Welcome to the first of what I hope will become a weekly blog entry on movies, fantastic and otherwise. Since I went and saw this movie in Imax yesterday I thought I would start out with this one. Of course I went and saw Jurassic Park at the theater when it first came out. And then bought the DVD as soon as it came out (or was it a VHS, I really can’t remember). It was much better than either of the sequels, which is not unusual. I have always been a big dinosaur fan, growing up like most kids with a love of the big guys. Of course, at that time most believed that dinosaurs were slow moving, cold blooded creatures. I read a book called Hot Blooded Dinosaurs by L. Sprague de Camp (yes, the scifi and fantasy writer) in which a new viewpoint was put forth that the creatures were actually warm blooded and quick moving. I embraced this theory, and was ridiculed by many friends. I was later vindicated, as now most scientist believe dinosaurs were indeed warm blooded and fleet of foot. So I grew up watching all the dinosaur and other big creature movies. My father told me about seeing King Kong in the theaters, and how the Willis O’Brien ape and dinosaurs looked very real to him. O’Brien did many other animated features (moving models around and photographing them) over the years, as did his protege’, Ray Harryhausen. Harryhausen extended the art to its ultimate, and the dinosaurs in The Valley of Gwangi looked very real to this child when I saw that movie. And of course there were the monsters that were nothing more than men in suits, Godzilla, Gamera, and the English takeoff, Gorgo. And I remember the awful slow moving animatronic beasts in The Lost World with Doug McClure. Like most zombies, you could slowly walk away from these creatures. And then along came Jurassic Park, and Dinosaurs were made real on the big screen. Of course there were some very well done beasts in movies before this, the dragon in Dragonslayer comes to mind, but most were only good because we hadn’t seen anything better. (Saw Dragonslayer recently and the dragon holds up well in modern times). I remember reading somewhere that originally the movie was to use animatronics, though I hope better ones than The Lost World (or was it The Land That Time Forgot?) And then someone told Spielberg that they could do something much better with computers. And now we have all those wonderful BBC dinosaur shows.
The dinosaurs in the new presentation of Jurassic Park looked much like those in the old one. Very well rendered, they looked like living creatures. I remember when I first saw them on the big screen I thought we had arrived, now we had animals that looked real. So Jurassic Park Imax 3-D did not really improve on the animals. They were on a larger screen, which made them look bigger, and the 3-D to me really didn’t improve on the experience. Oh, it was good 3-D, but again 3-D sometimes looks really cool, and at other times just seems like a wasted trick. And it still had the one complaint I had about the original presentation (since that’s basically what it was). There were not enough shots of the dinosaurs. I wanted to see more Brachiosaurs, Duckbills and others. Instead there was a lot of talking, with Laura Dern telling the old park developer how he had made a fatal error. If you liked the original Jurassic Park (which I did) the movie is still good. I really didn’t think the 3-D and the larger screen did anything for it though. You can buy the original movie on Blue Ray for just a bit more and watch it as many times as you want.
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I went to see this movie last weekend, and was looking forward to it after seeing the previews before some other movies. You know how that goes; sometimes they live up to expectations, other times they don’t. Now I grew up on the original The Wizard of Oz with Judy Garland. It was a big TV event every year, and every year it was a family event to watch it. It was amazing that a movie made in the early days of color was so good. Of course the new movie is a prequel, I guess you would say, to a movie that was made seventy four years ago. Of course the effects and the backgrounds were better, but just because a movie has better special effects does not make it as good. However, Oz did not disappoint this movie goer. From the opening in black and white Kansas, to the land of Oz in full glorious color, to the climax of the film, is was wonderful.
Not to spoil the movie, but Oz is about an illusionist, womanizer and con man working a traveling circus who, running from a jealous boyfriend, jumps on a hot air balloon. He is sucked into a tornado and ends up in Oz, where he is seen as the fulfillment to a prophecy. Of course the con man takes advantage of the situation, and his self serving behavior actually makes things worse. But his very behavior as a con man and illusionist allows him to combat the wicked witches at the end. To this movie goer the coolest thing about the film was how it could seamlessly lead into the original. A lot of origins were explained, and everything was kept true enough to the Wizard of Oz that you could watch them back to back and come away with the feeling that they were made that way. Highly recommended, and I give it five stars.
