Palaces Out Of Paragraphs

By: Grace Griggs

For my adaptation project, my goal is to add an additional layer of immersion to the show than is already present. I recently read that the writer of 1776 thought the show was an awful idea until he heard the song “Sit Down, John” performed. He explained why that changed his mind, saying that “in that song is the entire fabric and level of the show: You are involved with people whom we’d never dealt with before, except as cardboard figures. This room had flies, it was hot, and these men were not perfect. There’s more information about the Continental Congress in that opening song than I learned in all my years at school”. The same thing goes for Hamilton. Part of its value is that it adds extra layers of immersion to the history. My goal is to create an adaptation that increases the audience’s engagement with the story.

To this end, my plan is to adapt a part of Hamilton’s story into a tabletop roleplaying format, specifically 5^th edition Dungeons and Dragons. I would like to make a one-shot (a D&D adventure short enough to be played in one sitting) where players can play as Hamilton, Hercules Mulligan and the rest of the gang as they steal cannons from a British fort, a historical event described in the song “Right Hand Man”. The final product will be a pdf that includes the plot of the adventure, all descriptive text blocks, descriptions of all relevant obstacles and NPCs and enough information to give the players a variety of ways to accomplish their mission. It will also include a battle-map of Fort George and character sheets for Hamilton, Mulligan, Lafayette, Laurens and Burr, although only Hamilton and Mulligan were historically present.

 

The majority of my work will be writing and adapting the relevant rules of D&D to fit the colonial period (add guns, minimize magic etc.). Additionally, I will have to do some historical research to flesh out the events of that night and a little bit of illustration for the map of Fort George.

I am a little nervous about my concept for this project because the two things I am combining are just about as different from each other as possible. However, I do have a good understanding of both the subject matter and the medium I’m converting it to, so I am comfortable that I will be able to work around any issues that arise. Overall, I am very excited to work on this project.

Over the last few weeks in class we have been learning more about Hamilton and becoming more familiar with the characters in the Hamilton: An American Musical. I will be doing my remix and adaptation project on Hamilton’s “My Shot”. It’s the third song from Act 1, and it;s based upon events that occurred in his life. This came out to be very successful and even appearing on Broadway back in 2015. For this project I will be remixing this song accordingly as I put it in words from an athlete’s perspective. This song had a lot of meaning to it, and it also showed the audience that Hamilton was literate and a very smart man. Within every verse of the song, I will put it into my own words and try to develop a rap song by taking some of Hamilton’s teachings and forming a song out of those teachings.

In conclusion, I know this project will test me in the form of Technical challenges. Even though that’s an area where I struggle in, I think it would help me improve technical wise and allow for me to grow during the process of making my remix. Moreover, I’m very eager to get started and I’m looking forward to see how it’ll turn out.

By: Max Jarck

For my remix and adaption project I will turn Cabinet Battle #1 in to a iMessage conversation. I may also include bits of other songs that fit into the story I’m trying to tell. For this adaptation I will use the screen recording tool and record the battle. I will reproduce the battle using lyrics, pictures, gifs, etc. I the may set the video to music from my library that fits the aesthetic I’m trying to achieve or play something on piano myself. The only tools I will need are two iPhones and my laptop(possibly piano). I think that writing, recording, and editing will take all the time allotted in the assignment guidelines. Through this adaptation I will be able to demonstrate how our communication methods have changed. I also think I will be able to add humor in because our founding fathers obviously didn’t have access to today’s memes. The idea of these men using phones is funny in its own right to me. The finished product should be an entertaining and polished video that plays on the original work.

by: Emily Moseley

For my remix and adaptation project, I really want to incorporate some element of drawn art or graphic design into Hamilton. When I listen to the songs and hear the different genres of music, I can picture what style a graphic for the song could be in or what font would represent each character the best. I would like to take three of the characters in the show and give them a graphic that I feel would best represent their impact on history and role in Hamilton. I chose to highlight only three just due to the time constraints on this project. I am not dead-set on any three people just yet; however, I’d like to share some of the ideas I had for the men and women of Hamilton and what songs would inspire their artwork.

Alexander Hamilton – abrasive strokes (to show his sharp tongue and to represent how fast he raps in the musical), deep red background (pain, blood, and sacrifice), script fonts (for all that he wrote), lots of movement in the picture (to represent his abrupt life changes)
songs: Alexander Hamilton, My Shot, Say No to This, The Room Where It Happens, Hurricane

Aaron Burr – minimalist style (shows his lack of willingness to commit), blue color scheme (to contrast that of Hamilton’s)
songs: Wait for It, The World Was Wide Enough, Your Obedient Servant

Eliza – tough, flowery but not too delicate (to show her warm heart), more script (to show her relationship with Hamilton through letters), Alexander Hamilton in background somewhere, eight children included somehow (to give more historical accuracy), don’t include Hamilton in all of it because she had a long, accomplished life after his death.
songs: Burn; Best of Wives and Best of Women; It’s Quiet Uptown; Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story

