Making a book trailer & how to travel with a severed hand.

First, here's the book trailer:

Book Trailer

Now you're asking, "How did he transport a severed arm to Hawaii and what kind of freak shoots a severed hand on a crowded beach in Maui?"

Good question. Of course, you really can't tell it's Maui. It could be any beach with some resort hotels. But it was Maui. I would have preferred a beach in the Caribbean as that's where the book takes place but listen, when your wife has a conference in Maui, you're gonna get on the goddamned plane. The severed hand came from an online party favors store that had a wide assortment of severed limbs. Since the cover of my book has a severed hand holding a tropical drink, it didn't make much sense to buy the severed head.

So I get this severed hand and it looks real. Really real. So I start doing some test photos:

As you can see, it was a lotta fun. Soon I started planting the hand around the house for people to find. Even more fun than pictures. I'm thinking that this hand's gonna work out great. I'm bringing it to Maui (often a refrain of many writers). So then the question becomes, do I pack it for checked in luggage or carry on? I knew that if it was gonna get checked in the TSA folks would more than likely search the bag, maybe even put some kind of security alert on the bag. Some shit like that which could create problems. It's decided - carry on.

Now the problem becomes whether or not I'm going to fuck with the kids/people on the plane with it. The wife was slightly horrified when she learned I brought it onto a commercial airline. The kids thought it was just part of who I am. Dad's got a severed hand in his backpack. Pass the almonds. Things I thought about doing: Leaving it in the bathroom, putting it on the drink cart, shaking hands with a flight attendant, putting it on someone's seat who went to the bathroom, resting it on the shoulder of the guy in front of me - it could've went on for days.

But I did none of those things, because I'm not a fucking moron - and I fear my wife.

Anyway, shooting the trailer was easy. Took lots of shots of the surrounding beach and outdoor bars, palm trees, people frolicking. I had a general idea of how this was gonna go - beauty shots ending with a severed hand washing up on shore. To shoot that part I tossed the hand into the waves and hoped for the best. The best worked out great and to my astonishment not one person asked why I was tossing a body part around the shores of Maui. I shot the whole thing with an iphone, edited it with imovie. That's a wrap. It's a low quality affair mostly because I didn't know how to use imovie
(I have a college friend with two Emmys under his belt for editing - obviously I didn't call him) and make the right files sizes and whatnot. But in the end, the crappy resolution plays to the idea or so I tell myself.