Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Another Pothole on the Information Highway


So, to hype the Death Star novel coming out next month, I thought it might be interesting to put up one of those flack-it vids on YouTube. Slide show, with stuff from the Star Wars universe, me reading a chapter, like that.

My collaborator Reaves thought it was a good idea, and we ran it past our editor. After some discussion with the Powers-that-Be, they decided it was okay for us to do it.

My collaborator, being a big Hollywood guy, knows actors and production folks who, he said, would love to do it just for the exposure. Great by me, I said, go for it.

Time passed. Reaves moved from one aparment to another, work got in the way, the usual, and he didn't get to it.

So, I thought, what-the-hell. I put together a rough slide show, recorded myself reading a dramatic scene from the novel, albeit not as well as a professional actor would by any means, and turned it into a QuickTime movie file. Told my editor, who, naturally, wanted to see it first. No problem, I'll email you a copy.

Ah. But even compressed, the file choked her mailbox, and her server won't let it through.

I thought about putting it up on YouTube under an innocuous name for her to see, then taking it down before anybody else had a chance to look at it, in case they decided it wasn't up to par, but given how YouTube has millions of viewers surfing, there is a chance somebody might get it and bandy it about, so, no.

I didn't ask about FTP sites, but I'm guessing she doesn't do FTP, since she works from home and isn't a computer geek.

So I burned a copy to CD and mailed it to her.

So much for living here in the future ...

7 comments:

Daniel Keys Moran said...

http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=57739

FYI.

Steve Perry said...

Aha! Thanks, Dan. I'll give that shot.

Mushtaq Ali said...

Steve,

www.yousendit.com for any file up to 100 megs.

I use it all the time and if someone can read an email and has a web browser they can get the file.

and ti's free

Steve Perry said...

Even better, Mushtaq. I'll give that a try ...

Steve Perry said...

So the yousendit.com link seems to have done the trick. Whether my editor will approve of the slide show or not, that's another question -- at least she should be able to get it.

Thanks for the help, guys.

If they approve, I'll put it up on YouTube ...

steve-vh said...

We use Yousendit all the time. I've sent 60mg files easily.

Steve Perry said...

My editor, alas, was not impressed.

Prolly 'cause I don't have enough technical expertise to cut the slides and V.O. together so that the pictures match the words.

It wound up a bunch of random SW's images fading in and out under the reading.

Nor could I get that neat credit SW's credit crawl I came across to embed. I had it, but it wouldn't paste.

Ah, well. You do the best you can with what you got ...