Last year I noticed that one of my Facebook friends, Author Laurie Hanan, had put a book trailer up on Facebook for comments. My comment was it seemed really cool, and that it must have taken some time to make such a thing. It had a series of pictures to tell the story of the novel, along with a music sound track, and looked very complicated to me. Not so, said Laurie, and I decided then and there to give it a try. Since then I have made trailers for ten of my books, and also made changes to some as my covers have changed. And now I will try to give all interested the step by step instructions on how I have made my book trailers. A word of warning. My trailers are all at least two minutes long, and more often three or more, while the experts say it should be ninety seconds at most. But who am I to listen to the experts. And choosing the pictures and music is up to you. You know your book or other project better than anyone else, so tell the story.
Now the first thing you are going to need is a movie making program. My computer, like most, came with Windows Live Movie Maker, which is adequate to the task. There are others out there. I think Roxio will do the job, but a search of the internet will reveal many completely free programs. Now with program in hand the next requirement are the pictures to put in the trailer (unless you want to go to the trouble to have actual moving pictures, which is not really necessary). There are a lot of sites that offer royalty free photos and drawing, including many public domain sites where the pictures are absolutely free. They can be googled under Public Domain Pictures or Royalty Free Pictures. Don’t get pictures that charge you a royalty for each use, as this can add up. Most royalty free sites allow use of their pictures for a small one time fee, unless you start using it a couple of hundred thousand times (like on a book cover that sells that many copies), and I for one am willing to pay the extra fee if the book is doing that well. Don’t try to use pictures that may belong to someone and are copyrighted, without permission that is, because it can cost you big in the long run. I get most of my pictures from Shutterstock, which has a selection in the millions and charges $249 for 750 pictures. Canstock has a smaller, but still good selection, and you can buy pictures in smaller batches than Shutterstock. Both sources are good. So gather your pictures, as many as you think you need to tell our story. And now for music. You can do a trailer without music, but I don’t know why, since it will be really boring. That said, I have seen a trailer that had no pictures, only writing and music, and that was just as bad. I get all my music from a site called Incompetech, and the only stipulation to using the free music is to credit them somewhere on the trailer. I try to pick a piece that seems to fit the mood of the book, and the length of the trailer, so I actually wait until I have assembled the pictures and know my length before making the final selection for music.
Now with the elements in hand I go to Live Movie Maker and arrange my pictures. You can drag and drop them, rearrange them, whatever, until you have your pictures in the order you want. I suggest that the first and last pictures be your book cover, to let everyone know what this thing is about. You can also choose the length of each picture, so that some will stay on the screen longer for emphasis, or others will flash across it. Now you add your text to each picture, using whatever effects the movie maker has to make them move across the screen. And then the music. At the end you can save the trailer in several formats. I suggest the high resolution one for Youtube, and the more compact one for Amazon or devices.
Upload the thing to Youtube, which requires that you get a Youtube account. From Youtube you can embed the trailer in other websites, or point people to it with links. It’s also kind of a kick to realize you have put something of a movie onto this site. And there is is. Not really hard at all. My first trailer took a couple of hours. Now I can get one done in about forty-five minutes after I have assembled all my materials. I don’t know how much these things have helped my sales, if any, but they might help, and will probably never hurt. And here’s an example of a trailer I made, my first one for The Deep Dark Well.
A couple of months ago I ran through my extended editions of all three of the Lord of the Rings films by Peter Jackson. And once again I was impressed with how good they were. Now I have some friends who, even though they liked the movies, still didn’t think they were enough. One old friend would have liked to see sixty one hour episodes in a TV series, even though TV wouldn’t have spent the bucks to get the big screen masterpiece that resulted from it being filmed as a major motion picture. Another complained that there was no Tom Bombadil. Now Tom might have added something to the movie, but really wasn’t central to the storyline, which had to be cut in some places, so that the four hour extended versions could actually be filmed. One complaint I heard several times was the use of Arwin in the movies. She really wasn’t shown much in the books, only really a passing mention in a couple of places. But when the novel was written a fantasy story could be told without too much character development, and today people want romance in the stories they read or see, just a bit. So Hollywood added that romance by a little more development of Arwin, in the only way it can be done in a film, by showing it.
