From clips and snippets to editing, making a book trailer the real thing!

Hello and good day, it's wonderful to have you here!

 

I keep trying to include people in the prep and steps I am taking for my first novel "From the Dust to hit reality, which is quite a huge undertaking but today we have a look into more details on how the book trailer is coming along...

 

For a look at the previous steps you can find them here:

http://anastasiabolinder.blogspot.com/2016/08/book-trailer-behind-scenes-20-voice.html

http://anastasiabolinder.blogspot.com/2016/08/a-trailer-making-we-go.html

 

So lets get right into it, once thinking out, testing, finding the actress, filming and recording the voice work is done, editing is the logical last step and that is where we begin!

 

 

The first step I took once I loaded all the videos from my camera onto my computer was watching and separating the gold shots as I call them and looking at the movement and flow of how the recording looks. (As well as finding the bloopers of course!)

 

 

Often when going through such clips I have to keep in mind what I want to see and how I might use it in the book trailer which though I did a tester the real thing changed quite a bit because we got some different shots at the final shoot.  

 

 

Interesting fact for the day: Book trailers are only about a minute to a minute and a half long if not shorter to entice the public to want to find more out about the book.

Now you know.

 

 

Then once the clip watching faze has been past and the videos sorted it's on to smashing it all together on AVS video editor.

 

Above you have a look at the finished product of the video laid out and put together, in the process of getting it all together I start with the clips, read the lines in my head that my actress Summer Lambourne recorded and put them all together. Once that's looking something close to what I would like I start adding the transitions between shots to help it look like one thought instead of clips. Then the last things to be done are added which is where it starts to feel like magic as the music (which I got royalty free off YouTube) is put in place and the final bits of voice recording are placed.

 

(This is a look at the mini trailer I also did after the first trailer with two shots that I did not use in the first but felt were good enough to be used in the mini.)

 

Now in-between all that I have said above I would also add that between every change made I would rewatch and continue to fix and rewatch the whole thing again until it's something I consider near as good as I can get, and that's when you save in a format to watch and get to see how it all looks together.

 

 

In all the full length book trailer is 40 seconds long and took around five or six hours seeing as I don't really count how long I work on things like this. The mini video as well took around an hour or two but went much faster seeing as I had been working on the first.

 

To finish I would just like to add that I have no formal training and have never taken any classes for this sort of thing, filming, videography ect. my only background in it is that I have been making music videos and action figure stop motion videos in my youth and teens and never really thought it would ever come in handy. Funny how things turned out right?

 

 

(A look at an old video of that time I sent my old camera on a voyage down a ditch never to return once it became flooded shipwrecked in a tunnel under the road, don't worry I got it back with the footage of it's last voyage. haha)

 

The trailer still has a few clunky things that need to be fixed before you all can enjoy but for now I hope you have enjoyed a look behind the scenes of how it is made.

 

Stay awesome people, more book news, fun stuff and "From the Dust" excitement coming soon.

Stay tuned.

 

 

Anastasia out~

Book trailer behind the scenes 2.0, voice recording...

"The reality of a dream is the ability to see the impossible as just an option."

 

Good day friends! so with the little quote to get us going lets get into this short post behind the scenes...

 

Seeing as the trailer has been filmed what you ask would be the next step? Though it would seem logical to say putting it all together there is one small piece before we head into editing the video, and that is recording!

 

 

For the book trailer for my novel "From the Dust" I wanted to have someone speaking and telling you what normally in most book trailers is just words on the screen, I think it adds to what you feel about the book.

 

So bringing back the wonderful Summer Lambourne to record the five lines for the book trailer today we spent in all ten minutes recording using AVS audio editor to finish getting the last things in place before I edit it all together.

 

(For a look at the behind the scenes of filming the trailer you can find it here:)

(http://anastasiabolinder.blogspot.com/2016/08/a-trailer-making-we-go.html)

 

And to finish off this post the first look at the finished book cover!

(This wonderful illustration created by the fantastic Ben Simonsen)

 

Lastly the official "From the Dust" website is now live and will be continuing to ramp up with the art behind the book coming soon, so keep your eyes peeled for that!

* http://www.from-the-dust.com/ *

 

With all this fun stuff I can promise you more is still to come with an update about Kickstarter goodies coming real soon!

 

Stay awesome people and so much more to come, stay tuned.

 

Anastasia out~

 

 

Let us embark on a journey...

"The process of bringing to life a book is the most seemingly hard yet intricately difficult feat I have ever encountered and embarked on. " - Me today

And then just to make it harder I decided to make a Kickstarter the kick off of the books first moments in real life. I'm that crazy yes, but I enjoy it.

