![]() Learn to use the ‘Remove background’ feature in word/powerpoint to put characters into your own settings. A thorough trawl of Pinterest threw up some likely character photos (if you identify yourself in a still, or a film clip for that matter, I offer you my thanks and would love to hear from you). I did included a few stills, of my Gaia’s Brood characters, on black backgrounds. Top Tip: Keep a copy of original film clips at their original lengths and speeds, as a resource for when you change your mind during editing. By slowing the clip right down, duplicating it four times, then stitching the clips together, I ended up with something I could use that was half decent. When I did find it, in a Sherlock Holms trailer, it was far too short. I spent 3 days trawling for a movie image of a package. I tried filling in with stills, but unless the duration is really fast (less than a second) they just didn’t seem to fit with the cinematic feel of the rest of the trailer. I did delete some and had to spend hours re-downloading entire films when I changed my mind on speeds and lengths in the final cut of the trailer.Īt first, populating the storyboard story arc went really well, but things ground to a halt when I needed to find specific shots. Top Tip: NEVER delete your initial clips, no matter how small, how useless or rubbish you think they are-you never know when they might fit just perfect as a tiny filler between two other shots. I spent days reconstructing this list when I reached the end of the trailer, so save yourself time and hassle and do it as you go along. Each time you take a clip from a film, keep a record of the film name, distributor and URL-you will find out why later. Cutting down the size of a clip is no problem, but extending a scene means slowing it down-some scenes look fantastic in slow motion, others just don’t work.Ī week later, having saved every individual film snippet as a WMM video in its own right, I eventually whittled the initial trawl of 300 snippets down to about 50. Nothing, of course, fitted exactly-the film snippets were all either too long or too short-sometimes less than a second. Top Tip: To identify if there are useful scenes in a downloaded film, zip through it using the slider at the bottom of the screen-this saves hours. ![]() I started trawling YouTube for movies in my genre, downloading suitable looking films (which takes an age when you only want a four second clip from the whole film), and snipping out the sections I thought would fit the Gaia’s Brood story board-a few seconds here, a few second there. I quickly discovered finding film clips easier if I concentrated on (b). Top Tip: Storyboard by: (a) telling the story or (b) capturing the mood. A few iterations and edits later, I was satisfied I had the basis for an exciting trailer. I quickly sketched out a storyboard for my book trailer-shots, zoom etc., it is like producing a story arc, but in pictures. Perfect.Īs a template for the Gaia’s Brood video, I used a trailer template from imovie. Using Windows Movie Maker (WMM) tutorials on YouTube, I discovered I didn’t have to use only my own material, I could slice action from other films I download. Several hours later, with my knees trembling from the exertion, background shots of beach huts, rabbits, oil tankers, and paragliders, and with several runs ruined my other people using the steps, I resolved to keep to writing and leave film making to the experts. I spent an exhausting afternoon running up and down wooden steps on a cliff-face, trying to get action for a single exciting shot of someone fleeing up wooden steps in a floating city. Now all I needed were action shots to populate my trailer. That’s when I discovered my pc already had a free video making programme called Windows Live Movie Maker. Of course, I’d never used an ipad before, and I wanted different music, and a bespoke introduction, and all my photos and graphics were on my laptop, so I looked for a pc version of imovie. They eagerly showed me the wonders of imovie. Not having made any videos before, I sought the help of professionals: my daughters (experts at making pop videos). Wanting to stand out from the crowd, and determined to present only the best for my readers, I aspired to launch Gaia’s Brood using a cinematic trailer. I viewed plenty of very good trailers based on powerpoint presentations, using still photos and book shots, and a few awesome ones resembling movie trailers. Not knowing anything about book trailers, I turned to the web for inspiration. And why not: we might as well use the full range of media to sell our novels. ![]() Book trailers are all the rage at the moment.
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