Skeleton Walks Pet Brain - Promoting Literacy

I finally made the YouTube video I've been dying to work on for rmonths. Maybe it's best that I didn't get around to making it until now because I just discovered some special effects for iMovie, and they sure came in handy for this clip. I think the fast forward effect worked well. See what you think!

It's only 42 seconds long and I hope you'll get a kick out of it. 

I tried to add child appeal to the important message of promoting literacy for kids: 

"Funny Bones says...

Exercise your brain...

Read to Succeed." 

It has a snazzy little tune (from iMovie) and a cameo shot of Curse at Zala Manor,
 first book in the Monster Moon series. I never did make a book trailer for it, so this will have to do!

For those who can't view the video, here are some still photos mixed in with the clips:

One thing I've learned about vlogs and YouTube videos is that the shorter they are, the better, although if it's a tutorial, viewers will watch a longer clip.

As I explained in my earlier post with the Dancing X-Ray Skeleton video, I turned my daughter's room into a studio when she moved out. Then I had to hurry and shoot the videos before we downsized and move into an apartment. 

Here are some pics of the room decorated with props I have for book signings and school visits:

I used cloth tablecloths, plus plastic throwaway tablecloths from the dollar store. Right before Halloween you can find lots of spooky good deals. My Monster Moon co-authors and I have collected props to use at author events. They sure came in handy for setting up my makeshift studio!

My son moved out and got married, but he left a lot of stuff in his old closet, like a blinking crystal ball and these stacked skulls that light up. They're kind of scary looking for little kids, so I added eyeglasses, some weird eyeballs, a clown nose, a pirate patch, a corn cob pipe, and a beaded Egyptian-type head-dress to make it funny. Or not?

The ghost scene is from the dollar store, as was the skull tote bag hanging on the left.
The bird cage has a dollar-store crow inside it, but you can't see it well in the picture.

This is Brain on a leash. When my co-authors and I do school visits,
we like to take it along and tell kids Brain likes to sniff out good story ideas.
I made my Brain out of papier-mâché. Unfortunately, the shape isn't quite symmetrical.
I think I need to fix my Brain!

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The stuffed dummy is wearing my werewolf mask (Wild Hairy). That Frankenstein climbing through the wall is another prop from the dollar store, as is the spider web background and the caution tape that reads "Beware. Enter if you Dare!" 

A fringed purple throw blanket hanging at a slant looks kind of cool, huh? That psychedelic poster is from a party we threw for my husband's 40th birthday, almost 20 years ago. I'm glad I saved it because it sure came in handy for this funky setting!

Good thing I shot plenty of videos before I had to tear down my studio to move. I have lots of clips of Funny Bones telling jokes for kids. Now I just need some time to work on editing them. Gotta get them loaded on YouTube well before October rolls around.

This past year I've discovered how much fun it is to make videos. It's another wonderful creative outlet for me. To view my other video creations, you can see them on my YouTube page.


What creative outlets do you enjoy? Do you find that you have many, or do you like to focus on one?

How Do You Cook Up Suspense?

Teachers, Home-schoolers, Writers, KIDS - 
Here's a Spooklicious Creative Writing Lesson For You! 

The Literary Witches of Craggy Cove: 

Frizzelda (Maria Cisneros Toth) and Batsey (Kathryn Sant)

COOKING UP SUSPENSE!

One of my Monster Moon co-authors, Maria Toth, called me at 10:30 Thursday night.  She was so excited, I thought maybe she'd just signed a six-figure contract!

Nope (not yet anyway)! She was playing around with YouTube and found a video from two years ago when she and co-author Kathy Sant starred in a Homework Hotline episode on KLCS - a PBS TV station affiliate, Los Angeles.

The script was titled, "Cooking Up Suspense." Hostess Lorien Eck explained, “Students will learn how to apply some of the basic elements of storytelling and specifically one of the most important elements - SUSPENSE.”


The half-hour program is split up into three parts. Bookmark this post so you can find it when you need it. Kids love the silly humor and cool Halloween props we lugged onto the set, like Fangs, the vampire bat in a bird cage, and a bubbling cauldron stewing with the elements of suspense.

                                   Part 1 of 3

Part 2 of 3

                                 Part 3 of 3

In case you're wondering where yours truly was (bawk! bawk! bawk!), I was way too chicken to be on TV, so I was happy as the cue card girl. Even doing that made me nervous! At times, my hands shook as I hurried to switch to the next card.

I could have read an excerpt from our first Monster Moon book, CURSE AT ZALA MANOR (more info in the sidebar), but I was afraid I'd get stage fright, so we asked my daughter to read it, and she did a super job. We even got her husband to play the parts of Dr. Frankenstein and Dracula!

Kathy and Maria didn't like the teleprompters (which messed up at one point), and they were depending on me. Maria told Bryan Heffron, the director, that she couldn't memorize all her lines because, "Hey, I'm 50 years old. My mind is like an Etch-A-Sketch!"

Here I am with the poster board cue cards I made! 

I'm giving a thumbs up to my Zombuddies, Kathy and Maria.

I really felt the heat when the director announced there was no time for a full rehearsal, that once we began, there was no stopping, no re-taping. "You make a mistake, you live with it!"

Yikes! But Kathy and Maria kept their cool and did an amazing job.

Practice run-through at home the week before

A lot of work went into writing, tweaking, and practicing the script, plus gathering all the props for the set. Looking back on the videos two years later, Maria laughed and said, "Oh, my gosh, it was such a SCREAM!" We were all loopy from pushing to get everything done on time for two 30-minute episodes.

Here I am goofing off with MC (Main Character - the dummy under the blanket).

MC saved the spot for the werewolf to switch places during the last few minutes of the segment. Toward the end of the show, the werewolf sat up and made his appearance.

The werewolf was actually my husband, George. He was slowly suffocating under the blanket. At the time, we didn't know the werewolf mask didn't have nostril holes. (The things our loved ones get dragged into to help promote our books!)

There's another Homework Hotline episode we did titled, "Brainstorming in the Rainstorm," but we haven't found it on YouTube yet. If we find it, I'll post it in case anyone wants to use it for another creative writing lesson.

So, how about you? Would you be gutsy enough to do something like this on TV, or would you rather help out behind the scenes and hold up cue cards like I did?