My Highland Dance Notebook Coming to the Big Screen!

After the photo shoot, I was musing on how I would present the pictures, wondering about the most interesting and attractive way to do it. I was inspired by the idea of making the pictures into a short movie...but I had never done such a thing before! As a number of things in relation to this entire project however, I decided that I would learn how. Lumen5 to the rescue! I had seen Lumen5 advertised on Facebook for creating movies. I figured there were likely a number of similar apps out there, but I'm not picky--as long as I could figure out how to navigate the functions, I'd give it a try. Here is the result!

Please see my website for links to order any of the levels of My Highland Dance Notebook!

 

Photo Shoot Sneak Peak!

 After my author copies arrived, and I was assured that the books all looked the way I wished them to, I began considering what I was going to do with them--I didn't want to let five good copies go to waste!

I decided that I would use them all for further promotion by sending them to some vendors as demo copies. But before that, I wanted to get one other project out of them: A photo shoot!

I looked around the internet at book promotion ideas and actually, didn't see much out there like I was imagining. Most book launch photo layouts were of stacks of books sitting on tables that may or may not have had a nice tablecloth on them. A few books would be propped upright in front, or perhaps on a mini-easel. I could find no better inspiration than what I had in my head already, so I decided to forge ahead with my own plans.

I employed the services of an award winning photographer...my daughter Honour. :) She has won numerous first and second place ribbons at the Ancaster County Fair for her beautiful photography. 

Then, I thought of the prettiest place I knew of for a backdrop. It happened to be the place where the above photo was taken--Fair Havens Bible Conference in Beaverton, Ontario. We've camped there for years.

I gathered a few props--mostly some of Honour's highland dance costumes and accessories. I was really hoping to find an old pair of ghillies, but none were to be found...I must have donated her shoes back to her dance studio. 

Today we finished the last of the photos and I decided to release one as a sneak peek. In a few days, I'll have the rest ready in a special presentation!

Canva is really cool!

For a few months, I'd been hearing about an app/website that assists you in creating promotional materials for Facebook, Instagram, etc. You can also use it to create slide shows like Powerpoint, and I recall one of my teaching assistants mentioning that she used Canva to create a checklist hand-out for my choir kids. I decided to check it out a few weeks ago, and I'm SO pleased with the amazing looking stuff I can make!  

You've actually already seen one of my first Canva projects--back on June 11 when I posted the green backgrounded quote from "Claire H." about My Highland Dance Notebooks. I'd also posted a 9-block poster on Facebook that interspersed the covers of the books with beautiful shots of Scotland (Canva provides those!).

Of course, like many of these online services, there is a free version that gives you the basic capabilities, but if you want anything advanced, you'll have to upgrade to "Pro". I have only once purchased a photo that I really wanted (and needed for a school assignment) but it only cost me $1.39. That's WAY better than any of these stock photo websites that you have to sign up for, or pay huge dollars for a one-off.

I'm especially loving these posters I created, one for each book, and especially that they employ a bit of animation (didn't mean to do that, it was the just the template I chose, lol!). I'm not sure if they will animate here on the blog, but if not, you can just hop over to my Facebook page, and see them animate there. :)