The Making of the Lessons of Desire Video

(This article was written in late 2007.)
 

Jon Woodward, who plays Elliot

I had an impulsive idea a couple of months ago. Wouldn't it be cool to make one of those video trailers for my next historical romance, Lessons of Desire (due September 25)? What the heck, I thought. I'll take a shot and see what happens.

The way I saw it then, I'd contact that company that makes them, sign up, and voila', it would be done.

Um, no. It turned out I had to do a bit of work myself before we got to voila'. COS Productions wanted to make a video that I liked and approved, so they needed my input.

Samantha Colburn,
who plays Phaedra

This was how I found myself in early August looking at hundreds of faces. My video was going to use live action, which meant an actor and an actress had to be hired. I needed to help make the choices.

My producer opened a folder for the project at an online West Coast casting site, and posted the job description with general appearance requirements. Actors and actresses deposited their headshots and resumes in the folder. I could then go online and look at their files from my home in Pennsylvania.

I have never associated my characters with known faces. So for the part of Lord Elliot Rothwell I was not looking for a guy who looked like Famous Actor Whomever. I was just looking for a guy who looked really good and who could pass for an early 19th century son of a marquess. Since my really good may not be everyone's really good, I had to eliminate certain faces that others on the team strongly disagreed on, and vice versa. It was a consultative process, as in:

Me: How about him? Second face in the third row. I think he is hot.
Team:
Me: He has a certain something. . .you don't like him, do you?
Team: You are the client. It is important that you are happy. (spoken in a tone of patient professionalism).
Me: Never mind.

By day three of this, I was feeling sort of funny because the process had a retail market aspect to it. If the face was wrong, all the credits in the world would not matter, so the first cut was strictly on looks. It felt like buying clothes. Go to the rack, flip through the jackets-- quick look, quick rejection, pause for a maybe to check it out more closely, set a few aside to try on.

My problem was that darn few were being set aside for the part of Elliot. It wasn't that the actors were not good-looking. Quite a few were. Many of them, however, were thoroughly 21st century American in appearance. Lots of adorable cute college frat boy types. Quite a few apple-cheeked happy Midwestern types. Almost no piercing-eyed, hard-edged alpha types.

Then there was the matter of height. The actresses for the most part were tall, so for that reason alone we needed a tall actor. On the face of it, no problem. According to the resumes, every male actor in southern California is at least 5' 11". And most are over six feet. If there aren't many tall men in your neighborhood, now you know where they all went.

Except the resumes also told another story. In addition to height they included more detailed measurements for wardrobe purposes. When a guy who claims to be 6' 1" wears a 38R and has a 30 inseam---he is lying about something (No! Men lie about their heights? Say it ain't so).

Then one evening I went online, opened the folder, and there he was. Slam-dunk. Great eyes. No micro cut. Genuinely tall. Looked late twenties and not nineteen or forty. I sent a two word email to the producer: "Hubba hubba." She hubbaed back. Jon Woodward went into the try on pile, right on the top. I really liked that jacket.

Time for auditions. What if he didn't show? What if he couldn't act? What if he shaved his head after the head shot? There were other try ons, but as you know, when you have decided you want THAT jacket, it is very disheartening when it doesn't fit.

I received the audition downloads. Not only could he act, he was the best actor. Hey, I wasn't prejudiced! He really was.

These auditions were enlightening. See, headshots are static. They are idealized and perfected with lighting, PhotoShop---it is amazing what can be done with a headshot. For an example of these miracles, go see mine.

Auditions are video. Live action. The real thing. Merciless. One actor was so unlike his headshot in so many ways that I actually did not recognize him. I emailed the producer asking where that guy's audition was, only to learn I had already watched it several times.

On the whole, however, it was not the actors who provoked serious reevaluation after the auditions, but the actresses. When it came to the part of Phaedra Blair, the three highest ranked try ons disappointed, but another actress dazzled. Samantha Colburn made herself a slam-dunk once the camera rolled. Not only was she even more lovely than her pictures, but her acting outshone the rest.

I was very fortunate that the talent for the Lessons of Desire video were good actors, because as the process continued I realized something crucial.

In a trailer for a paranormal or a suspense book, weak acting can be worked around by emphasizing something else like special effects or shots of the heroine running from the psychopath. In an historical romance, it is pretty much all about the characters one-on-one. The actors have to carry the whole thing.

I haven't decided yet whether I will do another book video, but I am happy with this one. Oh, I can wish I'd had twenty thousand dollars to throw into costumes and sets, but it worked because of Jon and Samantha, and because of the professional skills of Victoria Fraasa, the director and producer. They treated my Lessons of Desire three minute book video as seriously as a two hour, high budget film, and gave it their all.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who are the actors? Are they friends of yours?

Jon Woodward is the actor playing Elliot Rothwell. Samantha Colburn plays Phaedra Blair. They are both professional actors who live and work in California. I do not know them personally.

Did you get to choose the actors?

