Chapter 43
43
G loria moved through the rest of the day in a haze. She recognized Sean's songwriting abilities. Of course, she always knew he was a fantastic musician. He was a consummate entertainer.
She loved watching him play the guitar and sing. Back in the day, when his band was on stage, he was magnetic. But to listen to songs he wrote about them, their life, her. Oh, that was something. That was really something out of this world.
Her phone buzzed, and she glanced quickly to see an email from her attorney. She eagerly opened it.
His words were, "I think you can go ahead with your video. We don't see any problems."
She replied, "Thank you."
Sean said his goodbyes to his bandmates, and she stood. Her knees were still slightly weak after all the emotion. She'd be popping out gray hair left and right after this week.
She received a hug from everyone and they walked to the car together, both she and Mina holding Sean's hands.
As soon as they were on the road, she said, "Tim emailed and gave us the green light to move forward with the video."
Mina said, "If you'll send it to me, I'll send it on to video editing and ask them to take care of it. I've already heard back from them; they'll work with us privately. The same with the sound crew. And I've gone ahead and had Boon send me the raw recording so the network doesn't have that."
She smiled at her daughter's efficiency. "You're amazing, Mina."
She was already back in work mode and didn't acknowledge her words. But she was used to that.
It wasn't far from the Barn to Sean's house. Once they got inside and got Mina settled in the recliner, she sat on the sofa to her right.
"I like the idea of the podcast, Mina. I think we can make that work."
Mina smiled at her, "I think so too, Mom. I think it's going to be great. And even though I'd not wish this past week on anyone, the timing right now is hot. The network must know that too. But they're looking at it all wrong, or they want to capitalize on it while imposing some stupid moral punishment to you so it doesn't look like they agree with you."
Mina stared at her phone a moment, then kept going. "And if sometimes Dad is traveling and we can't go or he isn't able to help with the podcast, you can do it on your own. You've done your show on your own forever. But I think the two of you together, right now at this time, is too hot to not capitalize on. So let's be strategic about releasing the video. Let's get it done. Get it edited. We'll get you in a studio to narrate it. And then we'll go from there. I'm setting us up on podcast aggregator sites right now, which will push it out to other podcasts. We need a name for it."
Gloria pursed her lips. She leaned back. "We can't use Chart Toppers. The network owns that."
Mina smiled, "Well, the network owns Chart Toppers in Music . They don't necessarily own Chart Toppers with Violet Slyk and Sammy Fender . We can sell that one big time. And I've got our PR people working on some things to get them ready to just have a big push."
Gloria watched her daughter spring to life. "So we're going to need a studio."
Sean entered the room with a beer in his hand. He set a glass of wine in front of her. And he gave Mina a bottle of water. She looked at the bottle of water and pouted.
He chuckled, "Sorry, hon, but you're still on painkillers."
Mina nodded. "Okay, I can live with that."
"And as far as the studio goes, why don't you use our studio? The one at the Barn. When we're not in it, it's available. We can work out a schedule. You might have to pay Jami some rent for it, which is fine. It keeps it all on the up and up. But it's soundproof, like it needs to be. There's no echoing. And all you'd really need to do is pull in a desk or a table or something to sit at to do the podcast. That’s where we recorded our last album."
Gloria sat forward. "Don't you need recording equipment for that?"
"We have it. It's a full-fledged recording studio. I didn't show you the sound mixing equipment. Jami paid for all of that before he had his house worked on. We knew we were going indie with our music, and rather than paying through the nose for studio time, we built our own."
Mina shrugged, "Mom, we can record the video on our phones. For a while, that's just fine. Later, we can invest in cameras."
Sean nodded. "We can set that up."
"I think that's a great idea, Dad. Will you check with Jami and see if we can do that? I need to know what the rent is. We’ll work up a schedule. “So, I’ll need to know your schedule like for recording and rehearsing.”
Sean chuckled. He seemed to be enjoying this. "You bet."
He pulled his phone out and tapped out a text.
Gloria said, "Ask him also if I can go and narrate the video today. I mean, when they're finished, he could let us know when the studio is available."
Sean nodded. "He's already responded. Anything you want."
And his fingers flew over his phone. "And they've already wrapped up after we left. Technically, we're on a two-week break, but no one seems to be able to know how to break." He laughed.
Gloria took a breath. "Okay, well, I can go and do the voiceover for the video. Mina, you don't have to come, honey. Just take a nap. I can do that part on my own. All I need is to sit in front of a microphone, and I can even do that with my phone. The soundproof room will be enough.”
Sean said, "I'll take you. Mina can take a nap here. We'll go to the studio."
"Okay." She gathered her phone, took a drink of her wine, and they left for the studio.
As they walked inside the Barn, it was dark and quiet. Sean hurried around and turned lights on, and she walked to the studio door. Stepping inside, you could feel and hear the difference in the soundproofing. It would work wonderfully.
He brought a music stand to her.
She pulled her phone from her little purse so she could read the words for her narration.
Sean said, "How about this?" He pulled a tablet from a music stand. "This is my tablet. Why don't you email your narration to me? I'll pull it up on the tablet, and you can read from it while your phone records. It's larger, and you'll be able to see it without having to scroll so much."
"Okay." She emailed her narration to Sean, took a few deep breaths, cleared her throat, and adjusted herself on the stool.
He opened her email and the attachment on his tablet. Sean sat next to her and nodded. She recorded her narration to her phone, only stopping once. When she finished, she nodded to Sean, and took a deep breath.
"I think that's pretty good. I'll send it up to editing."
He grinned. "I thought it was great."