Zombies Revisited

Nearly three years ago, when Scowl-Face used iMovie for the first time to make a book trailer for The Zombie Survival Guide, by Max Brooks, ol' Scowlly was not privy to the finer workings of the Mac software, to say the least.  He has been wanting to remake the video for years, but his Mac has become something of a zombie itself, so he has settled for Windows Movie Maker Live to retool the original book trailer.

MPL Book Trailer #11A (2013 Version)

The Zombie Survival Guide, by Max Brooks

What makes the book trailer worth watching are:

• The Music Man's cacophonous live version of Starmap to Orion, recorded at Millikin University just a few days before our original book trailer was made (in February, 2010); and
• Drawer Dude's original sketches, which are plenty scary and exquisitely fit the mood of the subject matter.

There should be a high-definition video of that live performance on YouTube.  Minions, you know what to do.

Live Performance of "Starmap to Orion"

(Student Composers' Forum III)

at Millikin University (February 18, 2010)

(Videography & Editing by Ms. Moonlight)

The video above (by Ms. Moonlight) is superbly shot (as a "standing single take"), and the Music Man (who recorded the sound) assured a high-fidelity recording.

Scowl-Face recorded a not-so-high-def version on his dinky Kodak digital camera, but he didn't have a tripod.  Steady as she goes, Scowlly!  It's too embarrassing to embed the video here, but you may watch it if you have sufficient endurance.  Perhaps Scowl-Face thought he was shooting The Blair Witch Project (1999) when he recorded his video.  It was certainly shaky enough.  Could have been an earthquake, I suppose.

Your Roving Reporter On The Go,

Cauli Le Chat

P.S.  "The Gonk" was used as incidental music during the credits to George A. Romero's classic zombie horror movie, Dawn of the Dead (1978).  The song was included on the CD Dawn of the Dead: The Unreleased Incidental Music (2004).

Got Brains? Look Out For Zombies

I last blogged about The Zombie Survival Guide during ALA Banned Books Week.  Since we're winding down October SpookFest, the book (and our book trailer) deserved a reprise.

Our book trailer provides a tongue-in-cheek look at zombies as comprehensively presented in The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection From the Living Dead, by Max Brooks (New York: Three Rivers Press, 1st ed., © 2003). The book is a parody of the Y2K melt-down survival guides (and other post-apocalyptic survival manuals) that have been popular during the past 15 years. Zombies, like vampires, are popular fiction, and this book presents its subject matter in as straight-faced and deadpan a fashion as possible. That's no mean feat; it takes a gifted writer to carry off good satire. Brooks does that, and then some, in this clever, engaging parody.  The book is available in our Evergreen Indiana catalog.

In our book trailer, Zombie kitty made me laugh out loud, which, if you know felines, is pretty surprising and unusual in itself.

About the Book Trailer's Artwork

Original zombie drawings were created by Brian Mills, whom I call Drawer Dude, of Mooresville, Indiana. He is a student at the Art Institute of Indianapolis.

About the Book Trailer's Soundtrack

Live performance (February 18, 2010) of "Starmap to Orion" (2009), composed and arranged by Danny Buckley, whom I call The Music Man. Performed at Millikin University's Student Composers' Forum III in Kaeuper Hall, School of Music. Conductor: John Stafford II. Musicians: Chris Petterson & Robert Stein, electric cellos; Scott Agner, electric guitar; Neil Johnson, electric bass; Nick Murphy, drums.  To see a high resolution YouTube video of this performance, check out this video (although a low resolution video is also available here, if you'd rather see it that way).

Zombie Kitty Must've Eaten Scowl-Face's Brain, Which Explains A Lot,

Cauli Le Chat

MPL Roving Reporter

Paranormal Fiction News Beat

P.S.  You probably wouldn't have expected the best-selling folk group The Kingston Trio to have performed a song about the undead.  But here is "Zombie Jamboree" from the band's album ... From the Hungry i (1959).