Book Trailer as Art

Over the last couple weeks I released three videos that I made related to Finding Livelihood and want to share them here. I also want to tell you a little bit about how I made them in case you want to try making their own book video. You could also follow the steps I outline below for making a fun video of you reading a piece of poetry you love or an essay you've written or a story your child wrote or any number of other things.

Book trailer as art

First the backstory. In April I went to the AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) annual meeting here in Minneapolis and attended a session led by David Flores, a photographer who creates, among other things, videos for books. The session was called “Promotion as Art: Thinking Beyond the Book Trailer.”

He showed several of the videos he’s made, and they were different than the traditional book trailer. The videos featured an author, poets mostly, reading. Sometimes they showed the actual person, but other times it was voice over while the film showed related photos and clips. There was no interview or description of the book, just something from the book presented in an experiential manner.

Rather than being ads for a book, they were stand-alone offerings. A viewer could watch the video and come away with something valuable from the author/poet, whether or not she went on to read the book. He encouraged those of us in attendance to think outside the box and use our phones and computers to make a video; have fun and be creative; don’t worry about being amateurs.

Taking the challenge

I was intrigued. It sounded like a fun challenge, and so I went home and opened iMovie for the first time to see what I could do with it. I decided I would try for a set of three videos. My first attempt, however, was incredibly boring. At that point I consulted with my friend David Vessel, who is a photographer and videographer par excellence. He helped me understand more about the principles involved in making a video and how better to use the features of a video program and a camera phone. I also did some more reading online to fill in the gaps of what I needed to know.

Over the next couple weeks I came up with three videos. I’ve included one of them at the end of this post. Here are the links to all three on Vimeo and YouTube.

12 steps to making a book video

Here are the basic steps I took. This will get you started on a project of your own.

1. Pick a short section of the book to read. You don’t want the video to go much longer than a couple minutes so pick something less than 300 words.

2. Record yourself reading the section. I used the free recording software Audacity.

3. Find pictures or video clips that complement the recorded book section. You can use what you already have or set out to take something new. Although you could use copyright-free images you find online, to me it seems best to use your own so that even the pictures have your own voice in them.

4. Open your movie software and start playing around with it. Open a new movie project and name it. I used iMovie because it came free on my computer.

5. Import the visual components to the movie software, then add them into the timeline of your developing movie in an order that seems appropriate. You will adjust them later.

6. Import your audio file to the movie software. First, though, you have to export it from the recording software so that you have it as a separate file. Once it’s in the movie software, you can add it to the movie timeline. In iMovie it just slides in as a separate item below the line-up of images.

7. Adjust the length of video clips and the duration of still images within the timeline. Add other effects. You’ll need to learn about the specific features of your own movie software for specifics on doing this. Keep playing the movie while you’re doing this so you can match the flow of images to the flow of words. Let yourself play around until it feels right.

8. Add one or more additional soundtracks. iMovie has some built-in ambient sounds, which I used for one of the videos. For another video, I walked down a moderately busy street in my neighborhood with my phone recorder on, capturing car and airplane traffic noise as well as the occasional rustle of wind and tweet of birds. For a music track, I commissioned the talented Berg Holmgren, who also happens to be my nephew, to write and perform acoustic guitar background for two of the videos. I took a different approach with the third video, finding a piece of royalty-free CC0 music online (you can’t use copyright-protected recorded music).

9. Add a title image at the beginning and credit images at the end. iMovie provides formatted images for this.

10. Select and add transitions between the images. Transition options are provided within the movie program. I used a simple “Cross Dissolve” consistently.

11. Make final adjustments of starting points of audio and soundtracks, and duration of images and clips so that time wise it all fits together.

12. Export the movie file to Vimeo, YouTube, or other destinations. Check the size requirements for where you’re going to export it. Given those requirements and the type of images I had to work with, I exported the files as SD, not HD.

One of the Finding Livelihood videos

Here’s one of the videos I made: Walk The Path. You can view the other two here at Vimeo and at YouTube.

 
If you like the videos, please share them on your social medial channel of choice.

And if you give this a try for your own and want to share the results, leave a link in the comments below.

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You can order Finding Livelihood from: 1) the publisher, Kalos Press; 2) Barnes & Noble; 3) Amazon; 4) Hearts & Minds Books; 5) Eighth Day Books; 6) me (let me know if you want it signed); or 7) any bookstore.

A midwinter Enchanted April

I adore the movie Enchanted April, based on the novel written by Elizabeth von Arnim. Like a bolstering hymn of hope, I need it at intervals. Every February to be exact, the month when winter seems to never let go its grip here in the north. I'd like to borrow the plot line: to be on holiday with Lotty Wilkins and Rose Arbuthnot, to be reset by a month in an Italian villa.

An ad to lease an Italian villa, San Salvatore, on the Mediterranean for the month of April catches the eyes of Lotty and Rose, strangers turned friends, played by Josie Lawrence and Miranda Richardson, and they become frantic to find their way to the wisteria and the sea and the rest. To reduce the expense, they in turn advertise for two more women to join them. Mrs. Fisher and Lady Caroline Dester, played by Joan Ploughright and Polly Walker, answer their ad. Each of the women come for different reasons, but that is the start of a longer essay.

A good friend, her daughter, and I have a standing tradition to watch this movie together at this time every year and last night was the night. I drove to their house in nearly zero-degree weather, and we sat huddled by the fireplace with soup and warm bread, with Italian sparkling wine, and lived a vicarious holiday but a very real reset.

