Real Media recently completed post-production on an extended video promotion for author Julie Garwood's new novel FIRE AND ICE. Garwood has more than 35 million books in print and has been on the NEW YORK TIMES Best Sellers List more than thirty-five times. One of her previous novels, FOR THE ROSES, was turned into a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie of the week starring Jennifer Garner.
Garwood wanted to showcase the release of her latest novel in an innovative way and asked Real Media to produce a video for her. "Most of the promos and/or commercials being produced for novels aren't visually appealing, usually consisting of scaling text and pictures moving across the screen," said Jefferson Edward Donald, Producer at Real Media. "Julie and her team wanted something that creatively lent itself to more the feel of a feature film trailer and not just an ordinary book trailer or preview."
One of the largest creative challenges was that Garwood did not want the faces of the two main characters shown to the audience. "This was Real Media's prime directive", said Erin Augustine, production coordinator for Real Media. According to JoAnn Cowan, Garwood's representative, "Julie wants to protect her readers; novels are different from movies in that the reader is responsible for creating the milieu, and in doing that, the reader experiences and identifies with the characters in very different ways than they do in movies."
Shot in HD, the production spanned three days with a combination of on-location and greenscreen shooting. Post-production lasted five weeks and involved rotoscoping, compositing, motion tracking and building 3D environments and set extensions.
The video premiered on Garwood's personal site, www.juliegarwood.com, and concurrently on several social networking sites, including Facebook and YouTube.
