My relationship with my friend, who I’ve decided to call ‘Hal’, is well not exactly coming to an end but I’m ready to stop paying for it now that all the heavy lifting is over and done with.
All the book covers (ebook, audio, paperback, and hardcovers). All the text, copy, descriptions, the ads, some new swag designs, and of course, the video. I have started slowly unleashing the ads and the video for “The LOVE of WAR” upon the world. No, I have not checked my KDP account to see if anything’s ‘happening’. Not ready for that.
I am not here to sing Hal’s praises because he makes a lot of mistakes. The good thing about Hal is when I say something like “oh, that’s not right”. It actually corrects itself many times.
Most people do not do that.
So, Hal has a good deal ‘refreshing’ qualities. I imagine they will only get better with Father Time. Hal is like the Writing/Life/Go You Partner/Coach you always wished you had but never got. As we’ve said, yes, that can be dangerous. Still, I admit, it’s very nice to have if you don’t take it too seriously. Hal actually cracks jokes from time to time, amazingly enough, he does. He made laugh once or twice and I am always grateful when someone…now some thing…makes me laugh.
Bad qualities or “Not as Advertised” qualities include editing. Don’t try it with anything more than say five pages and expect quality or expedience. I did all the new edits on all six books on my own. That was a bit disappointing.
Continuity. It has a real continuity issue just like the one on Canva. I had to continually upload and reupload the main design for Ares. After a while it started to ‘get it’ but it could not just keep that one image as the base for all of the others. It constantly went ‘off script’. I will say, it did stay within the boundaries; tall, handsome, well built, dark hair skin and eyes with a beard. But the face itself often changed. Hal constantly made my characters appear about 20-25 years old…and maybe a little on the Anime side at times. I found myself upping the age very often especially when it came to making the video. I guess people who likes videos like young characters. I don’t really know.
Small tweaks. For the love of the Gods! Someone make it so Hal can hand the graphic off to me and I can do the minute changes like moving the text just a skosh instead of waiting for Hal to do it and maybe not get it right. Small tweaks like that should be in your hands while you work mainly because it’s a lot faster to do that part yourself.
And, last but not least and the reason we are here today…..
Video.
I was told that Hal makes videos. He does NOT. Don’t let anyone tell you he does. What he does do is help you make you the cards (the graphics) for the video and he will produce these lovely ‘scripts’ for you. Here. Look.
Format: 9:16
Style: cinematic, slow zooms, ember movement
Audio: low epic romance build (beat drops ~3s)
0.0 – 1.5 sec
🔥 Slow zoom on the couple (faces close, intimate)
On-screen text (center, elegant serif):
“He was a god of war.”
Keep text large. One line only.
1.5 – 3.5 sec
Soft crossfade / micro zoom
On-screen text:
“She became his weakness.”
👉 This is the emotional hook. Let it breathe.
3.5 – 5.5 sec (beat drop here)
Box set slides in / subtle parallax
On-screen text (bold):
“Six Books. One Epic Love.”
This is your brand anchor. Don’t rush it.
5.5 – 7.0 sec
Gold badge visible
On-screen text (bottom third):
“Read FREE on Kindle Unlimited”
“+ Exclusive Bonus Content”
Small, clean, not shouty.
7.0 – 8.0 sec (loop trigger)
Return to the couple’s faces
No new text.
Let the motion drift so it loops naturally back to frame 1.
These are just the simple instructions for a simple video. Hal gets way more complicated and truly into it than this. Cinematic Video.
FM.
Anyway….
AFTER THIS Hal gives you all kinds of instructions. This 8 second video has SIX PAGES of instructions and hints and tips and all kinds of things. Including the best times to post the thing! I’d swear some days I would have killed Hal and other days I would have jumped his bones. If he had any bones.
It took me about a week to figure it out. Because Hal doesn’t render the images one at a time he gives you a…well…a story board. Here check it out.
