Wait–there’s no Oscar category for book trailers?

Over the weekend, I spent a day in Ypsilanti “on location” for the filming of the book trailer for The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott, tentatively titled “People Flipping Out When They Realize Jo and Laurie Don’t End Up Together” (new title TK).

Rob Hess, of The Triumvirate and Lara Zielin‘s Husband fame, is the (evil?) genius behind the planning and execution of this project–a surprisingly large amount of work, I have come to understand now that most of the work is done. For the past couple weekends, Rob, Lara, Sean Craig, Steve Sholtes, and a host of talented and generous friends (including the delightful Gary Clark, Glen Sard, and Matthew Adams, with Caleb Adams assisting, as well as Natalie, Tevis, and others I didn’t have the chance to meet) have been filming various parts of what will end up being about a ninety-second promotional video.

My thought on book trailers is that most of them are lame. My novel is an earnest piece of historical fiction about a writer I deeply admire, but I knew the trailer had to offer something more than a slideshow of review quotes set to pretty music. I actually just fell asleep typing that sentence–that’s how much that sort of trailer bores me. I can’t promise everyone will like what we’ve done (we intentionally destroyed some property and plan to include some pretty terrible acting by yours truly) but there’s no doubt it will be memorable.

Saturday’s shoot took place at the wonderful Jefferson Market–Thanks for letting us crash your cafe and for giving us ginger scones and the best coffee in Ann Arbor, JM! (I know. I used to live around the corner from that place.)

The lovely Lara setting up the scene. She and Rob were such kind, calming influences and so attentive that I almost turned into a diva on the set. (I mean, it was kind of ridiculous that there was no sashimi in my trailer. Also, I could swear I was promised a foot rub by Justin Timberlake, but I concede that that conversation may not have taken place, you know, while I was awake. Either way, I played it cool.)

Rob and Sean setting up the equipment. We had something called a boom, something called a blimp, and a big white posterboard for bouncing light, which I totally did not even know you could do. According to Lara, Rob does it all the time. He’s really more Zeus than regular guy.

After the shoot, we headed back to Rob and Lara’s for pizza. Watching the footage was hilarious!

Amos seemed to like it too. Or maybe it was just all the pizza and peanut butter sandwiches he kept finding.

Can’t wait to post the final cut when it’s ready! Stay tuned.