The Filming of a book trailer

Its really nice to be behind the camera for once. This whole process of shooting a book video trailer... I didn't even know people did that. You know, it's a book, not a movie, but I guess that is the way they are doing things in the literary world now. So with a book like mine, my publisher thought it was the perfect way to create a fun buzz about the book.

I jumped into action and created what I thought would be the perfect 'trailer' to help readers get a feel for what this book is gonna be about. First I called my old pal Chris Knitter of Overlooked Productions who shot both of our music videos, and got him on board with the project. Then at home I wrote out a overview of the book and recorded the narration with my trusty husband, and sound engineer Tony Grimes. Tony then edited one of our new songs down to about a minute and did his magic of putting the narration over the song. We then sent the file over to Knitters. Part one done.

Part two was to find the right 'Frankie' to be in the video. We didn't really want to give her a face, but a very good idea of what the character looks like in the book. We chose the beautiful and super sweet Rachel Spensatelli.



After we had our Frankie, we went about creating a shot list. I got an incredible recording studio to shoot at, Thank you to Donny Baker at ES Audio Services in Glendale. If we had a studio we needed a drummer goddess to play the 'Jillian' roll... I didn't have to look too far since the character was inspired by my awesome real life bombsell bestie Rachael Rine.



I lucked out again and discovered that my old landlord at The Hollywood El Cerrito was still there and we were able to shoot at the beautiful building that inspired the book. A special thank you to Claire for being so accomodating to our shoot, just walking the halls again was magical, and I got some great ideas for book two while sitting in the lush courtyard.



My son was there for the entire shoot, and I just had to add this photo of him and 'Frankie' while we were shooting at El Cerrito. He just likes to be part of any music being played, so he thought he would tune Rachel's guitar a bit while she sang him a song.



After that, the day was a blur of location changes. Hollywood Blvd, Runyon Canyon, the Sunset Strip and ending at the Kibitz Room on Fairfax. (A thank you to Mark Canter for letting us shoot at the famous Kibitz!) The city of Hollywood was good to us, and if you can believe it, we were on schedule all day. I attibute this to my son, the PA, who kept us on track, or at least me on track, knowing that timing was of the essence and I did not want to deal with a major melt down during the shoot. He did surprisingly well, and once again I am reminded at how lucky I am to have such a wonderful supportive family in my hubby and son, who together we make an unstoppable team. I must also thank Carrie Diaz, who was our fashion stylist on the shoot, she gave 'Frankie' the exact look I wanted and she kept me company and in giggles all day long.

Now comes the editing. We must condense one hour of shooting into one minute. Awesome. We actually have so much good stuff, we might do two or three teasers too! As we put Knitter on a plane back to KC today he will get to step three. This is gonna be good.