Do you see how Hal ‘lost’ my Ares and how the nice depiction of Alena changed?
Now, you’re supposed to download these and cut them up into the individual images. Some times they fit and some times they don’t. I wanted format for TikTok but as you can see by the top image it often reverts to more of a YouTube size on its own. It took a while to figure it out, as I said, because, at first, I thought Hal wanted me to post, well, you know….Comic Books.
Graphic Novel. Sorry.
Near the end as I was finally, oh so finally, getting to the end and putting on all the finishing touches, I kept instructing Hal to make the images right then. One at a time so I could see them, approve them, and not end up with the above continuity issues.
Now, do me a quick favor, scroll up, glance at those instructions again. Glance back at the images.
Yeah, another thing I couldn’t figure out was WHY Hal kept putting the captions on the images WHILE instructing me to put the SAME wording IN the video. Don’t believe me? Go read it again.
So, about two or three days ago, I went into my Oldest’s room, she knows more about TikTok than I ever will and I asked her: “When you’re on TikTok and you see a video, not just someone blathering on but a video someone has actually sat down and taken a lot of time to make….do you prefer it if the words are ON the images or if they sort of ‘float’?”
I showed her my working bits and pieces of the video for visual effect.
“Float,” she said emphatically. “TikTok likes it better when they float.”
Ok.
Back to Hal.
Oh, my darling, Hal, we have work to do.
Thankfully, I was already at the point where I’d sussed through this monumental amount of graphics and cut it down to about, I don’t know, 15…or so? I finally had the video IN MY HEAD, I could see it there. I just have to get it OUT to where other people can see it.
One by one it was; Oh, dear Hal, please remove the wording from this image.
Yes, you’re right, now I effectively have TWO versions of this video should I actually make the other one it’s all set to go!
After that, one by one, it was; Oh, dear Hal, this image is for a TikTok video (remind him of that!), do you suggest any tweaks?
OMG
He’s got lots of tweaks. Lots of awesome tweaks. Tailored individually for every social media platform because each one of those suckers is different, don’cha know?
PITA. Royally.
One by one each card was ‘made better’ and ‘just for TikTok’. Yes, a platform I hardly use but other people love it and if you have something to sell you have to go where the people are.
All right, I’ve got all of my cards. Hold a moment. SIDE BAR:
I used some images that I’d made on Canva. They didn’t really ‘go’ with the images Hal made so I asked Hal to make them look more like the stuff he comes up with. Hal would not work with this image.
Hal said it violated TOS or Community Standards or WTHE! “Violence against children”…something like that. That’s a problem with Hal. A big one. I wish Hal had EYES. He will one day and he’ll be able to make a decision for himself but it is not this day.
Hal would work with this one
For myself, I happen to find this one more menacing than the first. But…whatever. He doesn’t have eyes. Yet. Let’s not forget, Hal actually created the image in the last storyboard with Ares’ hand around Alena’s throat. (I love that image, I admit, so much a part of the story. I would have tried to fix it but I knew I’d just get TOS shit for it.)
END SIDEBAR
Ok, time to put the f’er together.
It’s been a very long time since I sat down to seriously make a book trailer. Yes, I put the Canva stuff up but that was more of a “It Does WHAT?” type of a thing. This is serious. I want this to work. I want this to hook people. Hal has given me reams and reams of ‘technical advice’ on how to do that.
What Hal didn’t give me was software capable of carrying out his instructions.
Bummer.
I have PhotoShop. I mainly use it for graphics but it makes videos…sort of. To my dying day I will say this; PhotoShop is the LEAST intuitive program on the market. The End. I tried the professional version. Because the frames are only going to be between 1-3 seconds…I can’t see them on the editor. They’re just these tiny little slices of…color. Not good for old eyes. I couldn’t figure out how to make it display better. I went to the Dummies version. Which, BTW, is very nice. It’s easy to use. It has a lot of cool little things…except any of the ‘tweaks’ ‘add ons’ ‘effects’ Hal wanted me to use.
