged in, they can access the scripts, illustrations, production notes, animations, and music for their project in the Assembly. Every script is its own project that can only be viewed by the artists working on it when the Assembly reaches their stage of the relay.

Participants will receive and upload their work in this way:

Open Celtx and login. Download “Indyish Assembly2-Title” Project shared with you. Make a copy. Work on your script, saving to hardrive (save) and uploading to Celtx Project Central by the end of your leg (Uploading to Celtx can take a bit of time, especially if your script contains images, video, or other media. Give yourself time to let it upload overnight.)

Participants can private message Tessa from Indyish for general questions and Sheila from Celtx for technical questions. Posting questions on the forums in the appropriate topic is helpful for other participants. Participants can also use the forums to describe their experience during the Project, and we’ll be linking to the forums from the Indyish blog.

Work in The Assembly is licensed CC Attribution 2.5, allowing us all (participants, Indyish, audiences) to distribute, broadcast, share, even sell parts of it, so long as proper credit is given to the makers.

To sign up for any stage of the Assembly 2.0, visit: www.indyish.com/the-assembly-20-signup-form