The Legend of Cambria: Ad Review

Sep13

Sometimes one surfs the internet and just comes across something so random yet so amazing that one has to share. I live in Minnesota and we have a great company here called Cambria that makes kitchen countertops and the like. I’ve never visited one of their stores, but their buildings are always impressive and the main campus off of Hwy 169 in LeSueur always has impressive Christmas lights.

Please note that although I think Cambria is an awesome company, this is not an ad for them and I am not affiliated with them, nor have I had the opportunity to work with them. One kind of needs a house or office in which to purchase and install countertops.

Anyway, I was looking at their website today, which is cambriausa.com. On it, they have this movie called The Legend of Cambria and I thought, oh it’s a fun little ad based on medieval legends or something, and then I started to watch it and realized, A) it’s actually about 40+ minutes long, and B) is amazing in its production quality. I literally could not keep my mouth from hanging open. The scenery itself just makes one want to jump into the screen. It is the fantasy lover’s fantasy world.

The story is told in voiceover and has a Lord of the Rings appeal to it. There was a lot of magical elements thrown in that I didn’t really get, but they looked cool, and I’m thinking the plot’s based off of a Welsh legend of some kind, but will have to do more research to find that out for sure.

The Legend of Cambria is advertising, really long advertising that goes beyond being just an ad. It talks heavily about the fight of good versus evil, in a more pagan sort of way, but it makes one think: What’s really important? Just the thought of how much money and work went into producing it is mind boggling. Since I don’t really watch the Oscars anymore, I didn’t know they actually played this at the Oscars and Colin Farrell is the narrator.

I’m just still reeling and thinking, “It’s just a commercial, an ad.” Also, in considering my book series, a stunt like this is something that Sandra Vale of Vale Studios in Trolls for Dust would try to pull off. In thinking of future advertising endeavors for my series, The Legend of Cambria will definitely stick in my mind. You can also watch it on YouTube, and you’ll notice in the comments that people are thinking this is an actual series. Now that’s a compliment of the highest order. That’s my ultimate goal for Trolls for Dust, that it be so good that people would wish it was an actual TV show.

Alright, back to my whittling away at my next fairy tale story and TfD Season 3. Plan to have notecard #9 out for “The Stolen Necklace” tomorrow, but the ideas have to simmer a bit tonight. Happy Friday!

The Stolen Necklace: Card #8

Sep6

#8. From Charlotte to her friend Juniper. And I do see that Charlotte made a mistake on the envelope. Ok, it’s not really fair to blame the author’s mistake on her characters, but it’s so easy and they don’t care. 🙂

Mrs. Henry GoddardTo Juniper Goddardfrom Charlotte

Print edition now on sale

Sep6

Trolls for dust, Season Two, print edition now on sale! And what a beautiful day it is, too! More notecards for The Stolen Necklace coming later today.

Korean dramas: I enjoyed the love story About Time on Viki, but the ending made little sense, mostly because there weren’t any rules for the time clocks, any reasons why certain people could see them, and nothing the people could do to change them. The power to change the clocks would mean power over life and death, so I can see why the matter was mostly skated around, but it left our heroes with really nothing to do most of the time. Lee Sung Kyung was great as usual, but she really shines in Cheese in the Trap, and Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo. Haven’t seen Lee Sang Yoon in anything else, but he was sufficient and his assistant, played by Kang Ki Doong, was hilarious. The best performance in the show, however, was Jung Moon Sung as the male lead’s brother. He broke hearts all around.

Other dramas I am sporadically watching are Big Man, Suspicious Housekeeper, and Are You Human Too? Biggest budget is definitely the last one and I have to say the lead, Seo Kang Joon, is holding his own, at least for the first couple of episodes. Always hit or miss with up and comers. Seo did so well as second lead in Cheese in the Trap, but one never knows until they are tried if they can really carry a show/film all by themselves.

As for Big Man, all of the actors nailed their characters and the plot keeps one guessing as to how it’s going to end. I will do a longer review of it in the future. Suspicious Housekeeper has an intriguing premise – sort of Mary Poppins/Nanny McPhee-ish vibes, but I’ve started many shows like this that quickly go downhill, so we’ll see if the intrigue holds.

Proof copy

Aug31

Morning all!

Going through the proof copy today. It’s so awesome to see all of that hard work physically manifested and I am so grateful that there are place like Amazon and Lulu where writers can publish their works on their own terms. I’m pretty satisfied with how this second book turned out, and I can’t wait to publish more. Happy Friday!

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Trolls for Dust theme song

Aug30

Trolls for Dust now has a theme song, written, performed and produced by musician Tony Cordes. It’s called “The Other Side.”  Please have a listen and check out his other songs too!

