I’m teaching myself how to shoot and edit video. Because I learn by example, I’ve chosen to create a book trailer for “The Soul Thief,” using Final Cut Pro X and Logic Pro X (as well as Motion for some SFX). In common with most of the book trailers I’ve seen, I’m using minimal footage, relying primarily on effects, titling, and sound. That said, I have some clips I shot with two friends who are playing the parts of Angela and Cassandra; I am very grateful to them for their enthusiastic help!

Today, I spent a bit of time video editing, playing with basic effects, and experimenting. I bounced my sound track (yet to be mastered) and pulled that into the video project to see how it’s going. Right away I realized that I need to do something with the background, so I’m going to incorporate a still from the book cover, minus the shadowy figure (howdy, Mr. Soul Thief), scaling it up slowly as the trailer progresses. Everything should play on top of that; I’ll adjust opacity, brightness, etc to make sure things pop out as needed.

When it’s done, I’m publishing it to YouTube with suitable fanfare!

Time’s running out, though. Next Tuesday I will discuss my line edits for “The God of Battles,” after which I’m going to be heads-down to get that pushed toward completion.