Angelica – stone wall tough, bold fonts, traveling, movement, darker colors
songs: Satisfied, Take a Break, Non-Stop, The Reynolds Pamphlet, It’s Quiet Uptown

Washington – something calm, warm colors (to represent his steadiness in opinion and plan for the country), if any other people included in his graphic make them smaller (to represent his authoritative figure to every other Founding Father)
songs: Stay Alive, One Last Time, History Has Its Eyes on You

King George – abstract (to keep the tone light just like the musical), British flag colors and pattern (to show he was not apart of the action in the states), very skinny and upright fonts to show his properness (something like Times New Roman because it seems so uptight), a smirk if his face is included
songs: You’ll Be Back, What Comes Next, I Know Him

Maria Reynolds – (maybe include a side-by-side of this and Eliza’s graphic to show the contrast of how Hamilton’s life was between the two and how Maria impacted Eliza’s life so much), I don’t think I’ll do a free-standing one for Maria Reynolds otherwise.
songs: The Reynold’s Pamphlet

Thomas Jefferson – knowledgeable (serif font of some kind – looks more scholarly), incorporate his hair somehow (of the original actor), include splashes of lighter color (shows how he could tease Hamilton), incorporate the French flag and travel somehow to represent him being away for a lot of events
songs: What’d I Miss, Cabinet Battle #2, The Election of 1800

As an additional graphic, I’d also like to create an official scroll of sorts for the “Ten Duel Commandments” as they are described in the musical Hamilton. I think this would be a quicker task, though still tangential to the vision of this adaptation project. It would be as if this paper were posted in the streets of New Jersey where Hamilton and Burr had planned for their duel to take place.

Overall, I would like to see this project to investigate each character a little deeper and try to capture their personality in a physical piece of art. I foresee painting these graphics after sketching drafts and getting them peer-reviewed. This way, I can make sure that at least some of my classmates had the same thoughts or impressions from the characters as I did. My goal is to give the characters another dimension: one that they had all along, but one that may not have been addressed in depth in the actual musical Hamilton.

By: Keval Bollavaram

For my Remix and Adaptation Project, I intend to perform a statistical analysis between Hamiltonand other musicals from the past few decades. Specifically, I will be using MATLAB to compare the lengths of major plot points, script time for protagonists versus antagonists, and lengths of major events. In addition, I will be cross referencing the relevance of major characters to major events within each play.

Keeping to the theme of the class, I will be analyzing musicals from the same time period as Hamilton. By doing this, I believe that I can quantify why Hamilton has been labeled as a transformative musical relative to previous popular musicals of the same genre. In addition to Hamilton, the musicals that I intend on analyzing include 1776,Valley Forge, and A New World: A Life of Thomas Paine.

In each of these musicals, I will start by comparing script time for main characters. Some of these characters will include ubiquitous founding fathers figures such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton. Afterwards, I will compare the relative importance of the main protagonists in each musical. Furthermore, I will cross reference the importance of specific characters with important historical events. For example, I will calculate the number of times George Washington is mentioned in each play in regards to the Revolutionary War. I will calculate fifteen to twenty cross references of this type.

After collecting all the data, I will use Microsoft Excel to create several graphical representations of my work. Moreover, I will provide my written analysis of the data collected and describe any statistically significant differences between Hamiltonand each of the other musicals.

In regards to WOVEN skills, I believe this project will help me overcome my weakness in writing by combining my writing skills with my strength in digital skills. Additionally, the goal of my project is to quantify what makes Hamilton a revolutionary play compared to similar plays. Because I have taken multiple programming classes in the past and have worked with MATLAB for prior research projects, I have the skillset to complete this project. Lastly, through the conclusions that I will draw and the graphical representations of my work, I believe my work will uniquely adapt Hamilton the musical.

The remix and adaptation project will be very interesting because it will allow me to be creative and figure out a unique way to dive into one of the songs from Hamilton. I think the music itself is an important theme in the musical The intense use of hip-hop and poetic speaking in the songs tell a story using a medium that black and Hispanic people can relate to.  For this project, I really want to explore new methods that force me to learn new editing software techniques.

Currently, I want to use “Who Tells Your Story” from the Hamilton Mixtape that includes Common, the Roots and Ingrid Michaelson. The original song from the play was the final song from Act 2, the main singer in the song is Eliza. This is important because it represents how she was the one who kept the story of Hamilton alive and protected the role of Hamilton on the birth of our nation. In the song, the word “Time” is repeated and emphasized by Eliza which reflects on Hamilton’s feeling that he was running out of time. I was able to relate to that time goes by fast. Not long ago I was starting high school, now I’m entering my second year of college. I sometimes reflect on the impact that I want to have in my life on my family, friends, and society. When looking at the accomplishments I wish to have time is the biggest enemy.

