Fun with Trailers

Every June my RWA Chapter does an all day workshop, usually broken down into 4 different mini sessions. This time we had the technically savvy, Anne MacFarlane teaching us about websites and how to create our own using WordPress. Then Stella MacLean extolled the virtues of showing up everyday for your writing whether you felt like it or not. After a tasty lunch at the Redwood Grill, we spent the afternoon with Deb Hale and Jennie Marsland. Deb showed us how psychics could be fun when you apply it to your characters, while Jennie taught us how to make our very own book trailer with Windows MovieMaker.

Now, I’ve been using Windows since it came out and I had never realized it came with MovieMaker. Which may be a good thing since now that I know how to use it (thanks Jennie!), I am completely addicted.

I no sooner arrived home from our workshops than I ran downstairs to the writing room and turned on the computer. My reasoning was that I needed to try this out for myself so I didn’t forget everything Jennie showed us. Of course, she gave us a hand-out explaining everything, but I reasoned I needed to actually ‘do it’ to remember.

I decided on doing a trailer for Book 2 in the Invitation to Scandal series. Now, if I were doing this to use as a publicity / selling tool, I would have to be more careful about using pictures and music that didn’t infringe on anyone’s copyrights, but since I was just making it for personal use, I didn’t worry too much about it. I just wanted a visual inspiration of the book itself. Something I could look at to evoke the theme and mood of the book.

I spent a few hours that night and a few more hours the next day playing around, finding the right wording to tell the story, the most mood-evoking pictures, and of course, the perfect song choice to accompany it as the trailer played.

It was a blast and I loved the end result. What surprised me the most was how the exercise allowed me to really nail down what the story was about. So, of course, now I have to do one for ITS. And then Brimstone. Salvation Falls. I can YouTube pixs or video of the pooch too. And these things can also make great digital photo albums for family and friends…

The possibilities are endless. It’s as addictive as scrapbooking, only with less glue.