I'm not a movie person. My friends all know that when they say, "Hey, Jen, you have to go see Juno, it's awesome," I'll nod and wait for the DVD. Maybe. Most of the time I won't even make it to the DVD (because I'm way behind the times and still actually have to go to a store to rent a movie -mostly because, like I said, I don't really like movies and having them arrive in my mail seems quite useless). The thing is, most writers I know love movies, probably because they use another form to tell a story. And we're story tellers, right? But I find that most movies disappoint, and if they're the film version of a book, they pretty never stack up to the experience I had turning the pages.
But tonight my aversion to film changed. Sort of. I still don't care if I ever watch another movie, but I've become an addict of Windows Movie Maker. I decided to kill time between books by making a trailer for LOCAL GIRLS and RICH BOYS. Had no idea how to do it, but last night I opened up Movie Maker for the first time and had a hard time shutting down. Tonight my daughter got involved, and as we scored the storyboard and rearranged videos and photos I felt like we'd both hit our stride. Making sure the music aligned with what viewers saw was challenging, if only because it felt like each second counted and being off by just one made a huge difference. It's not done yet, but I love it. LOVE IT! Making movies is way more fun than watching them. Surprisingly the hardest part of the whole thing is writing the copy to go along with it. All of a sudden each and every word matters because we only have 60 seconds to tell the story. I'll post the trailer here next month when it's my turn to blog again.
In the mean time, what do you think of movies? Do you find yourself as blown away by the trailers as I do, only to watch the first twenty minutes of a film and discover they used the best content in the 60 second promo? Do you find that book to movie adaptions rarely measure up?
UPDATE: Trailer is finished!!! I posted it above, took about 7 hours total to create from start to finish - a very fun 7 hours. Such a blast, Spielberg has been put on notice...
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6 comments:
I LOVE movies! haha! Of course there are some bad ones out there, and I'm usually not in favor of having novels turned into movies unless the flicks somehow turn out just right.
And the movie making IS fun--it's just a lot of work. Looking forward to yours!
Man, I am dying to see the movie trailer you've made! And now I wanna learn how to do it. You might have to post some tips with it next time!
I love movies, but not as much as books and for the most part I never find the movies as good as the books mostly because I'm like, what about this part?? You can't fit a whole book in a movie and I love every page of my fave books.
I can do without movies. You're right: they never meet my expectations. And even the movies I somewhat enjoy, I find myself sitting there wondering how much longer until the end. I'd rather sit and read a book for seven yours straight than sit and watch a movie for two.
Most movies based on books are awful, but I do think they did a great job with Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. I only read the first Harry book, but I was impressed that they got just about everything into the movie. I heard they skipped a lot from the later books, though.
Wow, Jen!! That is sooo cool! Kudos to you and your daughter!
That is absolutely amazing! I have so many questions! You need to tell us more about this!
Oh my god. I love it. I totally want to make one now. Nice work!
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