Friday, November 23, 2012

"Roofless" Character Art Slide Show



We've created a good stack of concept art over the years of "Roofless" development; from thumbnails sketches to storyboard roughs to caricatures to photo illustrations. Here's a look at said stack:








Sunday, April 1, 2012

OF ROOFHEADz and HOODIEz

In the development of our musical "Roofless," the narrator "Tella" has gone thru many incarnations.  In every case, we've always pictured him in an ancient ceremonial hoodie lined with the fur of a sacrificed animal. 

As you can see in this concept art for our musical theatre joint “Roofless,” we explore & twist many archetypes, stereotypes and clichés throughout the course of our show.  The recent “Hoodie awareness” thing that is sweeping the country got me thinking about our use of hoodies in “Roofless” and other works we create.   We have characters who try their hardest to appear thuggish…hoodie.  We have characters hiding behind the façade of in-control-hardassness when they feel insecure…hoodie.  On the other end of the spectrum, when we wanted to create an all-knowing spirit being (in the form of a DJ of course. lol) as narrator we gravitated towards the historic image of an educated, holy man who is very aware of his place in the universe i.e. a monk, scribe, griot, shaman, rabbi, etc. Yeah…hoodie.      – Its always dangerous to try and judge what lies beneath something that has been covered…or even to assume why it has been covered. 

Tulsa emcee Jermany Brown (MuGen Crew)
portrays principle character "Marquee" in our
2010 "Roofless" promo video.
The reasons for covering the head can range from fear, evil intent & insecurity to piety, reverence & self-awareness.  Or hell, it could just be raining.

As creators of art, we feel the need to say, “let’s all take a deep breath and take the time necessary to explore what’s underneath what we see on the surface…before any more fatal shots are fired in this country.”

Whoever you were, whatever you were covering, Rest in Peace Trayvon Martin, our brother.
Oops.  Has it been 2 months since our last post?!!!  oh my.  For DAILY whatnots & blabber from us, check out our facebook page.  Facebook.com/LoJoWerkz. We share lots of vids and pics of friends whose work we follow and respect - from the worlds of Street Dance, Musical Theatre, Stage, Film, TV, Recording, News and Current Event bloggery.   At some point we may combine our various media pages and post the same things everywhere, but for now we've decided to devote this LoJoWerkz blog exclusively to info about our work... not so much out of narcissism, but as a way of keeping some order ...some method to our moddness.


We are deep in development on our 2012/2013 projects and will soon have some wavyesque items to post about these hushy-hush projects.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

WHAT'S NEXT? THE STORY BEGINS!

Currently putting the finishing touches on the script for our new web series "Story Got Next."   We will be shooting a "Prequel to Story Got Next" short film in Tulsa. (We obviously don't have a name for this short film yet.)  STAY TUNED!     

You can learn more about Story Got Next here by clicking the logo below:

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

MUSICALIZED MONEY LAUNDERING - Roofhead style

One of the primary tasks of the musical theatre playwright is to "musicalize" a scene - taking all the plot & character development of that particular part of the story and delivering it via a song.   So in "Roofless" we've got some , uh, atypical plot points to musicalize.  lol-  Here's a rough demo of a scene where Marquee's crime boss father disses his son's rhyme game & offers him a slightly different plan to advance his emcee career. heh heh. (EXPLICIT LYRICS)

Monday, January 2, 2012

LoJoWERKz GETS ON ITS FEET!

So I have a Film Degree but spent the last 15 years building a career in live theatre.  haha.  Jerome's forte is dance/choreography but because of the Broadway development process, "Roofless" hasn't been fully staged (with choreography) since 2004. smh.  All good tho. We've spent the past several years wisely - sharpening our writing and storytelling skills under the tutelage of some of Broadway & Hollywood's best storymen! (Thanks to ASCAP, Michael Kerker & Stephen Schwartz)

So YES! FINALLY In 2012, under our new banner of LoJoWERKz, we are branching back into our roots (yeah, I know...a really weird metaphor...thaz just how we roll creatively).

Our LoJo(FILM)WERKz will def have strong stories & characters, innovative music and our trademark blending of Old and New styles, but the focus will be on DANCE!  We have projects in development that will allow us to work with great dancers across the board, from the top International stars of the Street Dance world to the best dancers in our Tulsa stomping grounds. Click on our 2012 PROJECTS to learn more.  
-T

Sunday, January 1, 2012

WHAT DOES LoJoWERKz DO?


UPDATE JANUARY 1, 2012:

LoJoWERKZ.com 
is open for business!  Let's Get Twelvey!

You may have noticed there is a lot of written information here about some of our upcoming projects... but a lack of photos and videos. That's only because we're just now setting out on this journey!

Stay Tuned LoJoFamz!