A Day With Connor MacKinnon

You’ve read excerpts, gotten a glimpse of Lady Sarah Woodville’s world, and you’ve told me you can’t wait to get your hands on Connor MacKinnon. Today, you’re going to get as close as you can get to him until July 3, when Defiant is finally on bookstore shelves.

You haven’t read a word I’ve written, have you? Your eyes are glued on the amazingly handsome man with the freaking fantastic body in the image above. Can’t say that I blame you. I spent Saturday with him. I even drew on his skin. Whoa! That got your attention! Now follow along...

As I was saying, I’m going to give you a glimpse of Connor MacKinnon today, and there he is. It goes like this...


Author and photojournalist Jenn LeBlanc of Illustrated Romance is a friend of mine. We met at the journalism awards ceremony where I was given my Keeper of the Flame Lifetime Achievement Award in May 2010 and Jenn picked up an award for photojournalism. Only we didn’t actually meet. We probably ended up competing for space at the very small bar at the Denver Press Club, but I didn’t stay long that night, hitting the town with my posse for champagne and overpriced food.

Jenn and I met again at Lady Jane’s Salon in Denver. I was there to read. I walked in, and this woman with lovely blond hair said, “Oh, my God! You’re her!” I was confused, and Jenn introduced herself, explaining that she’d been there that night and had heard my acceptance speech (which is on YouTube for those of you who are bored out of your minds at work on a Monday morning). 


Long story short, we both write romance. And she does something that I really appreciate: She takes photos of extremely sexy male models and couples for her books and for romance novel book covers. Jenn is the photographer who brought you the cover of Skin Deep — all that chiaroscuro and man muscle. Yes, that’s her work.

A few weeks back, she sent me a text of ripped, half-naked man with the text, “Connor?” My response was something like, “Yum!”

The half-naked man turned out to be Karl — who was much hotter in person than that phone image could possibly convey. His presence, the fact that he largely fits the description of Connor, and my son’s film degree kind of coalesced into an idea: make a live-action trailer for Defiant.

And that, my friends, is what we’ve spent this past weekend doing.


Benjamin and set out early Saturday — shortly after fuck-o’-clock in the morning — with some props, including my Brown Bess 1757 musket, lead balls (ammo for the gun), a powder horn, a leather medicine bag to use as a parfleche, and some other junk. We headed south to meet Jenn, Karl and Cora, another photojournalist who assists Jenn and often models for covers, at a park outside Lakewood where there was a lake. (Jenn had scouted out locations earlier in the week.)

Benjamin and I got there a bit early and sat there in the cool morning air watching a rabbit hop around and talking about firearms. Then Jenn pulled up in her Jeep with Karl and Cora. We were supposed to follow them, but I had left the lights on, so my car wouldn’t start. A smexy Ranger came along and gave us a jump, and we were off.


Now, when you’re in public and your grand plan is to get someone mostly naked in strange public places and to brandish firearms, you do wonder whether you’re going to end up getting arrested and making very awkward phone calls to family. We had this in mind as we reached the lake and hiked back to a less public beach. While Jenn, Benjamin and Cora talked about lighting, Karl took off his clothes, stripping down to a pair of swim trunks, and walked into the water.
 
God, I love my job!

 At that point, I could have started photographing the scene for a “making of” documentary. Instead, I was standing there trying not to stare, something akin to “Oh, holy God!” running through my mind as my estrogen levels abruptly shifted from “nice” to “very, very naughty.” I wondered for a few minutes how I was going to get through the day without acting like a 16-year-old in the midst of her first crush. (Jenn says I blushed. She does not have photographic proof of this, so I choose not to believe her. I do not blush.)
The water portion of the shoot lasted for close to an hour. There was chest washing, water trickling over pecs and abs, biceps washing. I gave Karl an overview of the story and what the hell Connor would be doing in a lake — taking a bath to wash away the blood of battle, it so happens — and then Benjamin coached Karl through some shots based on that bathing scene. It’s a good thing Benjy was directing, because I love men in water and would likely have kept reshooting those scenes until Karl’s toes turned to prunes.

While this was going on, Jenn was live tweeting it to an audience of our readers, who were waiting with photos on my Facebook page and on Twitter with the #StudioSmexy hashtag. 

When the water games were done, we packed up, remarking that we hadn’t yet been arrested, and headed off to our next location — where we found a sign telling us that we couldn’t use firearms. Since the legal definition of “use” is somewhat unclear and given that the place was crowded and that two Ranger vehicles were nearby, we decided that discretion really is the greater part of filmmaking and went somewhere else — Cora’s parents’ house. 
On our way, we passed what was clearly Jack West’s ranch, the Cimarron, but that’s another story.
Cora’s folks have a beautiful mountain home with lots of acreage of forest, where we set about the forest part of the shoot. Now, a Colorado forest looks nothing like a forest from upstate New York, but we couldn’t replant the whole thing. We had to make it work. We got out our props, had Karl switch from swim trunks to breeches, and got out Bess — my musket. 
Benjamin directed the shooting, while Cora helped with lighting and Jenn took photos. What did I do? Well, I drew the tattoos on Karl’s arms. 
This was not a hardship for me. Take an eyeshadow pen, draw designs on a sexy man’s muscular arms. Sure, okay. I’ll do that. I didn’t even lie and make up some story about Connor having extensive tattoos on his chest, thighs, back, butt cheeks, and lower belly. I could have done that, you know. (Sometimes, I’m too well-behaved for my own sake.)
 
The forest shoot lasted the rest of the morning and into the early afternoon as Karl was put through the paces of being Connor MacKinnon. Even though the costume was not historically accurate and the whole operation was ultra-mega-low-budget, there came a moment where Karl was running full-tilt through the forest when both Jenn and I got goose bumps.

There running through the trees was Connor MacKinnon, in the flesh. As Jenn later wrote on Facebook, it was like being in the forest with my muse.



Karl took the job very seriously, doing everything that was asked of him and handling the physical demands of it well. Fortunately, he has firearms experience, so we didn’t have to show him how to hold the musket. Working with people who’ve never held a gun and making it look natural is a filmmakers’s nightmare. We didn’t have to deal with that.
Benjamin came up with some clever ways of getting the footage he wanted, though I don’t want to give too much away. I won’t say more about that.

 After we were finished, I took everyone to lunch and got to talk with the man I’d spent the past six hours staring at. Karl is intelligent and concerned and fun — not at all self-centered or arrogant like some male models can be. We all had a great time.

And on July 3 to celebrate the release of the book, Reel Films (that’s Benjamin’s film company) together with Illustrated Romance (that’s Jenn), and I will bring you a live-action trailer for Defiant. I’ve seen the rough cut edit of the footage, and it’s fantastic. We’ll be getting together for some pickup shots next week — we’re adding Wentworth and Lady Sarah to the trailer — and then we’ll be down to sound and the soundtrack.

Only 15 days to go until Defiant is finally out and you get to read the book and see Connor in action!