Telling My Story Better: Updated Kickstarter Video for Mechalarum

Finding the best way to brand your book (and yourself!) can be a repetitive process, so I hope you're bearing with me.

In this latest video, I've taken a slightly more personal approach, getting at some of the reasons that reading and writing is so important to me, and why I want to bring this universe and these characters to life.

I really enjoyed making the original interpretive dance version of the video, and I learned a lot from presenting the vision of my story in a new medium (not to mention about filming in general!) With each new version, I'm digging deeper into my universe, and getting better at speaking to my target audience.

If you have any thoughts, feel free to share in the comments below :)

Like what you see? Check out the rest of my project on Kickstarter!

Also, here are some of the wonderful Tweets that I'm receiving in response to my project. Thanks guys :D

@emmalarkins Mechalarum still up for funding. Very promising project! Check it out @ the Indie Spec Fic Fund. fuzzyhedgehogpress.com/indie-spec-fic…
— Zachary Bonelli (@ZacharyBonelli) March 20, 2013

Help fund a cool indie sci-fi book on Kickstarter: Mechalarum by Emma Larkins (@emmalarkins) kck.st/XaEM0D #books
— Ramsey Isler (@ramsey_isler) March 20, 2013

Recent Mechalarum Kickstarter articles:

Mechalarum Shoutout on Fuzzy Hedgehog Press! (And Announcement)

Interview with Tobias Buckell: Kickstarter Success Story and More!

Working on a New Kickstarter Video

Shooting the Video for the Mechalarum Kickstarter Project

Helping to create the video for my Mechalarum Kickstarter project was the first time I'd been involved in creating a visual experience to get people absorbed in my fictional universe, so it was quite an interesting experience! Sure, like pretty much everyone nowadays, I'd messed around with taking video with my point-and-shoot camera, and laughed at how goofy my friends or my dog could be. But that hardly qualifies me as an expert in communicating through a moving picture medium.

Luckily, I had a connection through my roommate to videographer Bryan Swormstedt, who had worked on four Kickstarter videos in the past. I wanted to do something a little different with my Kickstarter video, and he really helped me bring my vision to life.

I didn't want to have people simply acting out a scene from the book, as it might give the impression that I was creating a movie, instead of a novel. And I wanted to get viewers engaged with the visceral emotions of the struggle to join with a symbiotic mechanical/organic being.

However, it turns out that the actual act of capturing moving images on camera is only a little sliver of putting together a cohesive video!

Above, you can see one of our actresses Sylvana Tapia helping set up the lighting for the dance scene. Since the first part of Mechalarum is set in the desert, we wanted to get a warm tone (and also wanted to dim the insanely bright halogen lamps I picked up at Home Depot for the purpose). You can see how the lighting really created a completely different atmosphere, even though we shot in Bryan's living room!