I was involved in choosing the actors all the way through the process and the final decision was mine. I took the advice and opinions of the rest of the team very seriously though. The link on my video page to an article on making the video takes you to a description of how the actors were chosen.

Were you on the set while the video was made?

I could have been, but I chose not to be present. It was filmed in California in August and I had other commitments at that time.

Does a writer need to know about video production before making one of these book videos?

It is possible to produce your own video but I hired a production company to make it for me. I also have a private publicist and media advisor, Shannon Aviles, who guided me during the process and advised throughout the production. Her extensive experience in media productions of all kinds was invaluable to me.

One of your long versions has credits, like a movie, but I have also seen another one that doesn't. Is that normal?

I chose to put the credits on as a "thank you" to the actors and the people behind the scenes. For certain distributional purposes a long version without the credits was also made.

I noticed a few errors in the costumes for the period of the story. How come?

I knew going in that with my budget this video was not going to have the historical detailing of a BBC production. There would be compromises. However, I quickly learned that costumes and props can be the wild cards in an historically set video. Finding precisely accurate costumes for the mid 1820s was impossible in the context of our budget and schedule. We would have had to make them, and for the male clothing that would be a very expensive and lengthy tailoring process. I approved going a few years earlier in time, to the Regency, to give us some rental options.

Your video has more acting scenes than some of the others that I have seen. Was that your choice?

I did not plan on the actors having so much "face time". It just emerged from the story as the script was developed. Lessons of Desire is emphatically the story of the relationship between two characters and that was what the video had to be about.

The music surprised me. I expected period music.

I decided not to use period music for a couple of reasons. First, I thought it would be too predictable. Second, the dynamics of the video would be determined by the music, and the dynamics of a classical piece from the period would be hard to adapt to in editing. I wanted something more modern, stronger, and with a rock subtext (not heavy metal!). It really came down to an idea I had in my head about how the video would play.

Were there any surprises in the process?

I learned some things, mostly that I had to make decisions based on why the video was being made and how the viewer would see it.

For example, in the book Phaedra almost always wears black. She announces her nonconformist views with her garments. While the script was being finalized, I realized that in the video we would not be able to communicate why she wore black. The viewer would assume she was in mourning or even a widow. It would also be visually boring. So I decided that for the video she would not be in black in every scene.

Also, a three minute book video is not a mini-movie. It is more like a moving book cover. In concept it is closer to a music video than to a movie trailer. So every scene is not derived directly and specifically from one in the book. The goal is to communicate the feel of the story, the characters, and the love story. It is an adaptation. On the other hand, I don't believe that anyone who reads the book will think the video was inaccurate or incorrect in evoking the book's content. I think that it communicates the essence of the story very well, especially the conflict and dynamics between Elliot and Phaedra.

Will there be a movie?

Don't I wish! No, there won't be anything longer unless a film company asks to make one.

Who produced it?

Circle of Seven Productions produced the video.

Can I copy or download the video?

If you leave it intact you can. In fact, I hope that you will! As a copyrighted work it should not be sliced and diced or further edited, however.

How do I copy the video?

The easiest way to copy a video onto another website is to copy its embed code and just stream the video from the original site.

For example, my video is up at Myspace among other sites. If you do a search of my name under the Video search tab on Myspace, you will find both the short and long versions. If you go to the page that hosts one of those videos, there will be two lines of code under the video. The first is a url to email to someone or use to make a link. The other, called Code, is the embed code. It is in html. Click on it to highlight it. Then right click your mouse and click on "copy". Go to the web page you are building, to where you can make changes in html, and copy the code there. The video should be embedded on that page. If you have a Myspace page, this would be put in something like the About Me section or other htmal section accessed off your profile page. When you embed, the hosting site still hosts the video. It is not on your hard drive. It streams from the original hosting site.

If a video is available as a download (and I hope to have mine available that way soon), there will be a link that you click. When the box opens that asks whether to open it or save it, choose the latter. When asked where to save it, consider choosing your desktop.Make sure the file name is something that you recognize and change it if necessary before going on with the download.

Keep in mind that if you download a video you will need a player on your computer in order to view it. The player will have to be compatible with the type of file that the video was saved as. The most common video file types are Quicktime and Windows Media Player. If you have a PC bought in the last few years you probably have the latter on it. However, both players are easily available for free downloading and installation. Just google to find the sites.

When you download, the video is actually copied to your hardrive. They tend to be large files, and downloading a video without a high speed internet connection is a slow and maybe frustrating process. However, the downloaded video will probably play better and more cleanly than it does on one of the video hosting sites, because streaming sometimes causes distortions in color, lighting or resolution. A downloaded video can also be enlarged in the player to fill the whole computer screen.

I can't get it to play.

You need to have Flashplayer for the streams from Myspace, Youtube, etc. Most PCs and MACs come with it and have for years. However, it can also be downloaded free.

How much did it cost?

Significantly less than ten thousand dollars. I'm being vague because budgets vary widely depending on what a writer wants to do. The general range of costs for videos by this company can be found on their website. Other companies might have different budget expectations, of course.

Watch the Trailer 

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