Thursday, March 29, 2012

New Book Trailer Released

It's been a busy week. Work has been a scramble, with late nights and early mornings, but it's all turned out well, so I'm happy. On Tuesday, one of my coworkers showed me a video of one of our corporate events on his iPad. It was done in a movie trailer format, and looked really sharp.

My brain immediately began working, and I thought, wouldn't it be great to make my own book trailer. I don't have any fancy Mac equipment, but I thought maybe Windows had some software. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that I had Windows Movie Maker already on my computer! Just goes to show how much of a techie babe in the woods I am.

I spent Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning looking for decent, public domain royalty free video to use, and writing the script. On Wednesday, I talked Christian into acting like Eric peering into the drainpipe under our driveway, but it was partuially blocked with logs, and I didn't get a good shot. It didn't matter anyway, as I later found that I had been holding my iPod Nano the wrong way and the footage was upside down!

It was then that I decided to scrap the video and go with stills. But how could I make an exciting video without video? The program features a bunch of different efffects. I played around with a number of different ones for each shot until I was satisfied.

Once that was done, I had to add music. There's a very talented composer who has scads of short compositions of varying genres that you can use for free as long as you credit him. His name is Kevin MacLeod. Here's a link to his site. After a number of tries, I found the right piece and, voila! First class book trailer. CreateSpace can do a minute long trailer for you for $2000, so I'm that much ahead. Not a bad job if I do say so myself.

So, here's the trailer. Check it out, and let me know what you think!

8 comments:

  1. It looks really good! I really like it!

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    1. Thank you. I'm glad you liked it. Please share it.

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  2. Oh I already have!

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    1. Great! Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

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  3. I loved the trailer. Isn't it amazing how you can become inspired in places you aren't expecting (like the video you saw for work)? Way to go working out the trailer and for doing it yourself. Bravo!

    Jess and I are going to the CAPA Writer's Conference in May. Are you planning to attend? They have some interesting workshops and the chance to meet with an agent or a publishing/marketing specialist. It costs $150 for the day and is in Hartford. I thought of it when I read your post because they have a workshop on book trailers.

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    1. I'm glad you enjoyed the trailer. I hadn't heard about the conference, but it sounds like something that I should attend. I'll check it out. Thanks for the tip!

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  4. You did an incredible job on the book trailer!

    Nice work Greg!

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