Monday, March 16, 2015

Make a Movie for Promoting

In the last couple posts, we went on an adventure in creating illustrations. We then discussed about how to use illustrations in blogs and websites to promote your novel or product.  Another way to use your illustrations is to create a video. I am in the process of creating a movie of me narrating a section of my novel, "Legend of the Mystic Knights"; so we will be doing this process together.

Creating a video is a very similar process in creating your illustrations; we begin both with choosing the proper software. I use Microsoft Widows Movie Maker; this is the simplest and most available product out on the market. The skill level using this product is low, so anyone can start using it almost immediately.


There are other movie maker programs out there, and some offer more accessories and features than the Microsoft version. Using any software always depends on your level of skill with the software, and the amount of money you want to spend. The major features that you are looking for is that it allows you to add a minimum of two audio tracks to your video (allows you to narrate and add music), and also allow for different transitional effects between scenes.

When you do decide which product you want, make sure you take the time to learn how to use it properly. Create some simple test movies; learn the different functions of that program to determine which you will use on your finished product.

After you have chosen your software to make your movie, decide how long the movie will be. Is your movie going to be 30 seconds, a minute, 5 minutes long? The length of your movie will determine what kind of movie you are making. A movie used as an advertisement, should be short (30 seconds to 1 minute), this allows you to stay within your audience attention span. If you are providing information, or giving a sample writing of a novel, then a longer movie is necessary.

Now create a script, write down what you want to say in your movie. Since, you know how much time you have to deal with, adjust what you want to say around this time frame. Those of us, who took public speaking classes in school, will have an advantage in this.

After you have created a script, read it out loud and time yourself, you then can add, cut words, or adjust the pace of your reading to fit it into the time allotted. You can break down your script into small parts, using changing of subject, or natural breaks to determine where to stop, or even a place where you need a break in speaking.

The nest step, and most important, is to produce a storyboard. A storyboard is a visual organization of what your movie will look like. It is a series of drawing or pictures, which will show the flow and design of your movie.

The best way to design your storyboard is to picture your movie in your mind, and draw it out as you would if it was a comic book. Each frame of the storyboard, called a frame, is a section of the movie you are displaying. At this point, you can add your illustrations to the storyboard that you want to display in your movie.

With the pictures, now add your script to each frame to your storyboard. It is at this point you will determine how long each frame will be displayed, taking into account how long the script is for each. Write underneath the frame, how long in seconds the frame will appear. Remember where we broke down the script into separate sections, now you can adjust them and the visual frames to see where you want them to correspond. You may decide to end the section of the script to end of a specific frame, or expand it over several frames.

After you have created your storyboard, the next step will be creating your movie. This is the topic of our next blog.

Thank you for visiting, and as always if you want please leave a comment.

16 comments:

  1. Really informative and these trailers are gaining popularity! I hadn't thought to make a story board, but it makes sense! Looking forward to seeing your movie Bill!

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  2. William, I'm looking forward to your video reading from the "Legend of the Mystic Knights." That's a great way to promote the book.

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  3. Good information on how to plan for your video. Like Jacquie, I like the storyboard idea.

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  4. I am really impressed with the way you tackle every thing - first your novel, then your illustrations and now learning to use Movie maker and sharing it with us. The story board makes a lot of sense. I'm looking forward to the following steps in the next post.

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  5. Great article, and best of luck as you move forward. I love the idea of a story board!

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  6. Really interesting William. I also use Movie Maker to create my book trailers, but I actually do the creative work on Microsoft PowerPoint - love, LOVE that program! Look forward to your next post. :-)

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  7. Movie Maker is very user friendly and how I got my start as well. After a while I wanted to be able to add more effects, so I've started to use Adobe Premier Elements. If there were four more hours in the day it's safe to say I would spend them on working with photos and videos.

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  8. I love how you included storyboards. A lot of people try to skip that stem, and of course that can turn your project into chaos. In my past life I was an actress, and I wrote, starred in and helped produce a short film that won some small awards. This took me back to all the work that goes into a venture. It isn't just shooting the camera, it is having a plan. Thanks for sharing

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  9. I will be very interested to see your next post. Good idea to make a story board.

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  10. Just out of curiosity, William, where did you take your public speaking class(es)? In high school? In college? Relatedly, do you or does anyone you know have any experience with the Toastmasters organization? I can see how an understanding of the mechanics of speech would be useful in a variety of situations.

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    1. I had a very bad speech impediment in high school, so I did very little speaking. It was not until college where my I majored in Speech Communication, and I was required to take many public speaking courses that I learned how to speak in front of an audience.

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  11. Absolutely it's a great idea to make a promotional video. Just make sure that it's super professional. If not, it will work against you.

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  12. Really interesting information here. Video is really gaining popularity on social media etc, so we should all learn how to do it like yourself!

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  13. Movie promo for your book. I like it! Can't wait to see the finished project.

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  14. It is great to know, how you handle things. I think this skill is more developed because you are wrestler. You can judge, what can be next more and how you have to tackle it.
    Very informative post William. It is great to learn new things and apply in blog. Videos are getting popular and people feel comfortable to see things than read them. I am definitely waiting for your video.

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  15. I remember when you first starting writing your blog and you have moved on to storyboard idea, videos, books, etc. It is great to see your progression. Good for you

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