Now all of the Lord of the Rings movies were good. You could see the development of the effects through the films, which got better as the series progressed. Makes sense, as new techniques and technologies were developed through those years. But the sum of the parts was better than the individual segments. The series was amazing in many respects. The production quality was amazing. The cast of characters was maintained through the three movies, something very difficult to do. I have seen many sequels in the past where a new actor played a character, and we were supposed to completely ignore that they were not the same person that played the part in the preceding film. Not so with Lord of the Rings. They kept the entire cast intact for the entire movie series. Frodo, Gandalf, Sam, Aragorn, Elrond, Galadriel, Saroman, Merry and Pippen. The gang stayed for all the movies. Now I know there are contracts, and I’m sure everyone was signed to one, but that doesn’t always prevent people from leaving. The second amazing thing was how the series fitted together like one seamless story, with the tension growing from episode to episode. Remember the big battle scene in Fellowship. Gandalf, Aragorn, Gimli and Legalos versus the Uraki. Oh, and a couple of Hobbits as well. The Two Towers featured an Army of ten thousand Uraki versus the defenders of Helms Deep, augmented by several thousand cavalry. Sure, there were some liberties taken with Helms Deep, like the inclusion of elves, but all in all it was a great battle scene. And then the battles of Return of the King, the great cavalry charge against the massive army of Orcs. The fight with the Olifants. Everything building to the final scene when the great eye crashes to the ground. It was definitely Jackson’s masterpiece, and an effort to be proud of. I bought the complete extended edition when it came out, retiring my standard editions, which were still good, but just not enough compared to those extra three hours of magical scenes.
Yes, Lord of the Rings was the ultimate fantasy experience. It had magic, a Balrog, great armies, single battles, dwarven mines and Elfin forests. It had flashbacks to the past that filled in the story for those who didn’t know it. It added a love story to the mix. The only thing it didn’t have was a dragon, and we have that coming in the Hobbit, Jackson’s future release. I think the money I spent on the extended additions is a good investment. I will probably watch it at least once a year for the rest of my life, and enjoy it every time.
When I was growing up I was really into comics. I had Spider-Man 1 through 100. Same with the Fantastic Four, and all of the X-men. I also read Iron-Man, Hulk, Thor, Submariner, Captain America and the Avengers, as well as any of the new comics like Lucas Cage. Now I also read DC comics, Superman, Batman, the Flash and Green Lantern. They were just too powerful for my tastes though, except for Batman, who had no powers at all. Superman, the Flash and Green Lantern were more akin to Gods than people with special powers. I guess the Hulk might have been a God as well, but he didn’t possess the intellect of a conqueror. Anyway, Marvel advertised their characters as Superheroes with problems. And boy did they ever have some problems.
Peter Parker was probably the one most identifiable to a child. A teenager himself, starting the tale while he was still in high school, Parker was picked on by the bullies and didn’t have much luck with the girls. Parker was smart, a science wiz in the manner of comic book scientists who can whip up a great discovery in an afternoon. And then he received his gift at the hands of a radioactive spider (since then they have modernized the tale to give it more of a retrovirus from a genetically engineered spider feel). And his gift included superpowers, great strength, agility and speed, a danger sense, and the ability to stick to things like walls and ceilings. Not strength in the class of the Hulk, or even Iron Man or the Thing, but enough to make him stronger than normal people. Not speed like the Flash, or even the water downed Marvel version, Quicksilver, but fast enough to allow him to dodge most assailants. Agility and wall clinging were his greatest abilities, coupled with the web shooters that he built for himself. Spider-Man turned into a wisecracking crime fighter who was so unlike the shy teenager he was in real life. His most common opponents were street criminals, though he soon graduated to villains with either superpowers or some kind of gadget which gave them a leg up over ordinary cops. Against the unpowered Spider-Man was almost unstoppable. Against those with super abilities he often had to use his brains to supplement his powers. I thought of Spider-Man as sort of Batman on steroids, though Batman never did anything as cool as standing on the ceiling while knocking out two hoods with a double punch.
Enter the Rhino in Marvel Tales 32, about the time the art work of Spider-Man was settling into good quality renderings. The Rhino was very strong, powerful enough to run head on into a moving eighteen wheeler and knock it backwards, while destroying the engine and cab. Maybe not quite the strength of the Hulk, more like in the Thing class. His skin made him bulletproof. And he was into using his size and strength to steal things. Just what Spider-Man was meant to stop, leaving saving the world and the Universe to groups like the Avengers and the Fantastic Four. At first things didn’t look good for Spidey, who could punch away all he wanted without hurting the Rhino. Unfortunately for the Wallcrawler, the Rhino could hurt him, and did. Until Spider-Man used his brains and his agility against his more powerful opponent. Using the slings and arrows of his verbal barbs, Spidey kept the Rhino pumped on anger and kept luring the big guy into charging him, and missing. The Rhino ran into walls, lampposts, vehicles, over and over again until he started to show the wear. He wore down, as Spider-Man jumped and taunted. Then Spider-Man finished him off. Now why do I consider this the best hero villain match of all time? For one thing it is still memorable to me forty some years later. For the other it was a hero who the villain could crush in a toe to toe fight. And the hero beat the villain using brains, strategy and agility. Sure, it wasn’t the Hulk against the Submariner. And most of the battles by DC’s Godlike heroes were the other way around, their villains were weaker and used strategy and trickery to beat their more powerful opponents. It always easier to cheer for the outmatched one, and Marvel gave us one of those fights.