So with that being said let me give you the first look at a little of the process behind choosing to do a Kickstarter namely the pin for this post.

The real reason I started out thinking about a Kickstarter was seeing the awesome Kickstarter by Jessica (Owen) Kara, author of "The summer king chronicles" who's Kickstarter really blew me away and started the gears in my mind turning to if it would be something worth trying for my first self published novel "From the Dust" coming out later this year.

My mind turning I soon realized being friends with and knowing some incredible artists I started to get in contact with and for the moment you'll have to live on the edge of your seat for the next few months as I post pieces of the items available on the Kickstarter. I know I'm killing you with anticipation but that's a good thing, it means you'll be excited trust me.

Today you get to see the first of the rewards, the limited addition pin specifically made for the Kickstarter. And of course to start it out beyond thinking I went to sketching out a few designs.

(I have promised myself that if the book hits a really amazing selling run I may make another pin to be sold on the "From the Dust" website but we shall have wait and see...)

 

Above you can see I went for a few different looks not really putting to much detail into it but getting an idea through. I researched Disney pins and pins in general to get a good idea of what a pin usually consists of and or how they looked. I went with the design second down on the left.

 

Next stage was refining the pin to something that could be used for the design,

Now you can see how the before clunky sketch turned into something much better.

 

Then it was off to finding a company to make the pins, I went with PinMart Inc. which is a fantastic group to work with! After a few online proofs and a few weeks later the pins arrived in hand.

 

 

As with anything this pin took around a month altogether to be made real from conception to in hand and will be just one of the many awesome rewards featured on the Kickstarter this fall hopefully in late October if everything goes according to plan.

 

 

With that said keep an eye out for more updates about the "From the Dust" Kickstarter, book trailer, website and more! And be sure to subscribe via email to the blog to get the fastest update on it all.

 

Until stop by again stay awesome people and stay tuned for more!

 

Anastasia out- 

A trailer making we go,

Hello, figured we might as well start out this blog with a bang!

 

So today we have a look at the behind the scenes of making a book trailer...

 

Working on the book trailer for "From the Dust" has been in my mind and worked on for months, though the filming is the main point you aim for, leading up to it are many smaller actions that make up what the trailer can become.

When I started thinking about making a video I questioned where I wanted my character to be and or how I wanted to show her for people to be interested in the book in a small amount of time as a book trailer is on average around a minute to a minute and a half.

 

Above you can see the thought of how I wanted to capture the shots.
(In reality I did very few of these once we filmed but it honed my idea of what I wanted to see when filming.)

 Next on the list was costume:

Alayna's costume was both easy and hard to accomplish all at the same time, when thinking of what I wanted I went for her simplest look but still keeping it with a feel of magic too the details of her shawl.

Then a test run for location:

Living so close to three canyons made my decision easy on where I wanted to film, big cottonwood canyon has a great rock outcropping that works perfectly to simulate a really nice otherworldly feel.
Scouting locations as well as a test trailer was done with my best friend and it worked out great to get a feel for what was the best way to do shots and where I needed them to be.

Months later  meaning just a few days ago we filmed the real trailer with the fantastic and amazingly talented Summer Lambourne playing Alayna.

 

Upon getting up the mountain it was easier knowing where we needed the shots but as nature has it's own mind we dealt with some different conditions then the tester/scouting as we got dark skies that threatened rain, but did we let that stop us? No sir we did not and it turned out to be a great shoot.

The top of that rock edge is mainly where we filmed.

 

Summer/Alayna looking awesome. 

In case your wondering this looks super not that high up but we were both quite far up and I was leaning into a rock to keep from falling. Yep danger was involved but it was worth the shot.

 

Like you would expect for filming it was moving from location to location with a few takes and before hand practice of  the path I needed Summer/Alayna to take.

 

If you can find my grey shirt up in the brush we filmed next to that tree and the trek to get to up to it took longer to get too then filming and getting down was a nightmare compared to getting up to it but we did it!

 

All in all the shoot was great working with such a fantastic crew consisting of my father/shofar and behind the filming picture taker as well as the wonderful Summer who captured Alayna perfectly. On the ride back home I admitted it was startling how close Summer resembled my character  Alayna and how strange it felt to sit in a car with your character.

 

So with that said I'm off to edit which is the last part of the process and will take some time but it will all be worth it once finished.

(This is a rough color of the cover by Ben Simonsen, finished look coming soon!)

 

For more information on the books release date, Kickstarter and a look at the trailer once completed stay tuned to this blog by following via email and keep dreaming and believing people.

 

Anastasia out~