Faces.

So I found this website Pimp the Face, which lets you create faces online, so I've been playing around with a few faces. I have two left if I'm going to use them in the trailer, but I'm thinking it's pretty likely. I think they're cute, but I gotta admit, it's not very option heavy. It's kinda hard to create a female face that just doesn't look like a dude.

*Cue Dude Looks Like A Lady*

I'll post all of them when they're done. But check out the website if you want to have a go at making one yourself. It's kinda fun.

I also think I found a good piece of music to go with this version of the trailer, I just have to try and get it off my iPhone.


In other news.

Finding Manor House photos that are out of copyright that I can use is becoming a pain in the but. Nothing seems to be working for the other trailer these days...

Story Boards

Every site I've visited has said make a storyboard!

All of them. No if's, and's or but's! But what do you include?

Major Plot Points
What are the huge things that happen?
In mine that's two murders and the reveal. So that's six slides or a twenty second trailer.

What else do I put in?

Characters
There's eight characters you see in the novella and another off stage. Do I have caricatures of them or do I have photos of Victorian mean and women?
That adds another forty seconds.

What else?

Scenery
Manor Houses, parlours, trees. MAOM is set inside a Manor House, with one scene outside…
Five to ten seconds…

Now What?

Text
Would you have words popping up during the trailer? Words like betrayal, murder and greed would pop up in mine, because those words are very close to the heart of the story. Would they be on separate pages, would they be part of the images?

If I have text should I have sound?

Voice Over vs Backing Music
Thinking of using the last poem as a voice over. I haven't measured out the timing for it, but I expect it to be only one maybe two minutes long for a voice over.
On the other hand I found a beautiful piece of music that would work brilliantly as a backing track that is about one and a half minutes long.



MY ATTEMPTS

I gave it a couple of goes. Two actually. They are pretty much complete opposites. One is character heavy and would be better suited to background music. The other isn't and would work better as a voice over trailer.

These two focus on very different things. One is very genre specific, focused on the reader as a genre reader. While the other is focused on people that would read the book for the characters.


Voice Over Trailer

This one is very image heavy. Each box is meant to represent the verse that's written underneath it.

This would have a voice over read the verse. Preferably someone with a deep baritone voice.

Do I have enough money for Benedict Cumberbatch? No.





Background Music Trailer

This one would have music. It's much more focused on the characters and plot line. So there's no real place for a voice over.

It would be weird having someone talk over the top, probably just saying "His Mistress", "Her Maid"...

Something I just thought of … with this one. I could add descriptors of the characters in their little bubbles … I can imagine now what words I would use ...

Also apologies for the manic way this one was set out. It was a first attempt that took shape after it was drawn.

Murder at O'Hilligan Manor

Hi All!

I finally self-published the Novella that this project is for. It was published via blurb.com on the 10th of March. You can check out the first fifteen pages at the link below.


Murder at O'Hilligan Manor is the story of death, betrayal and greed.

The Blurb.


The snow hasn't stopped in days.

Five strangers take refuge at the great manor atop the hill.

A killer is among them.

Inspector Roche arrives with news: the cook is dead.

Another murder.

Eight suspects.

Whodunnit?

I'm really grateful to my editors (Aaron Hughes, Tom O'Connell and Helen Krionas) and photographer (Louise Krionas) because I feel that it looks amazing and I haven't found any errors yet. all my own of course.


Here's the amazing cover image by Lou



and because of Aaron, Tom and Helen this makes sense. The first poem from the novella.

The Arrival

‘Bed & Breakfast’

greets the guests

who trudge

up

the driveway

Weighed down

they trip

over

loose stones

and

air

The thought of

tea, coffee and hot chocolate

hastens their steps

The great manor stands

tall

covered with snow  

and dripping with icicles

amongst the Christmas trees

A knock

announces their

impatience

No answer

to their call

The door’s

stuck

but whines

open

Silence

An empty hall

Light

A candle

dripping in the distance

To follow

or not

to follow

Animation Videos

A friend showed me this animation she had made. She didn't want to give a speech and thought an animation would be a good way around it. It looked good and did what she wanted it to do.

But when I thought about it, it didn't seem like it would fit but I gave it a go.

I went to Google and typed in "animation" it came up with animation maker and clicked on it. It came up with plenty of results for what I was looking for, so I dived right in.

I  clicked on "Go Animate" first. It asked me to enter my email address and off I went. I followed it prompts through a trial, but I was disappointed with the limitations of its avatars and scenes. Pretty much it's lack of what I was looking for. For what it's designed for (business presentations), it's pretty good.

I clicked on the next link "Wideo". It's a similar concept but it's avatars look like the ones for "Dumb Ways to Die". Adorable but definitely not what I need. I skipped on pretty quickly.

I gave up after that, figured that I won't find what I want.

Good thing is that I managed to find a sound engineer that's interested! Wish me luck!

Welcome

So this is part Uni assignment, part promotion so I'll try and find a balance somewhere in the middle of professional and entertaining.

This blog is a counter part to a book trailer I'm trying to create. I've never done one and had limited knowledge of how to put one together, so bear with me while I stuff up (hopefully it won't be completely terrible).

With the minimal research I have done so far I have figured out a few things. 

1. Book trailers and movie trailers are kind of like cousins. They both have the same objective and go about them in pretty much the same way. 
2. There's three main types of book trailer - the powerpoint, the live action and the movie - or at least that's what I'll be calling them. I'll explain in a minute.
3. Music is powerful in book trailers, more so than in movie trailers, especially if you have no other noise in the background.

Three Types of Book Trailers.

The Powerpoint. This is mainly still images put to background music that boils down to a slideshow. Some of these are made with powerpoint, which is where the name comes from. Here's an example produced for students.

The Movie. This one is sort of a mash-up between the live action and the powerpoint. It's a fluid motion of images or people. This is different to the powerpoint because it uses software specific to videos. And different from live action where it's usually images, sketches or photos that are used. Here's Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book Trailer.                                                        

The Live Action. This is more developed and the closest to a movie trailer. It uses scripted actors to act out scenes from the book it's promoting. This Trailer is usually longer than the other two because it's less energy to film scenes with actors. Here's a good one. The Karma Club by Jessica Brody.

My Adventure into this world will hopefully be using the movie option. Though I will start with the powerpoint to get my toes wet. 

Hopefully next time I'll be able post storyboards of ideas for any of these options...

To leave you... A ten-year-old who knows more about this than me... I will probably watch this one a lot!