Behind the Scenes: To Darkness Fled Book Trailer

Hey there, Novel Teeners! This post is about my experience playing Achan in Jill Williamson’s To Darkness Fled book trailer. I had a real blast doing that, and hopefully you enjoy this post recounting all the cool stuff I got to do during, before, and after filming!

It all started when Jill contacted me after seeing a book trailer I and a group of teens had made for The Curse of the Spider King. She was really impressed with Leighton Hajicek’s amazing CGI, Jonathon Maiocco’s brilliant original score, and my own awkward acting and passable video editing skills.

Jill wanted us to make a trailer for her second book, and we were all excited to jump on board.

Then followed a long phase where we brainstormed and figured out things like scripts and costumes, locations and actors… stuff like that. I was cast as Achan Cham, author Jacob Parker was cast as Esek, and Adele Treskillard was cast as Vrell (we bribed her dad to put on a fake beard and play Sir Gavin, while her little sister, Ness, consented to let the evil prince chuck grapes at her). Adele is also a very talented tailor and made our wonderful costumes.

So, in October of last year Jacob and I flew to St. Louis, Missouri in order to play our roles. At the start of each filming day I’d get my costume on, then I’d sit still while fake scars were applied to my cheeks, my hair was styled, and makeup was caked onto my face so that my unfortunately vampirish skin would actually look tan.

We had to do prep for most every scene we filmed. Jacob and I learned our sword-fight choreography by beating on each other with boffers, a makeshift tent was built out of a bed sheet in the middle of a field, fake snow was created and scattered on a stone wall, lights were positioned, props were gotten, a room was painted, and ping pong was played at 2 a.m. (unrelated? hmm).

The actual filming was probably my favorite part. I got to wade through a slippery swamp, hold a lit torch in a forest (seriously, who let me do that??), stand on a pew in a church, sword-fight, scream at a window, and do a whole bunch of other cool stuff. Some of my shots were filmed in front of a greenscreen, with the CG background added in later.

After filming wrapped, we bid Jacob farewell as he went to do book signings and then we buckled down for editing. Around this time I got to do voice-overs for each of my parts in the trailer. For this, we huddled in a little sound-proof room with a microphone and a laptop. (The picture to the right is of me making whale noises. Don’t ask.)

And then we edited the whole thing together and I went home. CGI, music, and foley were added (the sound effect of me getting stabbed in the leg was made by impaling a cabbage, funnily enough), and the whole finished product was uploaded to Youtube for anyone and everyone to see.

Cool, huh? If you want to watch the finished trailer, click here.

And now for some news. Jill liked the last trailer so much that we’re making another one for her latest novel, From Darkness Won! We’re already brainstorming and have a finished script. We start work in September, and all of the actors will be reprising their roles… with the addition of Jill as Duchess Amal. She’ll get to play one of her own characters!

It should be a blast. Just like last time. 🙂