If you compare learning to make a book trailer to learning to ride your bike with no stabilisers, I’m at the stage of wobbling along, a parent (in my case, son 2) trotting beside me. For yards I can go it alone, then I lurch and need a steadying hand on the saddle.
The fun bit about making a trailer (we use MovieMaker) is trying out the special effects. Do we want the images to float in from the side, or fizzle in from the centre – or turn black and white and fade out? And the text – where should it go on each image? Which font? Size? Italics? Bold? And choosing the music is brilliant.
The un-fun bit is, you are dealing in microseconds, and my brain doesn’t stretch that far. I can never see if I have to increase or decrease to get the desired result, and Sod’s Law plays a big part here. That’s where son 2 comes in. Having said that, I’ve now learned how to incorporate the video sequences. When I know how to resize the images, I’ll be good to go myself.
So here it is, the Chosen Child trailer. The kindle version of my book is now on preorder – Amazon UK, Amazon US, or your local Amazon store. The paperback will be available by the end of February.
Very impressive, you two!
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Thanks Helen! I’m lucky to have help so close by!
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Wow… I love it! This is something we would love to tackle next, so will be checking out Moviemaker. Hope we can be as clever as you… (and your son)
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Thanks -if I can do it, anyone can… Just make sure you put aside a LOT of time to tweak and try things out.
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Did you mean the Windows Moviemaker? or is there another one?
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That’s right – this one http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/movie-maker I think you might need different versions depending on which Windows you’re working on.
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can’t wait to have a go now!
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Good luck and have fun!
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Hey, this is good. It looks very professional and triggers my interest for the book!
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Thanks, Christa – MovieMaker is pretty user-friendly. You could do lovely trailers with Italian scenery!
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I’ve been wanting to do something like this, but I haven’t had the time–or the courage–yet!
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It takes ages, unless you have a useful young person at your elbow. We did The Cold Cold Sea trailer first, then I did The Paradise Trees one myself – but it’s much more basic than the others. No video sequences. A lot of it’s trial and error, and I’m not a patient person…
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This is a wonderful trailer! Congrats.
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Thanks, Barb. I’d love to say it was all my own work, but it isn’t… Maybe next time. Or next again…
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I went to film school and struggle to edit footery split second frames, so well done! And what a chilling premise – off to preorder!
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Thanks Claire – I’ll pass your ‘well done’ on to my son 🙂 Glad you liked the trailer!
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