Introduction

My Innovator Project was to make a draft of a musical, this includes a design for the playbill, music samples and a script. For the story I ended up using the story of the “Match Girl” by Hans Christian Anderson. This story has been adapted several times in different forms, however the approach is usually a censored version for a child. I choose to follow the original story and have the protagonist die. I choose to end the story like this to highlight the issue of child neglect. This followed my research paper, which talks about the issues of child exploitation in show business. Link to paper PDF

If you click on the side bar, the Match Girl Button will route you to the advertisment website. The Projects button will bring you to all my other websites

Music

This section features on of the songs that I made for the musical I made. The pending title of this song is "Somwhere". The song happens during a dream sequence. The protagonist finally is meeting her mother, the mother tells her daughter that she will set her free from the abusive father. The girl dies and goes to heaven with her mother. Elements of the music symbolize that the girl freezes to death.

Script

Here is a sample of the script. The link is to an intoduction of the musical. It has the first scene with the father and daughter fighting along with the first group number of the show. It features main characters and other supporting actors. There is also a music link to a rough version of the group number. Link to script

Playbill

This last section is to view my playbill. I used the design slills that I have learned to develop this playbill. The program I used to make this is InDesign and Illustrator.

Reflection

I choose this project because I wanted to do something that I would enjoy, and also learn something new from the project. Musical theatre is one of my many interests, so I thought doing something in this genre would be very fun for me. This however, was also proved to be a challenge. I have no experience in writing musical, and limited knowledge in writing music. When making my calendar, I thought I could write lyrics and then make the music, however, this was not the case. I found when making the music I also had to write the lyrics. This set me back because I also had to write the script according to what was happening in the music. I learned that in a musical, everything connects to each other, this cohesiveness is what makes a musical so appealing.

In my paper, I focused on research of children in show business. The central thesis was on child exploitation and child labor in show business. This connects to my innovator project in two ways: it allowed me to analyze child abuse, the theme of my story, and I learned about the regulations of children in entertainment, because a child would play my protagonist. The story of my innovator follows the story of the ‘Little Match Girl’ by Hans Christian Anderson. This story has been adapted multiple times, including for animation, stage plays, and there was a musical adaptation. One common theme was that even though they used the story, it does not use the original ending. It has the girl live in the end, so it does not have the same emotional intensity that the original story has. This is why I choose to stay true to the ending. I decided to shed light on a complicated topic in an interesting way.

Through my research I also learned about the laws and regulations of hiring a child actor. My musical would need a child to act as the protagonist. There are many restrictions that are involved with child actors. It helped me learn a lot about child actors. The research process helped me learn about the psychology of a neglected child. Since my protagonist is neglected and abused it helped me learn how to apply that to my protagonist and develop her characteristics.

My collaboration came when I was working on the music. Often, when making music it is good to have another person look at what you are working on in order to help find things one wouldn't see otherwise. I found this especially helpful when I was developing ideas. I am not as technically developed as other music students my age so I found it helpful when I was given technical notes. The most helpful was when I got stuck trying to develop the end of “Somewhere”. Instead of giving me notes on the end, they gave me something to work on at the beginning and then I came back and revised the ending of the song. “Somewhere” is my most developed song, and this would not have come without the help of fellow music students. Overall, the collaboration was very successful.

If I could do this project over, I would definitely have made the website and playbill at the beginning. These two steps were something that I just needed a general story outline for. When I started making the music I had trouble writing music to the lyrics I had written, so I trashed those lyrics and most of my script. This set me back. My music was the last thing I scheduled myself to do. I found that making the music and writing the lyrics at the same time was the most effective. If I did the project over, I would have made those one thing and worked on the together. The calendar would give me about two weeks to finish both advertising portions. I finished the playbill in about three days, my website would take around a week and a half. The rest of the time I would spend writing.

My most improved skill was in digital music. I spent time developing those skills. Some examples were using the effects that reason offered. I mixed and matched reverb effects and edited those effects in the rack. I also experimented with tempo changes, and panning. I developed stronger musicianship. I have been playing music for around 10 years, no I know the process of making a song. I had to analyze the making of a song, like verses, chorus, refrain, etc.

My least developed was probably my design skills. The functionality and design is not up to the level that it could be. This is because I used to produce the website in the last 2-3 days. I had a very strong idea and concept in mind, but do to the sloppiness of the coding, my design did not turn out very good.

I will definitely put this new skill of music making towards the future. It was something that I really enjoyed and hope to further develop. It's something that I can see as a possible career path or hobby. I found that the music I was making was an outlet. It helped me on stressful days.

The innovator project helped me develop a new skill in something that I was interested in. Since the project was very self directed, I was able to intensively learn one program. Since we learn so many programs in webaudio, often we can’t go that in depth into one program.

I found this project very valuable. In Los Altos High I find myself questioning why I am in certain classes if I don’t see myself having an occupation in this subject. I see myself possibly having a job that involves music technology.