Beaches, books and book-trailers . . .
Rheban Beach
I’m back at the shack, staggered in with a supply of the cooking from the other day, with a supply of wine (naturally), with the computer and some files, with the dogs and with my overnight bag. The overnight bag is never for overnight, I am rarely here overnight . . . days at a time usually and thus the bag contains underwear and a sponge bag. Shack clothes are left here . . . you know, the faded denim shorts and jeans, the old polo-shirts, the beaten-up boat shoes, the white wind-cheater that is so loved that it’s worn at the neck and wrists. So why then does the overnight bag weigh a tonne?
It’s because its filled with books. Peter Mayle’s The Vintage Caper, Phillipa Gregory’s Alice Hartley’s Happiness, Osho’s Spiritual Path . . . Buddha, Zen, Tao and Tantra. (It weighs a tonne on it’s own), and the chicklit to be returned to my little library down the road. And the last back-breaking book fitted in was Peter Barber’s wonderful The Map Book, also to be returned to the library. Having unloaded and switched on the computer, I could no longer ignore the unscarred beauty of the sky nor the sound of waves beating the shore, so the dogs and I stepped out the long way . . . down to the river to wade through the high tide as it ebbs toward the ocean.
And this is where I ran into my brother who has been on a fishing jaunt for three days. He and the other salt-encrusted souls had just returned to the jetty after checking the crayfish pots (lobster to the rest of the world) and he yelled out did I want to see the rough-cut of the book-trailer? Yeah, I shout back! (Of course I do. Ye Gods, I was beginning to think the whole thing was a figment of my overactive imagination).
So he wandered off the jetty, covered in fish scales and some other unmentionable parts of the fish he’d been cleaning and we went into his shack and he switched on his computer . . .
There it was . . . and I tell you, I am sooooo excited! It looks great to my inexperienced eye. It hasn’t been timed-out yet, and there is one bit that is too long he says, so he wants to cut it back. He wants the whole thing to time-out at about 1′ or 1’10”. He maintains each frame needs only to be long enough that people can read the text and he also maintains that if it is long, viewers will be impatient at the download time and move on. I have to say I agree, because I have baled out of a download numerous times for that exact reason. My only wish is that I would have loved Richard Armitage to star in it, or in the movie of the book, or movie of any book that I write. No actually, maybe not star, but direct because I think he has a compelling understanding of angst. But . . . not likely to happen, so I am thrilled anyway and hope one day to load it onto Youtube, onto Mesmered and onto my website. In the meantime
Stapleton Beach
there is a beach waiting and I really must have a swim. After that it’s back to The Shifu Cloth . . . if I can remember what’s happening.
Oh and by the way, isn’t it great that all the family are still speaking after the big production exercise!
I sooooo want to see this.