A Video Trailer For A Haiku Poem

[youtube url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmWDwbWHe2U]

After I decided to publish a daily haiku poem on Tumblr, I started writing haiku poems for submission. My first acceptance and publication was “Changing Winter” for Poetry Haiku (Winter Issue 2013). My second acceptance was five haiku poems for “Words Fly Away: Poems for Fukushima” (Spring 2014), a poetry anthology about the March 2011 tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan. The editor posted YouTube videos of poets reading their Fukushima poems. Last week I put together a video trailer.

Unlike the other poets who read aloud their poems in front of a video camera, I wasn’t going to do that. If I read all five haiku poems that I submitted, the video would be very short and very uninteresting. A 30-second video trailer to introduce my haiku and the anthology was a better approach to promoting both.

“Fukushima Seeps” was the easiest of the five haiku to adapt into a video with the last line being about Godzilla, our favorite kaiju who routinely stomps Tokyo whenever mankind does something incredibly stupid, say, building a nuclear reactor in the path of a tsunami. With the new Godzilla movie coming out in May 2014, this became a fun little video to put together.

On a piece of paper, I broke down the video into a script.

 

BEGINNING TITLE ONE

“Fukushima Seeps”

White text on black background.
Fade in Godzilla theme soundtrack.

BEGINNING TITLE TWO

A Haiku Poem by C.D. Reimer

White text on black background.

HAIKU LINE ONE

Fukushima Seeps

White text over still picture of blown nuclear reactor.

HAIKU LINE TWO

Poisons Pacific Ocean

White text over still picture of Pacific Ocean radiation exposure.

HAIKU LINE THREE

Here Comes GODZILLA!

White text over black background.

MONEY SHOT

Godzilla coming out of ocean still picture.
Fade in and out Godzilla roar soundtrack above theme soundtrack.

FINAL TITLE ONE

Read “Fukushima Seeps”
& Other Haiku Poems by C.D. Reimer

White text over black background.

FINAL TITLE TWO

“Words Fly Away: Poems for Fukushima”
http://fukushimapoetry.wordpress.com/

White text over black background.

FINAL TITLE THREE

Spring 2014

White text over black background.

FINAL TITLE FOUR

“Godzilla” © 1954 Toho Co. Ltd
All Other Copyrights Belong To Their Respective Owners.

White text over black background.

FINAL TITLE FIVE

“Fukushima Seeps” Haiku & Video
Copyright © 2014 C.D. Reimer

Fade out Godzilla theme soundtrack.

 

After I scoured the Internet for still pictures and Godzilla soundtracks for an hour, I put the video together in two hours with my MacBook and iMovie. This was my first time using iMovie, so I spent an hour learning how to use the program and one hour completing the video. Satisfied with the results, I uploaded the video to Tumblr and YouTube.

Opening Checking Account For IPHC

Jeph Jacques, the webcomic artist of “Questionable Content,” recently related the difficulty he had in opening a checking account after telling the clerk what the business name was, where the clerk looked at him funny and asked if the business sold marijuana over the Internet. I ran into the same problem when I tried to open a checking account for my intellectual property holding company (IPHC), except no one accused me of selling marijuana over the Internet.

The people at THE BANK were more than happy to open a FREE small business checking account for my IPHC until we got into the nitty-gritty details.

The purpose of an IPHC is to separate my copyrights away from the writing business and myself personally. If someone sues me, wins a judgment and tries to go after my assets (i.e., royalty income from copyrights), they would have to file a lawsuit in Wyoming since I incorporated my IPHC there. Even if they won a judgment in Wyoming to receive income from my IPHC, I’m not legally obligated to distribute any income and they would have to pay taxes on “phantom income” that they would never receive.

The business name for an IPHC should never include your legal name to make it difficult for ambulance chasers to casually search databases for easy targets to file frivolous lawsuits against. Wyoming doesn’t even require owner’s name on the public record, if done through a registered agent. (You still have to reveal the name of your IPHC in a court of law to avoid criminal accusations of hiding assets during a lawsuit.) Most IPHC names are typically unrelated to what the business actually does.

Even after I explained the logic behind the name and the purpose of the IPHC, THE BANK viewed my small business with suspicions. Banking regulations have tightened since the aftermath of 9/11 to prevent terrorists from creating shell companies to launder money into the United States. (Never mind that corporations and Wall Street create shell companies to hide all kinds of activities, legitimate or otherwise.) Since I was clean-shaven when I walked into the branch office, no one accused me of being a terrorist.

With some major misgivings, the branch major submitted my application. We spent the next three weeks going back-and-forth over whether my IPHC was a legitimate business. THE BANK didn’t like my business formation documents because none of it was in my legal name, I didn’t have a corporate website, and used a personal email address. THE BANK refused to accept documentation from my registered agent because it didn’t have a fancy letterhead. I couldn’t set up a cooperate website and email addresses until I had a checking account set up.

The application for a checking account was eventually rejected because my IPHC wasn’t registered with the Secretary of State (SOS) office to do business in California. I did a face-palm when I heard that. Registering to do business in California would require revealing my identity to every ambulance chaser in the state and paying an annual $800 USD franchise tax on income earned over the Internet. That would defeat the purpose of setting up an IPHC.

THE BANK did approve opening a business account for my writing because all the business formation documents were in my legal name, I had a corporate website and email address, and registered with the California SOS. With all my ducks lined up in a row, I got approval in 15 minutes.

As for my IPHC, all my transactions go through PayPal. That’s fine for now. But PayPal has a reputation of randomly freezing accounts with substantial balances, especially if the account wasn’t linked to a checking account, and takes months to resolve. If I ever open a checking account for my IPHC, I would have to fly into Wyoming and present the paperwork in person. That, of course, would be a business tax write-off.

Read An eBook Week 2014

The annual “Read An eBook Week” promotion at Smashwords is here again, running from March 2nd through March 8th. Check out the resource page for more information. This year I have 15 ebooks enrolled in the promotion. Five omnibus ebooks at a 50% discount (coupon code REW50), five recent ebooks are FREE (coupon code REW100), and the usual FREE ebooks are still FREE (no coupon code).

If this year is like the last few years, the FREE ebooks will fly off the virtual shelves and I’ll have one or two direct sales. This isn’t surprising. Most writers who publish on Smashwords make the majority of their ebook sales from the premium catalog (i.e., Apple, Barnes & Noble, Diesel, Flipkart, Kobo, etc.). This promotion and the annual summer/winter promotion in July are good opportunities to reach out to the many readers on the Smashwords website.

Two related notes concerning the Smashwords premium catalog.

With the recent announcement of Sony closing their ebook store on March 20, 2014, and transitioning their users to Kobo, I have removed all the Sony ebook links from my author website. Because Kobo is still transitioning users from Sony, this has prevented my recent pre-order ebooks from showing up on their website.

After the announcement that Scribd was coming to the premium catalog in December, I pulled my ebooks off the Scribd website and removed the ebook links from my author website. With my Smashwords ebooks now showing up on Scribd, I’m in the process of restoring all the ebook links on my author website.