This friend and I saw this story as a live play several years ago, and a reviewer at the time got it completely wrong. He wrote that the story is nothing more than an episode of the old television show, The Love Boat, where everyone is troubled, goes on a trip, and falls back in love at the end. That reviewer didn't understand the power of companionship in solitude, the power of beauty and rest.

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[Photo: a shot from the 1992 film.]

Thinking of worm holes and gravitational cross-dimensionality

Last week I saw the movie "Interstellar" with my husband and son. I haven’t read any reviews of the movie but have heard it’s been getting a mixed response. This isn’t a review. I won’t be giving thumbs up or thumbs down. What I will say is this: I’ve been thinking about it off and on for days, and I always like that in a movie, when it offers something to think about. Not in a dreadful way, such as not being able to get disturbing images out of one’s mind. But in a good thought-provoking way. "Interstellar" featured worm holes opening up in the nick of time, black holes, relativity and time, five dimensions, and the ability of gravity to cross those dimensions. It featured people making things, being brave, and figuring things out. It showed people in a long obedience toward finding solutions. This movie was far from “optimistic” in the strictest sense of the word. After all, the world as we know it was ending. But it reminded me of the vastness and mystery of the greater universe of which we are a part and of the power of communal and individual resolve, and I’ve appreciated those reminders this week.

Well played, Parenthood: the tension of choosing passion vs money in work

Last week’s Parenthood episode (“Too Big to Fail”) was spot on in highlighting the tension between choosing passion or responsibility, bliss or the ability to pay for life, within the context of work. This tension is an important thread in my forthcoming book, Finding Livelihood. Drew, a sophomore at Berkeley and the oldest boy in the youngest generation of the Braverman family clan, is feeling pressure to pick a college major. More specifically, he is feeling pressure to pick a major that will lead to a future job that will enable him to pay off his student loans, support himself, and help his family, particularly his sister.

Drew decides that “economics” would be the best choice. His girlfriend objects, saying that’s not who he is, that he’s a poet not an economist. He goes to his uncles for advice. The two uncles are having their own crisis. The company they started and from which they support their families is going under.

Adam, the uncle who is a businessman and has lots of options should the company fail, tells Drew to pick a major by following his dreams and to not worry about making money. Crosby, the uncle who is artsy, lacking in options and a financial safety net should the company fail, and already on the verge of losing his house, tells Drew to learn how to make money and to make as much as he can, because money can indeed buy happiness.

But, counters the business-man uncle, money doesn’t buy happiness, only peace of mind. “The last time I checked, peace of mind is the definition of happiness,” concludes the artsy nearly-broke uncle. The scene ends with a close-up shot of a very confused Drew. Well played, Parenthood.

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[Photo: Screen grab from Parenthood episode.]

Twenty Feet from Stardom: Are you a back-up singer?

It’s not a huge leap from thinking about the work of back-up singing to thinking about work in general, all kinds of jobs and all kinds of workers, including the professional superstars who’ve worked their career magic and found their places at the top, and those people who are to the side and beneath.

If you haven’t seen the documentary, I really recommend you do so. You can watch it streaming on Netflix. The video I’ve embedded in this post is a five-minute featurette about the documentary. In this video, director Morgan Neville has this to say about how viewers relate to the stories of these back-up singers:

"I was at the Minneapolis Film Festival and afterwards a guy stood up and said, 'I’m a middle manager at a software company here. I’ve been working for twenty years, I work with a team of people, I’m proud of the people I work with, I’m proud of our product. I don’t get all the title of the money in the world, and I just realized, I’m a back-up singer.'"

Neville continues:

"We all feel to some extent that we live in that gulf between our childhood dreams and the reality of our real life.”  Even though these women had incredible talent, and you keep thinking, Isn’t it a shame that they’re not a star?, what you realize is they’ve found their own way to be happy and that’s way more important than being famous."

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What is Success? For What Are We Grateful? A Film Recommendation

If you’re adding film titles to your 2013 must-see list, here’s one to consider: Longford, an HBO drama telling the true story of British Lord Longford, played by Jim Broadbent. I’ve recommended it many times since I first saw it in 2009 and did so again a week or so ago. Few films still have me thinking about them years afterward.

A devout Christian, Longford visits prisoners as part of his spiritual practice. In the beginning, the film shows him in an interview saying that the greatest achievement in his life is visiting and helping prisoners. Then the story begins.

A notorious criminal asks him to visit her, a woman convicted of a heinous crime involving the most vulnerable and precious members of society. They begin meeting regularly, and he helps her over many years in her legal battle. His long-term relationship with her becomes the greatest achievement of his life’s greatest achievement.

Yet his efforts collapse in complete and utter failure. If I told you why it would be a spoiler, yet your guess probably comes close. Lord Longford is devastated and broken, an object of public scorn.

Time passes and he eventually writes a book on another topic. In an interview about this book, the subject of his visits with this prisoner comes up. The interviewer asks him if he regrets helping her. Longford pauses and says no. (Disclaimer: I don’t have a transcript of the film and so this is my memory + paraphrasing kicking in.) He says he is grateful to her. He says that deepening his faith is what his spiritual journey is about and that his experience with her helped him at that. The film doesn’t end there and I won’t say anymore about the plot lest you plan to watch it and think I’ve spoiled it enough already.

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