Is Windows Movie Maker A Blog?

READ ALL THE WAY TO THE VERY END FOR AN EVENT WITH A LOT OF FUN AND A LOT OF CHANCES TO WIN....NOT TODAY BUT COMING SOON!
Now, back to our regularly scheduled blog!

A week ago Sherri Shackleford had a truly inspiring and also hilarious guest day on Seekerville. You can go read about it HERE

But do it later, because mine is going to be lame by comparison so just stay put, okay?

Anyway, part of her blog was a really cool video with letters zipping in and out and I've seen that before and I WANTED IT! Which I mentioned in the blog comments. And DebH informed me that it was a video program that she was familiar with. She even offered to help me figure it out.

Well, I love DebH. Well honestly I love all you wonderful people who hang around here.

But Deb once sent me a picture of her four-year-old reading one of my books so she has a special place in my heart.

Well, honestly there's hardly a one of you wonderful people who haven't done something special.

 But Deb once….oh this could go on and on.

I'll just say…there are few people on this planet I hate enough to make them try and teach me anything techie. And certainly not sweet Deb.

So no. I'm not asking her to teach me.

Instead, I opened my Windows Movie Maker.
Now, I've made a video trailer for a book before.
How do I put this? How do I capture the full emotional experience in a way you can comprehend.

Let's say...I consider it A downward spiral into madness.
A hair tearing, teeth gnashing, strait jacket inducing exercise in futility.
Eight hours of my life that I am never getting back which resulting in a sub standard product which was; an embarrassment, sold no books, was not worthy of sharing and was most likely illegal.

You can quote me.

Now might be the time to go re-read Sherri's funny and inspiring blog

Okay, back to Windows Movie Maker.

What I learned from WMM (yes, I feel WMM and I are on a nickname basis now) is to K.I.S.S. Keep It Simple Stupid (BTW, I hate that term K.I.S.S. Keep It Simple Stupid, I don't know why, I just do. Probably the same reason Bruce Willis hates the word...bald)

But anyway, I decided to:
K.I.S.S. keep it simple.
K.I.S.S. Keep it short.
K.I.L. Keep it legal. (HAH! You thought I was going to tell you to shoot someone, didn't you? ADMIT IT!)

Toward this LEGAL end…I used only:
Parts of my book cover for images.
Words written and typed by me.
Music I sang myself. (HAH! Gotcha, on that one! Uncover your ears, sweet things) No, I toyed with the idea of reading the words written by me and using no music but ended up buying music, like legally buying it like...with...like…MONEY from istockphotos. Yes, photos, you can buy music there. Poorly named, I agree.
I found that by googling Royalty Free Music. Well, you know when they say Royalty Free Music, they mean FREE except for having to pay for it.
Free is one of those 'modern' terms that means it costs money.
So anyway. I paid for it but not much. I suspect you will be able to tell the 'not much' part, but let's just move along and stop being so judgmental, okay people!???

So back to the process. I typed up a very short blurb.  There was no sense making it long since I suspected nearly every human (and most animals) viewing it would be eager for it to end.

I used Microsoft Office Picture Manager (There are more modern ways to edit images but this is what I know how to handle. I think whoever told me about the more modern ways said something like, "Microsoft Office Picture Manager was invented by the dodo bird...well, they said something about a dodo bird, I'd become confused at this point and admit I quit listening...), anyway, I used Microsoft Office Picture manager crop tool to cut the hero out of the cover and save him. I cut the heroine out and saved her. I cut the center that says Trouble in Texas and saved that. (make sure and save these under separate names and not save them over the original because then you've got no original to go back and crop more off of…I can spare you some pain if you will just learn from my mistakes)

Then you open WMM

Click on New Project

Click on Pictures and upload all the pictures you're going to use (you can go back and find more later if you decide you want more pictures... like of your very own smiling face)

Then I drag and dropped them in the order I wanted to the line at the bottom marked Video

Then my words…(this...is where it gets Mary K.I.S.S.ed...there is a right way and a MARY way)

I cut the very very VERY short blurb into very very VERY short individual phrases.

