On Hold

Making Movies

Oct 4, 2023

It seems like a long time ago now, and, in fact, it is twenty-years or so, but once upon a time, I wanted to be a filmmaker. Or, to be more precise, I wanted to be a screenwriter.

The ambition was a logical extension from my early years of writing stories in notebooks. Back then, there was no independent publishing the way we have it now. If you wanted to be a novelist, you either had to work with a traditional publisher, or vanity publishing. Neither of which were things that I particularly wanted to do.

My first alternative was writing plays. I was in year eleven of secondary school, when I wrote my first (and so far, only) play. It was called Walking in Shadows and maybe I will tell you about it some other time. Although my career as a playwright was short-lived, the script was enough to get me onto a new course called Moving Image at the local college.

I stayed at the college for four years, getting a National Diploma, followed by a Higher National Diploma. During that time, I wrote a lot of short screenplays, several of which were filmed, and there may have been one or two feature length scripts as well.

The course was not specifically in screenwriting, however. As well as writing scripts, I had to film things, both fiction and non-fiction, and edit them. Editing was my least favorite part of the course. Perhaps it was because the computers were slow and it took ages to do everything, but I think it is something more fundamental than that. Even today, editing is my least favorite part of making books. I much prefer having the ideas in the first place.

Fast forward to today, and I am an independent author trying to get the word out about my books and I thought one way I could do that was by making a short video trailer. Imagine my surprise when I discover how much I enjoy cutting images together with music.

It was not what I’d expected at all. I’d expected the work to be dull but worthwhile. Now here I am thinking of all the cool things I could do with a thirty-second teaser trailer for a book.

The trailer is basic. I am cutting it together using iMovie (at college we used Final Cut) but this might just be the start. The hours spent huddled with friends in the editing suites are coming back to me and I’m enjoying it immensely.

I should finish the trailer this week, and I should have it on YouTube next week. Who knows what I am going to make next?