I learned a lot about plotting from this comic, though I didn’t realize it at the time. The villain should be more powerful than the hero, stronger, better equipped, etc. And then the hero should use his or her brains to outmaneuver the villain, letting the villain beat himself up so to speak. That is the stuff of drama. No Dudley Doright using his strength and good looks to beat the smarter Snidely Whiplash. Great stuff from Stan Lee.
Who can forget that classic line from the Bela Lugosi version of Dracula. Before great special effects there were great vampire movies, with atmosphere making up for vamps turning to dust. Dracula , the invention of Bram Stoker, was the first well known vampire of film (and yes, I know that Nosferatu was before Dracula on film). And Lugosi was the best known Dracula. He played the bloodsucker in many movies, as well as some other vampires, and a mystique grew up around the actor from Eastern Europe that was perpetuated by the studios. Christopher Lee was also a well know Dracula, acting like a rational man until he saw blood, or the cross, at which time he turned into the mindless beast, reacting purely on instinct. There have been other Draculas, but almost all of them portrayed vampires as they were supposed to be, evil bastards out for the life force that would keep them going. It didn’t matter where that life force came from, babies, elderly people, strong men in their prime. The vampire would take it, and three days later another vampire would walk the Earth. No turning necessary.
Even in modern times there have been some great vampire tales, though the settings seem to have changed to that of the party and the club. The Lost Boys showed that though they could live forever (which almost never happens in vampire stories) they had to feed. Had to. No option to do otherwise. We Are The Night showed partying women vamps who left a trail of bodies behind that even an idiot policeman could follow, and they did. Let The Right One In was more of the classical vampire story, in which an immortal girl may seem innocent and depressed by her existence, but is still the predatory beast inside when it comes time to feed. And King’s masterpiece, Salem’s Lot, was a classic vampire story that showed the monster as death incarnate to an entire town, moving in and turning everyone into one of his minions, then moving on when the area was wiped clean of life. Now don’t get me wrong, I like a variety of vampire tales, as long as they aren’t Twilight. Blade, Buffy, Forever Knight all showed vampires that were not evil (though the majority of them were even in those tales. There was only one Angel, one Blade, and Nick Knight was the exception even though there were some vampires who were not really that harmful to society). But through all of this I still had a love for that old Dracula character.
When I decided to write a vampire story I wanted to make it different from most of the offerings that were out at the time. And to make them different I decided to go back to the roots, to the type of vampire that used to be the norm and no longer is. But I also did not want to write about a pure monster, a stone cold killer whose only motivation in life (or unlife) was to get enough blood to make it another night, so they could go out and do things the same way tomorrow). So I came up with the character of Lucinda Taylor, vampire, stone cold killer, but with other motivations. I thought vampirism was somewhat like drug addiction in its behavioral component. Vampires had to have blood, no matter what, and would revert to really self destructive behaviors to get it (like making a kill in public, not the smartest thing for the living or the undead). I made Lucinda an addict in life, fighting cravings while trying to get what she needed from men who were stronger than she was. And now that she was undead she could use that strength, the strength of the craving addict, to fight the cravings for blood that was part of her new heritage. She wanted blood, she needed blood, but she could fight off the urge long enough to avoid the baby, child, or mother that had conveniently come into range, and hold off until she could take the prey she preferred. Criminals, drug dealers, pimps, cruel men who gained their pleasure from the torment of others. She hated what she was, having gained some of her humanity back in the refusal to take innocent life. And she wasn’t about to make more like her, so her kills are destroyed by taking their heads or burning them, so they would not rise again and perpetuate the plague that is vampirism.
The Hunger is a gritty tale, one with sex and violence and street language as befits its setting. It is not a story for the prudish or the faint hearted. Not so much like the other books I have written. Still, I enjoyed writing this story, trying to come up with twists to the vampire tale that would delight other lovers of the fantastic. It will be offered for free on KDP Select on October 5th through the 9th. I hope a lot of people will download this Different Kind of Vampire Tale. Reviews are appreciated as always.