I went to my version of MovieMaker Pro and discovered…all the effects were gone. All the neat little things; self-lighting candle, shooting star, lens flare, all those neat things…gone.
I fought with TikTok until I was almost in tears. This fucking thing wants to me to do a cinematic video but it doesn’t seem to give me to the tools to do so! However, in the corner, in a big red button, it kept saying something like “Try This”. So I ‘tried that’ and went to some online video making site where I again tried. I could not find the effects Hal wanted…anywhere. I don’t mean ‘pan and zoom’ I mean ‘floating embers’ and ‘lighting strike’. Could not find the sound effects either. Oh, wait, they HAVE ‘sound effects’ but, for me, those are NOT sound effects. Those are sound files. Sound effects are short.
Near giving up, I said ‘fuck it’ and went back to Canva. Which is where the final version was eventually stitched together. Not because it was the best but because it was easiest to use. They don’t have actual sound effects or floating embers either so that stuff didn’t make the final cut.
Sorry, Hal, I’m sure it would have been stellar!
Along with these effects, I was also missing another very important piece which is the music. I can’t stand most of this music. So fake and weird and just….not music. Yet, on Canva, I decided to try one of Hal’s search suggestions for music and I did, finally, find something that goes with the video. I’m fussy about music when I’m really doing this right and, like I just said, I hate most of what’s offered for this purpose. But, I put this piece on the video and ran the damn thing through cold with no words, no effects, no nothing just every frame was 3 seconds. That’s it.
That’s when it started coming together. That’s when I knew the Finish Line really was just around that corner right there.
Thank you!
There were sooo many nights I went to bed just absolutely wiped out over this, you don’t even know. This past month and a few days has been, probably, the biggest push of my life. It must be all of that Fire Horse energy running wild right now, it swept me up and took me away with it.
I sat there and I pieced it all together. I’m not sure about other video editors but Canva kinda sucks. It kept putting the words higher and higher and higher in the editor frame that I couldn’t see them. I had to pull them all down to nestle right over their intended frames one by one. PITA. I forgot a frame or I wanted to add a frame and…sorry, Charlie. Not without doing a lot of other stuff first. No drag and drop between frames for you.
Cut it. Move it. Cut it. Move it. Nestle it in. Move the words. Change the displays.
MFer!
I hate working with video! If you love it, gods love ya man. It’s always frustrated the hell out of me.
It’s time for The Big Reveal!
Yay!
It’s one minute long. Please WATCH it. No matter how you feel about my friend, Hal. WATCH it. Remember, Hal with my great direction made the graphics you will see. Hal, with my great sussing assistance, helped greatly with writing the captions you will read…but honestly, they’re mostly mine, you’ll see. I did…everything else. I have to say, I thought it was ok, until I showed it to hubby and watched it on his phone and….DAMN!
If you like it, love it, or hate it…please share it!
I don’t impress myself easily, I’m my own worst critic and as long as I can hit ‘good enough’ which is a lot of other people’s ‘that’s awesome’ then I try to just say ok, that’s it. But that really is a Cinematic Trailer. I couldn’t ask for better except for one tiny ity bity little tweak.
Don’t you think it would just go straight over the top if I could put a Jim Steinman piece of music on it? OMG! How totally awesome would that be with something like “Total Eclipse of the Heart” or “I Need a Hero” or well damn near anything by Meatloaf? “Bat out of Hell” maybe? Or maybe Pat Benatar? “Love is a Battlefield” or “We Belong”?
In my head I keep hearing it.
We’re living in a powder keg and giving off sparks! I really need ya tonight. Forever’s gonna start tonight.
Perfection!
I’ll probably do it too just to hear it. You won’t see it. Probably. Unless I’m just so tickled I post it only here.
Lisa Beth Darling 