Finally
it's here!
Although
the novel has been out in the wild for a couple of weeks now, as every writer
knows, there's a huge list of ‘other stuff’ that suddenly acquires
PRIORITY status as soon as the last words of the tale are written.
One of these
is the promotional video book trailer.
I had
decided to go about this in a far more professional manner this time. I
searched high and low looking for someone who would generate a great, no, outstanding trailer for this novel.
Surprisingly, despite visiting hundreds of trailer-producer webs, I wasn’t
getting anywhere. When you come away from viewing trailers with the feeling you
could have done better yourself, that’s not a good sign. Then there were to
Over-The-Top efforts that looked more like Hollywood s/fx extravaganzas than promo trailers.
I knew
what I wanted…
The
professional feel of the Hollywood Blockbuster without the message being lost
in the special effects. Remember, the objective of a good trailer is to help
sell books, not drive you to the movies.
I don’t
believe in coincidences!
Never
have.
What
unseen power may be at work behind the scenes, helping us resolve our problems
at critical moments, I honestly do not know.
What I do
know is that if we spent more time being aware of our surroundings, then
answers abound. They are there – if you just take the time to listen and
observe.
The
production of the trailer was no exception.
I
received an unexpected phone call from a friend I’d not seen in a few years. He
used to be in upper management at a Casino and we became friends when he asked
me to provide some personal defence training for himself and a select group of
his colleagues as a contingency measure. He knew I take a very pragmatic
approach to what I teach and was so astounded at the results, he asked me to
train him in more advanced stuff (such as the use of everyday objects – ice
cube, newspaper, car seatbelts and a long etc, you know, the usual stuff – as defensive weapons when shove
came to push!). His job then took him away from the area and our contact was
limited to occasional phone calls and even more sporadic meetings for coffee.
The call
was for one of the latter – yes, girls, you aren’t the only ones who meet to
catch up with your friends – SPOILER AHEAD
- we Rambo types do it as well; except, if we tell you about about it,
we have to kill you!
We
chatted for a while: him about his projects using Intelligence analysis techniques
applied to tourism; me about the latest novel (these things are all consuming,
as any writer will tell you). I helped him with a few pointers from bygone days,
and he in turn put me in touch with doopfilms.
My first
encounter was charged with enthusiasm. Although the people at doopfilms.com are
only just starting with Book Trailers, they have a twenty-year plus backstory
with professional video and film productions. Their determination to set a
standard in book trailer production was evidenced, first, by the fact they had
created a separate company dedicated to this (doopfilms.com) and then by the
boundless passion I heard from the CEO about their future plans and interest
in producing a trailer for ‘the CULL’. As an example of their ‘can-do’
attitude, they asked me for a couple of copies of the paperback to use in the
video, but Amazon hadn’t come through yet; they’re still in the (Christmas)
post somewhere. No problem, they said, we’ll make one!
 |
| Please don't laugh - I'm a writer not a graphic designer! |
They will
handle requests in all sorts of formats. In my case, as I am a non-starter as a
graphic designer, I told them, during a long phone call, what I was thinking regarding
the concept of the trailer for this novel. That weekend I dug out, and dusted
off, my state-of-the-art graphic design program (Photodraw 2000) and whipped up
a (sort of) storyboard. I sent this to them and heard by return mail that they
had already been filming stuff to try out the ideas I had told them earlier –
what sounds good verbally, may not be as visual as you need. They emailed me
some scenes and I was hooked!
A couple
of days later, a text message – we have finished the filming! Next day, I
receive a link and a password to check out the ‘draft’ trailer on Vimeo. I
thought it was perfect – they still wanted to do more work.
 |
| They had my book even before I did! |
Next
morning, a new version – their attention to detail is amazing – they had
modified, retouched, re-synced a load of things I hadn’t even spotted in the ‘draft’.
The resultant file was large – over 60 Mb – but thanks to the Cloud, I soon had it sitting on my
computer. From there it went to YouTube and my blog, as well as a few other select
destinations.
They tell
me they had so much fun doing this (must have been all that fake blood – at least
I hope it was fake – they didn’t emulate one of my vampires from ‘the CULL’,
did they?) they are in the process of producing a ‘Making of’ video to place on
their web when it goes public in a few days.
Incidentally, now everyone can SEE why I insist in writing 'the CULL' as I do... it's a primitive syringe!
My
conclusion and a recommendation: if you are a writer who only wants the best
for your promo materials, send them an e-mail (hello@doopfilms.com) and tell them what
you are thinking.
 |
| Coordinating the soundtrack with the blood drops |
I will be
using them again, in fact, we have already spoken about my next project, ‘Leaving
Shadows’, to give them time to figure out how to recreate lightning visually in
the studio.
The
photos in this post are screenshots from their ‘Making of’ which they have
kindly supplied. Looking forward to seeing the whole video shortly.
1 comment:
Thanks so much for sharing this, Eric. The trailer looks fantastic and its fun to hear the story of how it came about. I've contacted doopfilms about my novel, The Academie, and am excited to hear their ideas after the holiday!
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