From Paperback to Animated Flip Book in one Fell swoop.

In many fell swoops.

“I’ve never met a blank page I didn’t like.” Author Bryan M. Powell.

With that said, let me invite you into my world for a few minutes. Between writing, editing, marketing and waiting for the process to work itself out, I am not static. It is during those times when I’m not writing a novel, that I’m writing a new song, or revisiting one that I’ve already written to see where I can improve it. And then there are those times when I just want to have fun. Yes, Patty and I go to the beach or pool, play games, put a puzzle together and watch a movie. But I wasn’t referring to those times. My creative mind is usually at work even when I’m not trying to be creative.

That brings me to Little Thumb’s Big Adventure. No, not the children’s book. That book is already in the marketing mode. I’m referring to the new animated flip book. With all the new (and existing) technology available to us, why not have some fun and see what we can create?

The tools to which I’m referring are free and available to most of us if we’re willing to find them and use them. The following production, though far from perfect or professional, was created using Word, Paint, a simple background removing tool, Sibelius, Audacity, Zamzar, Windows Live Movie Maker, Google Images, and a free tool called Convert-to-mp4. I also found a cool site with pictures of happy fingers which provided the cute images.

So, here’s what I did. Since the free flipbook sites were unable to add a music track, I decided to go long. Using the jpgs from the original children’s book, I uploaded them into the Windows Live Movie Maker program one by one. But wait, I’m getting way ahead of myself. Let’s back up and start at the beginning.

First I had to write the dialog and narration along with visualizing the pictures, or did I visualize and then write the verbiage…I can’t remember. Actually, I did both as the story unfolded. That’s it, I remember now. As Little Thumb got in and out of trouble and moved through his adventure, new and exciting chapters appeared on the horizon. In other words, I made it up as I went along. I kinda had an idea where he, Little Thumb, was going and how it would turn out, but I wasn’t sure of the details. So I let Little Thumb tell the story and I just went along for the ride.

Meet Little Thumb with background matter, but it didn’t really matter because I have an anti-matter gun and blasted it into oblivion.

And then there are the Fingerlings. What a happy bunch, always singing and getting into mischief.

There is the house in a tree at its tippity top which involved four overlays; the Fingerlings, the Toeses and Bubbles, and the words inside the bubbles. Oh, and did I mention this all had to be centered on a 10x10 blue background…what a headache.

Oh, and I almost forgot Big King Thumb who thinks “Thumbs rule, fingers drool.”

Once the images were created and placed in a blank Word doc, I saved then as a jpg, I was now ready to pop them into the Movie program.

Well, not really, but I was almost ready.

With all the talk about AI and natural sounding text to voice programs available, I experimented with several and came up wanting. Don’t get me wrong, they were good, but not right for my purposes. So, using a microphone and Audacity, I went to work reading the book. Fortunately, I was able to edit all but one little bitty, tiny faux pas, but whose counting. And using my trusty Sibelius program, I created the music track. This is me with the Audacity voice over and music track on my screen.

This is what the musical score looked like.

This is what the Audacity screen looks like with the voices, and the musical score.

And this is a screen shot of the Windows Live Movie Maker. As you can imagine, there were many steps and iterations until I got the timing of the page turns to sync with the sound track. But finally I did and I’m quite pleased with the out come. Once I completed this step, there were still a couple more to take before it was ready to go. I had to watch it over and over and correct the timing a bunch of times. Then, when it was as close as I could get it, I saved it as a wlmp and a wmv. With that, I was able to convert the files into an mp4. If I left out a step, please understand, there were a lot of them…too many to remember at 11:30 pm.

Attached is Chapter One of Little Thumb’s Big Adventure Animated Flip Book.

I say animated because the pages not only flip, but move. It is quite a moving experience. ;-)

If you are interest in purchasing Little Thumb’s Big Adventure, I will send you the animated flip book version for yourself or some youngster you love, or want to keep occupied, just go to my Square Store and add it to your cart.

Enjoy!

For those of you who live in North Georgia, here is my September itinerary.

September 9 – Gold Rush Days – Villa Rica, GA

September 16-17 – Roselawn Arts and Crafts Festival – Cartersville, GA

September 23 – Pig-Out and Antique Car Festival – Cave Springs, GA

September 29- October 1 – The Great Locomotive Chase Festival – Adairsville, GA.

If you can’t come to any of these festivals you can always visit my Square Store and order a signed copy of any of my novels. Be watching for updates on my newest novel, The Prodigal’s Return, soon to be released.