Before Ever After Book Trailer: Behind The Scenes

Now that you've all seen the book trailer for Before Ever After, I thought it would be fun to show you what went on behind the scenes of the video shoot.

The concept of the video came from the novel's story-within-a-story theme. Jake de Guzman, the trailer's producer and director came up with the idea of recreating the book's cover and using it as the device to tell the story. To do this, the team needed to create mock-ups of the elements in the cover.

First up, the book:

We hired an artist to duplicate the design of the book. To give it depth, the  fake cover was printed on textured wallpaper. Do you want to see what the paper looked like before we printed the design on it? You're staring at it. I took a photo of the leftover paper and Vincent Sotto (my younger brother whose burst appendix set me on the path to writing Before Ever After) incorporated it into the website's design. Waste not, want not.  (As for the glue gun – we never did learn how to use it. We stuck the cover onto an old book using double sided tape instead. Sorry, Martha Stewart.)

Next, we needed flowers:

Um, yeah…I may have gone a bit overboard in the flower department. I put the extra ones to good use  in the living room.

 

One thing we didn't have any  leftovers of were the baked eggs.

My hubby made six servings – some disappeared before reaching the set…

 

When all the  props were ready, it was time to put everything together.

We shot the video in my backyard. That's Jake and Chris Costello (the director of photography) standing by our fake table. The tabletop was made by printing a HUGE sticker and sticking it onto a board. We set the board on top of my kitchen table and presto! Instant weathered tabletop.

Did you notice the shadows flitting over the book in the trailer?

This is how it was done:

Hi-tech, right?

Once we got the shadows right, it was time to shoot the trailer.

Setting the teacup down was the easy part.

Keeping the book open while we  filmed was not.

We cheated by having another hand hold down the page.

 

So now that you know about all the hard work that went into the trailer, tell me the truth…

Do you think my hand will ever win an Oscar?