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Sunday, August 31, 2008

Lights - well, Camera and Action at least -

You may have noticed that 'book trailers', podcasts and other uses of audio and video are becoming more common in publishing. The current series I'm working on (Breyer's "Wind Dancers", for Feiwel & Friends - an imprint of MacMillan) is starting to post little one minute videos of authors and artists promoting their books. (this is NOT for a children's book, but if you've not seen an example you can view this trailer ... wow... :-),

For the fall, we were asked for: a one minute clip of yourself. We believe that everyone loves pets, so our idea is for the authors to talk about, or incorporate, their pets into a video introducing their book.
Since my good friend and POBLmate Jo Gershman and I co-illustrated these books, we decided to do it together. We have any number of pets between us, but since these are books about horses (albeit twinkly, fairy horses), we decided to film with a horse instead of our assorted animals.

My husband, the corporate video producer, agreed to be our director (in this case though, we just used the video option of my digital camera. Very high end. See our 'cue cards' behind him? :-) It was amazingly difficult to try to sound intelligent for 60 seconds - especially with a horse tossing his head between us. It took a few tries to get over the giggles and to make it through our lines...


We managed to get through it, but I am going to try very hard to not watch or ever speak of it again (can anyone really bear seeing and hearing themselves on film? ugh!!! We'll see if Feiwel uses it.)


My son was also on site [working lad - pressure washing the fences in prep for painting] - here, striking an 'anti-paparazzi' pose. For awhile this may be my relationship with any camera pointed in my direction as well... At least until the horror wears off...

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

So will we get to see this video :D Looking forward to hearing what you do with the monster patches. I think I'll just have to be content to stare at them on the monitor or make my own poor substitute, sigh.

d. moll, l.ac. said...

Gosh, a brave venture for all concerned! ! ! Giggles would have been a problem for me too.

andrea said...

But where's the video? Looking forward to seeeing it.

Anonymous said...

Book trailers: it will be interesting to see how they evolve over time. Looks like fun and, yes, giggles. You will have to send us a link to the final product.

Soozcat said...

Ugh. Cameras. :P

Jennifer Rose said...

def. post a link to the video! :D

Chris.P said...

My idea of a nightmare too:¬o

Your husband looks like a real laugh though.

Elizabeth said...

What a lovely glimpse into your world.
I think you are very BRAVE!

Ruthie Redden said...

Very brave! horses - wonderful, cameras aimed at self - not!

Unknown said...

I'd bet money that Jo brought lots of horsie treats to help get a good performance out of your co-star! You are so lucky to have a video producer husband. You'll have to post a link to the clip!

Pamela Terry and Edward said...

What a charming idea! Good for you. You should post the video. And what a beautiful horse. Is he yours??

Unknown said...

This sounds (and looks) like fun - giggles? I bet! Was it WC Fields who said "never perform with kids or animals" hahaha. BTW, postcards on the way.

Tanja said...

LOL -- that's awesome! Beautiful horse in any case. :)

Merisi said...

Do we have to search Utube for the thrill of watching your hard work? *giggle*

Methinks those publishers are asking for a whole lot!

tlchang said...

The publishers say that these will be posted on the pub site as well as Youtube. I'm not sure I can bear to do it myself in the meantime (shudder), so we may just have to wait for them. :-) I will post a link when I'm aware of it.

(And yes Rebecca - Jo brought a whole bag of treats. We used them to bribe Remy (a friend's horse) who hated being in that halter. He always happily comes to the fence to 'chat' without it and was miffed that we put it on him I think.)