Wednesday, November 28, 2018

The Making of a Trailer

In getting ready to launch Lilac Wine - The Podcast, I wanted to make a promo that captures the feel of the story. I based the idea on a music video that I made a few years ago in which the pages of an old photo album come to life. The video was for a song by the Civil Wars called "20 Years." I made the music video for a contest. I didn't win, but liked how the video turned out, nonetheless.



I needed to find photographs that captured the spirit of Lilac Wine. Scouring the internet for public domain images from in and around 1917 was not too difficult.  Within a few minutes of googling, I found these pictures:


These images are from 1917, found in a Hungarian photo website.  I just love them. The image on the left really captures the feel of Lilac Wine.

I needed to add some wine to the image, so I went to a photo that I have from the Civil Wars music video. That video features pictures from a photo album I bought at an antique store. I simply took the bottle off of the table of this picture from 1902 and added it to the chair in garden the picture.



Add a flower garden picture from the early 20th century:



And finally, a World War I battlefield, courtesy of the Library of Congress:


Oh, and we can't forget the World War I soldier. This was from the original concept book cover I made back in 2010. I don't remember where I got that original image, though.


I then created a large image in photoshop with several layers, adding trees in the foreground and more colored flowers as well.



I positioned the layers in a 3-dimensional space in Adobe After Effects and moved the "camera" in and out and across the 3D space. I then added some royalty free music and narration from Rachel Vissing, a colleague and fellow collaborator on the We Are EG podcast at Elk Grove High School and voilĂ : the new trailer for the Lilac Wine Podcast.



Tuesday, November 27, 2018

Lilac Wine - The Podcast

It is official: Lilac Wine - The Podcast is ready for you to subscribe! Check out the promo below. You can subscribe on your favorite podcast service.  Although the official release is January 1, subscribe now to receive the prologue of the novel sometime in December.  New episodes will be published weekly starting January 1, 2019.



Special shoutout to Rachel Vissing for providing the voice over for that trailer. Come back soon for a behind-the-scenes on how the trailer was made.

In the meantime, go and subscribe to the podcast on either Google or iOS:

Listen on Google Play Music        Listen on Apple Podcast

Sunday, November 11, 2018

Coming Soon: Lilac Wine, the Podcast


It's been awhile since I posted to these pages. But that is about to change.

Although I haven't been actively posting, or writing for that matter, Abelia and Robert are always in my thoughts. They are a part of me and rarely does a day go by when I don't think about them in one way or another.

Life has gotten in the way of writing, I am afraid.

So how do I fix that? By taking this project to the next level. By making the creative process public. Very public.

Starting in January, I will be reading the rough draft of Lilac Wine on a new podcast. Each episode will feature a chapter, with some behind-the-scenes insight on the creative process. Currently, I have 250 pages of the novel written. And once we get to that point, I will have to write chapters as we go through this together.

I will open a discussion board on this website, and allow listeners to comment and make suggestions about the story as we go. Tell me what you think as we crowd source the creative process!

Stay tuned for more information.