Lastly I want to thank all the people who have been retweeting my tweets about this novel and this event. And a special thank you to IndieAuthorAnonymous. They did a feature promotion on my science fiction novel The Deep Dark Well. They have grown in the month since, but were still more than happy to do the same for The Hunger. Thank you. And now for an excerpt:
Marcus’ eyes opened as the sun went over the horizon. He had felt no need to wake this day. The odds of finding her in the city during the day, when all of his infernal abilities were inactive, were remote to say the least. So he had slept through the daylight to make sure that he was at his strongest this night.
Marcus sat up in the marble sarcophagus and let his gaze settle on the quartet of naked thralls kneeling beside his resting place, their foreheads to the floor. Two large men and two petite women, they guarded him in his sleep. And provided food when he wished to hide his presence from the world. Marcus climbed from the coffin and onto the floor, allowing his thralls to continue to grovel for a moment. He savored the rank smell of their fear, for it was a sure indication that they would continue to serve him to the best of their abilities.
“You may rise,” he said in his deep resonant voice. The thralls came to their feet, their wide eyes locked on his face.
“Any news of the quarry?”
“Yes, master,” said the large black male, Frederick, handing Marcus the newspaper he had been holding.
Marcus snatched the paper from his hand. His lips curled back to bare his fangs as he read the headlines and the story beneath.
She has again given us away to the mortals, he thought. So far the idiots, or most of them at least, think it is nothing but a human playing at vampire. But how long before they begin to believe? And begin to seek us out and destroy us?
“Frederick. You are to continue monitoring the media for news of the quarry. Matthew,” he ordered of the muscular blond man standing next to Frederick. “I want you to shadow the dealers and the pimps of the city, so I may know their daily movements.
“Tonya, Gloria,” he said, turning to the shrinking females. “I will need to feed at nights end. If I don’t find a source tonight in the city…”
He knew what they were shivering about as he made the statement. They would provide his food tonight if he didn’t think it was safe to make a kill. They knew that he would not kill them. He would bring them to the brink of death, and then let them heal for several days, building up their blood levels and life force for his use again.
Marcus turned away from the mortals, sure that they would follow his wishes to the letter. He walked from the room with the heavy draperies to one that overlooked the bright night sky of the city, thinking of where the quarry might go tonight. To one of the high crime districts, he was sure. But there were many in every city, and he must guess correctly if he was to find her. Not the neighborhood she had frequented the night before. Of that he was sure. She would worry about police patrols staking out the streets, and the other hunters she had attracted.
He looked at the map of Tampa tacked to the wall, a red pin showing where she had hunted last night. There were nine other areas outlined in red marker. The high crime districts of the port city. The places where drugs were dealt, women were sold, and life was cheap.
So much like the cities of my time, he thought. Despite the superficial changes in technology. Still the scum of the empire congregate on its streets, while the rich dwell in their guarded enclaves and ignore the problem, as long as it doesn’t land on their doorsteps.
Tonya and Gloria came into the room with his clothes for the evening. Marcus raised his arms over his head and allowed the thralls to undress him, until he stood naked before them. Gloria rubbed her hand over his tight body, and Marcus wished he would feel himself stirring physically, even as psychological lust grew in his mind.
It is not to be. The hunt is the only thing that arouses me. Only the feeding leads to satisfaction.
Marcus nodded and the women began to dress him. Soon he was clothed in something that would pass as normal in the warm night streets of the Florida city. Khaki slacks, boat shoes, and a green Izod shirt. Tonya handed him a silver headed cane to complete the ensemble.
Marcus twisted the head of the cane and pulled the slender sword from its sheath, slashing it through the air to his front. Satisfied that he was prepared he pushed the blade back into the cane proper and twist locked it into place.
The vampire lord walked up the stairs to the rooftop. He had rented the entire building through Matthew, so he had no worries that anyone would be on the roof. He came out into the soft night air under the full moon on the horizon. Pulling the sweet smell of crowded humanity, his cattle, into his nostrils he bared his fangs again.
He spread his arms wide and willed the transformation. He could feel his bones changing, growing smaller and changing shape, as his skin and muscles followed suit. He could feel the clothing absorbed into his skin, even the cane, as fine hair grew all over his body. He made to roar his pleasure and a hypersonic screech came from his throat as he flapped his wings in the cooling air.
Marcus clawed the air with his fur-covered wings as he gained altitude, until he was high over the city, looking down on the streets filled with cars below. He wheeled around his building for a moment, getting oriented to the city. Then, with a strong flap of wings he headed to the northwest, reveling in the freedom of flight.