 

The Stolen Necklace, Card #7

Aug22

Only got one card done today.  Three to go! I get shadows in the pictures sometimes when taking them. Not sure how to remedy, as I am definitely not a photographer, but it’s likely due to the overhead lighting. Oh well.

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Smoke

Aug20

The past few days have been a little off health wise, just due to all the smoke coming down from the fires in Canada. I pray they are able to put out the fires soon. If the air quality is this bad in southern Minnesota, I can’t even imagine what it’s like up in British Colombia. Makes me think of Boromir’s speech about Mordor in the Lord of the Rings movies: “The very air you breathe is a poisonous fume.”

So didn’t get a lot of writing done. Print edition for TfD2 is almost ready, just had to fix a few minor issues, and I’m mulling over ideas for the end of the Stolen Necklace, and I have Wednesday set aside to get a least a couple more notecards out for that.

Other things.  Have you heard of Qanon? It is of course written off as a conspiracy theory, but what it really is, is someone (possibly connected with the military and/or Trump admin) getting a whole bunch of people to research stuff online. I just learned about it recently and it’s fascinating, and if true, better than any Hollywood movie or bestselling novel.  It’s just all crazy enough to be true, mostly because evil is really that evil and also really that stupid. Evil doesn’t tend to play the long game. As Q says, “all for a LARP?” (Live Action Role Play). Answer: Don’t count on it. Where’s there’s smoke, there’s fire.

One of the few things worth watching on Netflix these days is the movie adaptation of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Pie Peel Society. Such a perfectly odd title and both a book and now movie that I’ve recommended to so, so many family and friends. The book’s a little hard to read as most books written in letters are, and the movie was able to shine because they cut down a lot on the letter reading and writing and focused on the characters and plot, making a lot easier to follow.

The setting was great, and if they actually filmed on Guernsey island, what a beautiful, quaint, little place! Should be tourist central.

Only a couple criticisms about the movie: I thought the ending kiss was awkward, but maybe I’m too used to  K-drama kisses now, which are different. The second thing, I would have cast Matthew Goode as the pig farmer.

Goode was the perfect literary agent, Sidney, but he’s massively talented and it just seemed he was wasted in such a small role, especially since he has great onscreen presence, a presence that would have given the movie an anchor that it sorely needed. Sometimes films need a strong onscreen presence for the other actors to rally around and/or contrast their own characters’ presences to, kind of like how all of the planets are situated in certain ways around the sun.

Other than that, the movie was great and a joy to watch. We often forget how hard war really is on just day to day living. You can’t get certain foods, may not be allowed to meet together, and the ground is always shifting (literarily and figuratively) beneath you. It’s one of those maybe rare times when the things that matter most, matter most.

Trolls for Dust, Season 2 avail. for preorder.

Aug9

TFD FinalTfD2 is finally available for preorder with print version soon to follow. And it’s got the most fantastic cover. 🙂  I tell ya, it’s amazing how much a space can affect things when doing a book layout. Some of my chapter titles weren’t being picked up properly when converting to e-pub and all due to a space!

Next week I plan to continue the notecard story, The Stolen Necklace, so that will be fun, and although I really, really want to get chugging away at TfD3 (and 4), I have this semi-Cinderella tale I want to finish first.  More on that when publication time comes.

Also,  a dear friend of mine who is also a self-publisher has the beginning of a great series on sale called Blood of the Eohim. Check it out, especially if you are an animal lover, because it has animals with super powers in it! I’m not so into animals, but I love how you just know where you stand with them right away, especially dogs. They either love you or want to rip your throat out.

Okay, back to layout and my slow devouring of War and Peace (I am almost to page 500 and really enjoying Tolstoy as a writer.)

As Kay Shree of the Starry-Eyed Press would say: “Peace and Dandelions!” –P. Beldona

TfD2

Jul15

Hi, All,

Well, I’m finally done proofreading my manuscript and starting in on corrections and then layout this week. If all goes well, Trolls for Dust 2 will soon be on sale, hopefully by August 1!! And I may soon have a cover image and a theme song to share!

With all that craziness going on, I’m putting other writing projects on hold, including this blog, so I won’t likely be posting much until the book is out. The Stolen Necklace notecard story has about 4 cards left to go, and it’ll be interesting to see how it all turns out. As for Korean dramas, I likely won’t have any review out, but I’m really lovin’ Yoon Sang Hyun these days. He’s been in a lot of major projects, considering that he went into acting in his 30s. He often plays the second lead and very flawed men, but he’s great at it, and isn’t too shabby when he’s the star, either. Catch him in Shopping King Louie and Ms. Perfect on Viki or Dramafever, and as a detective hunting down a serial killer in Gap-Dong, showing on Netflix. Yoon’s one of those actors who really brings out the best in his fellow cast members, so watch for that.

Fortified with kimchi rice and watermelon for dessert, I am ready to get to work. Fighting!

–P. Beldona