Anatomy of an Author Photo: Die Hard Trivia Book

I do try to put careful consideration into which author photo goes on which book.

My author photo for The Canadian Mounted: A Trivia Guide to Planes, Trains and Automobiles for example, was relatively easy. All I had to do was take a shot of me reading the book with a backdrop from the scene at LGA where Del Griffith (John Candy) and Neal Page (Steve Martin) first meet (at least officially).

So when I was creating my author photo for Yippee Ki-Yay Motherfucker: A Trivia Guide to Die Hard I wanted to come up with something that would "speak" to the look and feel of the original Die Hard film, if not the franchise in general.

 Here's what I did for that shot.

1) I used fake blood/paint and splotches of grime onto an undershirt

2) I purchased a Baretta brand BB gun so that I could take the same stance that John McClane (Bruce Willis) takes on several of the more popular versions of the movie poster.

3) I splashed some water onto my face to denote sweat (and even added a few post-photo beads of sweat onto my face)

4) I purchased a Toronto city-scape piece of stock art as well as stock art of explosions and had explosions at the top of the CN Tower. (I figured why not make it a more local/Canadian backdrop since the author is Canadian). I also went with an orange colorized sky like in several of the movie posters. My attempts at creating a multi-colored sky ended up distracting too much from the buildings in the background, so I opted for a single shade of orange.

5) John McClane's skull in a top-hat tattoo isn't visible in the movie posters, and is only seen in fleeting glimpses throughout the movie. But it does appear in a few of the Die Hard 2 promo images. So I added that in.

6) John McClane isn't bald until the later films in the franchise, and he never had facial hair. But I wasn't about to shave or grow back my receding hairline for the photo. And besides, I'm a huge fan of Weird Al, and he's done plenty of parodies over the years without losing that trademark Weird Al mustache.

7) I thought the photo should be framed by something and so went with bits of broken glass, to call out that "Welcome to the Party, Pal!" scene from the film.

8) And though I didn't end up in the same pose as John McClane for the more popular movie posters, I felt that this shot of me (from the out-takes seen below) at least had enough of the trepidation in my eyes to convey something similar to the look Bruce Willis was conveying.

Here are a few of the out-takes from the photo shoot I did in my home office. (I used an Android S21 propped up on my standing desk with a 5 second time delay for the shots, and a small USB ring-light and of course, a green screen tacked in to the ceiling in front of my book cases). I took perhaps a dozen shots.

Putting together an author photo for a specific book can be a lot of fun.

Are you interested in venturing any guesses as to what I'll be doing for the author photo for my 2024 release of Merry Christmas! Shitter was Full! A Trivia Guide to National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation?

Netflix Responds To Bandwidth Caps

I've enjoyed access to Netflix since it came to Canada, regularly supplementing my video intake with a combination of rented and purchased DVD's/BluRay and content available on NetFlix.

I can easily watch Netflix movies on my iPhone, computer or on my television via a wireless connection through my Wii. And I've done all three.  (That being said, I likely read 3 times more books in a year than watch movies - but it doesn't mean I don't enjoy watching movies, nor having the convenience of being able to stream it at a time and place that's convenient to me)


Of course, the titles available on Netflix in Canada have initially been limited. As evidenced in some recent press releases, that is about to change. Iron Man 2, for example, is one of a line-up of Paramount titles that now show up as available to Canadian Netflix subscribers. (Again, given my limited movie viewing, there are a lot of older movies that I haven't seen and was able to watch via Netflix - I've also enjoyed going back and watching some of the old television programs available - like the original Battlestar Galactica from the 1970's)


And in response to bandwidth concerns (ie caps imposed by providers in Canada), I received the following message in my inbox yesterday from Netflix.

You can now control the settings with which you watch anything on Netflix. You now have the choice between Good Quality (up to 0.3 GB per hour), Better Quality (up to 0.7 GB per hour) and Best Quality (up to 1 GB per hour or up to 2.3 GB per hour for HD)

So, using the big screen TV, you might want a higher resolution and larger bandwidth. Using a smaller screen like the one on my iPhone, you might be fine with the lowest quality setting. Nice choice to have and it's something you can change on the fly.

Nice.

Best Of Both Worlds

Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of Netflix. I love the idea of being able to access movies and television shows at my own convenience without having to leave the house.

However, the service, while pretty exciting, is still hugely lacking in Canada if you're looking for newer releases or a broad selection. To someone like me, though, who hasn't seen a lot of movies (heck, I likely read perhaps three or four times more books in a year than I watch movies) there's still lots of "not yet seen" stuff available. So to me, Netflix is a pretty decent service with lots of room to continue to grow and improve.

But I also relish the experience of heading to my local movie rental place and browsing. I often spot titles I wouldn't have noticed on the screen (despite some pretty cool systematic browsing capabilities Netflix offers) just by walking through the aisles of the store. The serendipity of that experience is, to me, part of the real thrill. You may have walked in looking for X, but walked out with A instead (not even Y, which was closer to X, but a movie that someway, somehow caught your eye because a staff member decided to merchandise it on a "Staff Picks" endcap display you walked by.

The local video store is just down the street, after all, and it's a nice short healthy walk to get there. The experience itself of getting out, chatting with the staff there (soliciting their recommendations) and enjoying the walk there and back, is a worthwhile endeavour.


That's why I was glad to see Blockbuster offering an "all you can eat" style deal that far surpasses the limited selection of content online at Netflix.ca. 

Blockbuster Canada is offerings a FAVOURITES MOVIE PASS for $9.99.  It's a couple of dollars more expensive than Netflix, but it doesn't eat up any bandwidth (ie, other hidden costs) and you can get unlimited favourites movie rentals (1 movie at a time). It's flexible, too. So you can purchase a monthly pass on a month where you know you'll be watching a ton of movies, and not get it on a month you won't be renting any (unlike an online monthly subscription that automatically gets charged to your credit card)


I think this is a pretty big deal and represents an important strategic shift in bricks and mortar DVD/Blu-ray rental places that allows them to offer something fresh, new and relevant.  Kudos to them. They're reaching out and trying to offer customers the best of both worlds.