Animation: Take One!

You might recall me mentioning in my last post that I have started animating the trailer for my book, Soulbound, and I hope (sincerely) that it's done by Feb 10th so that it's ready for the ARC blog tour. Of course, trying to animate a minute-forty-second trailer in less than a month....weeeeell, since I have no prior animation experience, I'm finding it to be a delightful challenge.

As promised, this blog is the first of many detailing my adventure in teaching myself animation and going through the trials and tribulations of creating a smoothly animated trailer. First lesson:

MUSIC

The first time I tried making an animation some three years ago, I got the key frames done and was making some massive progress, but I stopped when my computer crashed. A few months later, I began again, but there seemed to be less organization and less fire, and the project eventually vanished from the back burner altogether. What was missing? I asked myself as I began this newest trailer. What had I missed out on last time, and why couldn't I seem to get things right?

Then a friend of mine, Mallory Rock of Mallory Rock Art, suggested I check out this Website called Audiojungle. And as I skimmed their collections, pulling up a few random songs that piqued my interest, I began to connect a little more with the idea of choosing the music first. Then, I found the song. The moment it started, I could see what I wanted to animate, how I wanted to time it, and how the music would impact the story I wanted to tell through my trailer.

This is it, I realized. This is the song I've been waiting for, and this is what I need to start my journey and finish it. So, I bought the song. Now, some of you know that I am pretty damn poor. Broke, actually, but I decided that if I didn't have this song, the trailer would never come into being. Since I'm putting forth hours a day to make my dream a reality, I figured $19 was worth it--especially since I couldn't afford to hire anyone to animate for me!

"Well, yes," you might say, "of course music had to be involved. But c'mon. That's not what I'm reading this blog for. What else did you discover?"

SPLITTING YOUR TIMELINE

Once I had my music, I imported it into Windows Movie Maker (told you I'm poor) and snipped it down. The original track was 2:15, and that's way too long for a trailer. The song itself is amazing, so I had a hard time pulling out bits of the soundtrack to make it shorter, but I managed to make it smooth enough that no one should notice.

After clipping my music to 1:37 (far more reasonable), I began the task of breaking the track up into three blocks: Animation segments, black segments (for drama), and text segments. To do this, I created slides in CS4 (thank goodness I still have this program from high school days! It has saved my arse so many times!). One says, "ANIMATION" on a white background, another says, "TEXT," and the last one is just a black slide.

My next task was to listen to the music in bits over and over, dropping in my new slides until they were timed right. I hit dramatic pauses, strong notes, bursts, and all sorts of lovely segments until I had a great flow and could listen to the entire song without changing a thing. This took me quite some time to accomplish (about three and a half hours), so if this is your first time ever making a trailer, don't expect it to go super fast!

"That's pretty boring," you might say. "When does the action begin? I thought you were animating this thing!"

Well, I am. But we're not there yet. Almost--I promise, but there's one more thing yet to do before we start animating!

TEXT SLIDES

Ah, the text slides. The fade-in, fade-out glory of shadowed-and-highlighted movie text on a black background. Text is quite important, because it's what draws the viewer along. Sure, you can have fantastic animation and breathtaking music, but none of that matters if your viewers and potential readers can't tell who is who, what's at stake for each character, and why they should bother buying your book.

I spent a goodly amount of time working through what I wanted to say, where to say it (more adjusting timing, fades, and working with those slides I used earlier to chunk out what goes when), and tweaking the text itself over and over until it was smooth and made sense. My boyfriend helped me here a few times, which was great. NEVER underestimate the helpfulness of someone nearby, because if they haven't read your work, they'll let you know when something needs changing.

Soulbound Release Date!

Hey, all! Sorry it's been so long. Between moving to somewhere an hour from my old place, the holidays, and some unfortunate family deaths, I haven't had much time to blog or do much else. Not to mention school on top of all of that. Things have let up, though, and I have some exciting news!

