Videos

My idea of a good time? 
Fooling around on the computer making little movies!
Most of my movies are just for fun, like this one I made linking two of my idols, Michael Jackson and the choreographer Bob Fosse. Imagine my surprise when it was picked for the British Film Institute's Best Online Videos for 2009 (scroll to the bottom of the page)!


... if it doesn't play in your country because YouTube has different royalty arrangements in different countries (it plays in the UK and in the US) you can view it here using the password f0sse.

My video-making brother
Armand Quimpo 

But when it came time to make a trailer for my book Tall Story, I decided to turn to a pro - my baby baby brother Armand (nope, he's not a baby anymore but he will always be three years old to me because I was his Chief Babysitter).

We did the video via email and Skype - Armand emailed me his sketches and story boards and I emailed him voice recordings. His wife (who happens to be a writer AND named Candice) helped write the brilliant script.

We got my daughter Mia to voice the character Andi and my neighbour Andrew to do the posh voice-over at the end.

My niece Coco auditioned boys with Filipino accents for the character Bernardo's voice, which was performed by Kevin So. Read more about the making of Tall Story's book trailer. Here's what we came up with:



When I was asked to do a Tall Story video with me introducing the book, I made this:



Children from Risborough Library's Chatterbooks group sent me drawings of Tall Story after one of my visits. Their drawings were so cool, I re-cut the Tall Story trailer using their art!



I love making videos using old 'found' footage (as in, found in the attic) — like this old one I made of my boys, Nick and Jack, when they were very little. Listen carefully to Nick's reply when asked, 'What is your favourite toy?'



Sometimes, I drag the kids in the neighbourhood into the action ... here's a video we made soon after I got an agent after years of rejection - only to discover that rejection continued:



 One New Year's, I went up and down the street, asking kids what they'd been reading (it was 2008):



Come to think of it, what would I do without the good advice of all the wise children I know? Here's Hugo giving advice on How to Write:



And here is Jeremy warning authors to beware of unscrupulous illustrators:



I love getting lots of people involved in my videos! For the launch of Tall Story, I made a video (with my brother's help) of my family singing in the Philippines then got my friends in London to sing along at the launch.

My big sister Joy when we recorded the song
for Tall Story's book launch

We recorded the song so that we wouldn't run into copyright issues on YouTube. The main singer is my niece Nicole Ramos, backed by her mum, my big sister Joy who used to be a ballet dancer and a rock singer. When I was a teenager I spent a lot of time acting as Joy's chaperone at ballet rehearsals and gigs - it wasn't boring because I was her biggest fan! (well ... maybe it was a teeny tiny bit boring - but I read while waiting)

The other voice is my friend Jethro Joaquin. We rented his studio (Sound Bay Studio) to do the recording and managed to inveigle him into singing along in his husky baritone.

The sound engineer TJ Ramos got so excited he did a splendid vocal arrangement so that the sound would be nice and thick! Here it is:




I don't have the time to do any social networking on YouTube but I do keep a channel to upload the occasional video. Come by, subscribe or not, I don't mind - I make videos for the joy of it! See you there!