As
I was getting close to having my mystery novel The McHenry Inheritance ready for publication, I came across an
article in The New York Times saying
that one of the marketing things authors are supposed to do these days is make
a video trailer for their book.
My
immediate response to that wasn’t exactly upbeat. In fact it was more along the
lines of, “Great. Another expense and another hassle.”
Fate
works in mysterious ways, however. Several days after reading that article, I
came out of Office Max and ran into Chip Scheuer. Chip worked at the newspaper
as a photographer when I was the editor, then went on to work several years as
a video cameraman for the news department of one of the local TV stations.
He’d
just moved back to the area from San Francisco and said he was looking for work
shooting still photos or video. In particular, he talked up video, and how
important it is for people and organizations in an increasingly visual and
digital age. The chance encounter turned out to be the prod I needed.
Working With a Professional
So I sat down at the computer and
wrote the script in about half an hour, then gave Chip a call and met him for
coffee. He was excited about the script, quoted me a fair price, and suggested
the highly effective opening sequence. I won’t describe it; you can see for yourself.
A couple of weeks later, we set
aside a morning and shot the trailer. In a perfect world, I would have taken a
cast of dozens up to the High Sierra, recreated the militia encampment from the
book, and made a real James Cameron production out of it. Instead, Chip and I
met for breakfast, drove half an hour into the mountains nearby and shot the
necessary footage at a park by a local stream.
(An interesting sidelight is that
the stream was closed to fishing at the time, so in all the shots where the
angler is casting, it was an empty fly line, with no leader or fly attached —
just in case a game warden showed up.)
Chip has always been one of those
people who loves his work, and his upbeat attitude is infectious. It took us
four hours to get enough footage for a two-minute video, but the time went by
quickly and pleasantly.
The Things an Actor Does
I do quite a bit of public
speaking, so I felt comfortable delivering my lines, but the circumstances
weren’t always easy. In one instance, Chip wanted to photograph me with the
stream in the background, but to get the light and background he needed, I had
to kneel in the water, getting my legs and feet wet while I said my routine.
For some reason, I had more muffed takes in that section than in the others.
As we were doing it, I had a sense
that it was going to turn out well, but when Chip sent the edited version to me
24 hours later, I was really impressed. Chip’s friend, Rigo Torkos, did a
masterful job of editing, and the whole thing looked really slick. It’s getting
a lot of use on my web site and social media, and as far as I’m concerned has
been a hugely effective marketing tool.
When friends see the video, the
word most of them use to describe it is “professional.” I have to smile. That’s
what it should be when professionals do it, and in this case I certainly got more
than my money’s worth.