After working on my novel for 12 hour shifts over the span of two days, it's done. Done-done, too, not just a little done. This is the first time that I can put it away and say, "It's the way I want it," in, oh, about seven years. And considering this has been such a long project, I am happy to announce that Soulbound will be available for purchase on April 25, 2014.

You heard right. April 25, 2014 is when it will be released! Between now than then, though, YOU have the opportunity to be involved in the ARC blog tour! Just send me an e-mail at: mcfaddenkira(at)gmail(dot)com, and I'll put your name on the list. The only thing I ask in return for this FREE ARC copy is that you write a blog about Soulbound and your thoughts on the book. If you don't have a blog, e-mail me a review, and I'll post it on mine for the blog tour!

While a lot of this is still a while away (the ARC copies won't be ready until February 15), I am still getting my groove on. I started the massive undertaking of creating a completely animated trailer for Soulbound today. Yes, animated. No, not slide-show. Animated. As in animation. Which is something I've never attempted before, but it's looking pretty darn tootin', if I do say so myself. As I go through the (tedious) process of creating this essential part of my upcoming release, I'll blog about it and post updates. Seeing as today was only the beginning, I'll wait until tomorrow before I post anything, since I doubt there would be much for me to say tonight.

I'm also hoping to have the first book of my Middle Grade series ready for the Soulbound release so that I can reveal them at the same time, but we'll see. Somehow, I think that might be too much for me to handle, even if Frendyl Krune and the Blood of the Sun is halfway done.

Do you have any projects your working on? I'm always happy to share here on my blog about something you might be doing, whether it's a book release, an art project or anything else that's rockin' the world. Take care, stay tuned, and let me know!

Cloak Project

Hey, all! So, I have seen some awesome posts recently of friends making costumes for NDK (Nan Desu Kan), and decided I needed to do something to keep my hands busy, especially since I was laid off earlier this week (sucks, huh?). I've always wanted a winter cloak to wear, one with faux fur lining, and could never find anything I liked. With that in mind, I decided to make my own.

This is the inside when it's open. I chose a dark brown fur that mimics bear hide. It has some highlighting on it to give it a multi-layer sheen, and boy is it warm! Keep in mind that I have not done the collar yet. I hope to finish it sometime this week, but depending on my schedule, I may not get to it until much later. Here's a picture of the outside with it closed:

Nice, huh? I hand-stitched everything except the shoulders, which I snipped and resewed to allow for fit. It's a bit bulky because the outer material is stiffer than I expected. Also, I forgot to wash it before starting. Guess I haven't sewn in a long time. Not to mention to numerous times I had to rethread the machine because I spaced how to do it in the first place. THAT was a nightmare. Thank goodness for the Internet, huh?

And now a close-up of the suede I used and of the fur:

This is the beginning of eventual projects where I design cloaks based on the various high houses from Soulbound. The manuscript will be completed shortly and I'll have it sent to beta readers before Christmas, hopefully sooner. After that, I plan to get to work on the animated trailer I've always wanted to do, write some short stories for a collection of tales from Inrugia, start the sequel to Soulbound, and finalize the tee-shirt designs for the release. I am still hoping to go traditional with publications, but I don't know if that will happen. I've started querying agents, too, and will continue to do so until the first of next year. By then, I hope to have sent 100+ queries. If nothing comes back, I will start querying smaller houses and then we'll see. I feel I've worked hard to make Soulbound entertaining and a well-written read, but that's so similar to what authors say that I worry I'm not good enough.

Either way, time will tell. Once I have some sketches of the amuli house cloaks, I will post them. I want to start with the Anys house, and follow with Rybredel. Of course, the material for these things cost butt loads, so I doubt I will be able to afford them for a while. Still, I have the colors in mind and know where to get the materials! Huzzah!

On the agenda for today: Work on Soulbound and then write a short story for the collection. All before 3 p.m. Oooooh, that's about 4 hours. CAN I DO IT? ;) You betcha!