I want to take a snippet of the song, mainly the chorus and a rap verse. Then I want to extend the music and add some vocals to the song that reflect my personal insight on the topic of legacy. To discuss the idea of leaving a lasting legacy in a finite amount of time. In addition to adding vocals to the song I have a green screen and want to make a short clip to go along with the song. I anticipate the result to be a music video and have to work on my video editing and audio editing skills. This will be the most challenging part as I have very little experience editing music and videos. However, I look forward to the challenge and will have fun with the project.

 

By: Zac Frederick

While looking at the storyline of Hamilton as we dealt with extensively over the previous weeks, I have really enjoyed getting to know each of the characters, and in the process how they portray the historical figures they represent. While the play does an incredible job of examining what was accomplished, most fascinating to me usually is who was actually doing each of the actions. With this in mind, when we looked at each of the “Hamildrops” in class that have been released thus far, one in particular stood out to me as incredibly interesting: Ben Franklin’s Song. I really like the idea of taking everything that we already know about the period and adding yet one more perspective on top of it all – arguably a perspective of incredible importance to the historical account. This song piqued my interest and so for my remix project I plan to create a remix of Ben Franklin’s song. For the remix I’ll look at other aspects of his life, and detail some of the other interesting portions not covered in his Hamildrop piece. Among other topics, I’ll include aspects of his self improvement plan, how he was an alleged “womanizer” and also his arrogant demeanor. I really do enjoy studying about the historical characters themselves, so my remix will focus on this aspect, while also stealing some key lines from the original Ben Franklin’s Song itself. I don’t plan on recording any type of production piece, as that would require a skill set that is far beyond anything I possess currently. In addition, I don’t believe anyone would enjoy hearing me behind a microphone in any fashion. Instead, I’ll be re-writing and adapting the lyrics of the song and the final piece will be comparable to the original in style, tone, and scheme, but will differ in actual content included. One challenge I anticipate is making sure that everything fits the rhyme scheme in a way that both flows properly, and that also actually includes meaningful content, however I’m excited to get started on this entertaining project!

By : Clarisa Colton

I have decided that for my remix and adaptation project, I’m going to make a cello cover of the song “Hurricane” from act 2 of Hamilton. It’ll probably end up being a mixture of sheet music I can find online plus some things I’ll add in myself. Those will probably be elements I figure out during the process – like what makes sense and sounds good. I have played the cello since I was in third grade, but have recently not been playing as much due to school – so I’m really excited to play again for school.  Cello used to be such a huge part of my life, I even considered majoring in it, so it’s been pretty frustrating to not be able to find the time for it.

I don’t have too much experience with making covers but I did do a pretty rad cover of One Direction’s “Drag Me Down’ in high school (I had my 1D phase pretty late). I had a really good time putting that together so I feel like I will also have a really good time doing this one. I chose “Hurricane” because I feel like it will lend itself really well to covering on cello, and it has aspects that are slower and more melodic as well as some more upbeat parts. I wouldn’t have worked as well to do a song that’s mostly/all rapping because that wouldn’t be able to come across on the cello as well. Some things that will be challenging is that I am a bit of a perfectionist and I know I won’t be satisfied (no pun intended) until I think it sounds perfect – which isn’t really possible. Another possible challenge will be that I’ll probably have to do any recording at home since that’s where my cello is and I don’t really have a space on campus where I could do it, but that will probably be fine as long as I set aside enough time for it (I live 20 minutes away). Overall I’m really excited to begin working on this project!

By: Kristen English

 

For my Remix and Adaptation Project, I am going to take the song “My Shot” from Hamilton Act 1 and adapt it into a modern day blog with multiple entries and with the use of multimodal elements. I will create my own Blog through Wix and design the website to represent Hamilton’s persona and character in the show. The blog will consist of several different entries all attempting to portray the narrative described through the lyrics of “My Shot”. I will be writing as if I am Hamilton’s character in the show and tell the story from how I envision his point of view. I will also adapt the blog entries to have a modernized element to them and portray the narrative through the lens of a modern-day Alexander Hamilton.

 

I believe this project is going to require a bit of technical skills as it does require the creation of an entire blog website along with multiple blog entries to tell the story. Along with the technical skills required there is also a degree of creativity involved as I have to adapt the story told by Hamilton in “My Shot” to fit as a modern day story in society. I believe that this idea however is within the scope of the project as outlined by the rubric as I estimate that the entire creation and writing process of the blog should not take longer than 8-10 hours.

 

Overall I am super excited to begin to work on this project. I feel that this project fits my skills as a writer and allows me to be creative and make something new out of the song without having any musical abilities. I can foresee challenges however if I procrastinate and wait until the last minute to get started on the actual project. To keep myself on track I am setting daily reminders to work on the project bit by bit so that I will not wait until the very last minute and overwhelm myself. In conclusion, I am super excited to get started and cannot wait to see what creative ideas everyone else comes up with!