BEHIND THE SCENES ON THE FROSTFIRE TRAILER

Hellooo, Dear Readers! Today I'm taking you on a journey behind the scenes of the making of the FrostFire trailer which, with any luck, will be released sometime before the book's 5th of July publication date. They're still working on cutting it all together and making the best of the amazing footage they got. I've had a sneak preview (yep, author's privilege!) and it looks *stunning*. I can't wait to share!

Now some of you might remember the post I did for the Shadows on the Moon trailer here. Watching that take shape was loads of fun, but I honestly didn't have all that much involvement in the process. I sent them a list of possible shooting locations early on, and then they consulted me on a few key points later, but mostly my involvement was skipping and flailing in the background and badgering people until they let me see photos/early footage.

The FrostFire trailer is different because I - gulp - co-wrote the script. The other writer was Lovely Lass (whom I introduced here). I haven't done anything like that since I left college, so it was pretty nerve-wracking, and the requirement to keep the whole thing down to as short a length as possible was a real challenge for me. As my Dear Readers know, I do have a slight problem with keeping anything I write to a reasonable length...*cough* fourthousandwordblogposts *cough*

Once we'd gone back and forth over the writing of the script for a while we sent it to Lovely Lass's boss, who sent it to the company who actually shoots the trailers. They OK'ed it provisionally. Basically, they were willing to give it a go, but reserved the right to tweak, cut, or downright change anything that they thought could work better (which they definitely did, based on the sneak peek I got, so bear that in mind when you see the finished article - it's not a product solely of my genius!).

A little while later I was sent a storyboard for the way they intended to produce the trailer. I can't share the whole thing with you, but I snipped a tiny part of it so you can see that it's pretty rough and ready and leaves a lot of room for artistic interpretation:

At this point they were hunting for possible shooting locations - not as easy as it sounds, since the book's setting, Ruan, is based on Northern India and Tibet and much of the story takes place in dense forest. But that paled in comparison to the hunt for the right actors.

There are three main characters in FrostFire and they are each very different. Without giving too much away (well, this is mostly on the cover copy) there's Luca, the charismatic and handsome captain of a crack team of mountain soldiers, defending a troubled border against ruthless bandits. There's Arian, his dark and tortured second-in-command and adopted brother, who would do anything to keep Luca safe. And there's Frost, the heroine of the story and it's POV character, whose entry into the boy's lives is a catalyst for huge change for both of them, and who is herself on an epic journey to find a cure for her berserker rages.

Relatively early into the casting process I was sent the images for the boys and did a genuine MUPPET FLAIL (with credit to Laura :) because they looked soooo good. First, the actor playing Luca: Ian James

I love him because he has a deceptively frail quality, as Luca does in the book - the heroine thinks he's like a bird of prey, fierce and silent. He's also got a very pretty face and long hair, which I was hoping for.

Next, meet of Ben Wiggins, taking on the role of Arian:

I was SO happy when I saw Ben. He's got the beautiful curly hair Arian's described as having in the book - and get a load of those eyes! Arian's pale eyes are vital in the book, and I was a little doubtful we'd get them for the trailer.

So far, so squeeful. But then, as I mentioned before, we hit a bit of a snag. In the book Frost is described as being tall  - as tall as Arian - and very strong and tough. She has dark skin and in my head I've always thought she looked like a younger version of Julia Jones, from the Twilight films, only with long hair. This is the sketch I did of Frost when I was writing the book:

Having had so little trouble finding the two guys, I was - well - let's stay stunned when Lovely Lass told me that she was being sent actresses who were completely wrong for Frost.

I mean WRONG.

Not just a little wrong.

Like, tiny petite white girls did-you-even-read-the-character-description wrong.

Why it would be so hard to find an althetic looking, dark-skinned young actress, I can't really understand. They're out there. They are ready for action. Just look at the cast of the British film FAST GIRLS! But for some reason we were not seeing them.

We did some anxious nail-nibbling. But then, at least, we were sent...Sophia Leonie (and what a gorgeous name that is, too):

Go ahead and take another look at my sketch. I don't want to say that the resemblance is uncanny but...it's totally uncanny, right? Eeee!

The only thing the lovely Sophia doesn't have that Frost does is grey eyes. But since she's tall and athletic and perfect in every other other way, I was happy to let that one go. We had a Frost!

Within about a day, I was told that shooting was going ahead in order to take advantage of the fine weather. And lucky you! I have some stills from the filming.

Frost flees in the darkness

Luca and Frost meet

Frost and Arian confront each other

Frost stares into the shadows

Supremely cool, right? I'm so impressed with the setting, as well. I thought I might get some fake connifers against a painted background. All in all I am over the moon with how it seems to be turning out - and you guys will be the first to know as soon as I'm allowed to set it free on the internet, I promise :)

What do you think of the actors and the film stills? Are you looking forward to seeing this? Let me know in the comments!

P.S. Today's second post will be on Friday rather than Thursday this week, peeps. See you then!