Then I went to Titles and Credits

I clicked on Title at the beginning

Okay this puts whatever you do at the beginning but I couldn't figure out how else to do it.

So FINE, I put it at the beginning

Each tiny phrase

The first phrase, stayed there, before the first picture

The second phrase went to the beginning…then I dragged it between picture 1 & 2

I kept doing that. Put it at the beginning....drag it where I wanted it.

When I wanted the phrases to not be broken up by a picture I just put them one after the other, but I gave them their own credit box because I didn't want a big line or page of long dialogue to read, I wanted short and sweet.

Then, once it's all done, you can go to the left side of each box and right click it to get a red arrow and drag the box to make it longer or shorter. You can double click on the middle of the dialogue box to change font, color, animation, size. Very fun.

Then, you add music.

I bought this bit of music for six dollars from istockphotos.com and used it three times. They assured me I had purchased the rights to use it multiple times. My first choice was $46.

Eek!

Okay, well, several things helped me decide what to pick.

Time

Cost

And well, cost.

 I guess it was two things not several.

My FIRST first choice was 2 minutes long, but what do I do with a 2 minute song on a 55 second video? Maybe there's something. They did say something about Apple and editing and maybe iTunes and I think I had to breathe into a paper bag for a while at this point.

So anyway, there was a one minute long song but that's where the $46 came in, so I picked a 20 second (x 3 = 60 second) song for reasons of okay-ness, cheapness and simpleness, (K.I.S.S.) then went back and stretched my pictures out to make the video 60 seconds long, except there was some silence on the end of each song so like SURE it's a 20 second long song if you don't count five seconds of SILENCE so I should probably demand about $1.25 back but who'm I gonna call, huh?

So anyway, I downloaded that to my computer and it vanished into something called Windows Media Player, I think. But iStockPhotos (which kept trying to sell me cowboy photos, the sneaks) let me download it over and over (for no extra money, bless them, apparently I own all 20 seconds for eternity) until it finally went somewhere I could find. And I stuck it on my trailer.

(A very important note here from MARY, the first person who uses the word INTUITIIVE to describe this process may find themselves 'accidentally' left out of the drawing for the book. Grrrrr..........)

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Click to Buy on Amazon 

And now it's perfect(ish) and it's on YouTube and I'd almost love it except that there are ads at the end (which is what happens when stuff is free!) and one of them is a ghastly Miley Cyrus thing and I'd like to apologize for that and ask for your forgiveness (and hope Miley is asking for God's) and hope YouTube has moved on by now and there are less horrid ads and also ask you to avert your eyes and failing that, distract you by having THE FIRST EVER IN THE KNOWN UNIVERSE GIVEAWAY FOR A SIGNED COPY OF FIRED UP!

Leave a comment to get your name in the drawing.
End result of my exercise in trailers. (and remember, read ALL THE WAY TO THE END!)

Mary Connealy Upcoming Webcast October 8th! (THAT'S RIGHT, A WEBCAST...the way I understand it, my head will be like....moving and talking like alive and stuff...YIKES!)

Go Here to RSVP https://www.facebook.com/maryconnealyfanpage/app_152885818244770 and you will receive a reminder near the correct date and time.
Here's more info about what we're doing and the prizes we're giving away:

Best-selling author Mary Connealy will be hosting a web cast on October 8 at 8:00 PM EDT, where she will be introducing readers to her latest release, Fired Up. During the live online event, Connealy will be discussing the series, previewing her upcoming releases and answering reader questions. Throughout the hour, readers will have an opportunity to chat with other fans, answer trivia about the book and submit their own questions for Connealy to answer during the evening. A number of prizes will be given away to those participating in the discussion, including copies of Connealy's books and gift cards. At the end of the webcast, the winner of a Kindle Fire HD will be announced. The Kindle giveaway is being held in conjunction with the Fired Up blog tour being coordinated by Litfuse Publicity Group.