Why did you choose to produce Mack Made Movies as a video as well as a readalong?
We usually look at books to see if they would translate well into audio, since we consider ourselves an audio producer, first and foremost, and produce only 1-2 videos a year. Don Brown's Mack Made Movies, however, was the first book that reoriented our thinking.  In other words, we first thought of what a great video it would make, before we even thought about it as a readalong, because it was about one of the pioneers in filmmaking, Mack Sennett.  We were also inspired by the illustrations, which in many cases were depictions of actual scenes in front of and behind the camera. 
 
What did you enjoy most about producing this video?
One aspect that excited us about the project was that Sennett's films were made before color was introduced, so we thought it would be fun to take some of the color illustrations and convert them into black and white for the video, especially the illustrations that depicted actual movie footage. Early animation was also featured in the book, and we decided to create simple animation in the video in the same way it had been done in those early films -- shot by shot.

With the advanced techniques that are now available on the new digital editing systems, we uncovered a number of optical effects that we could use to make the video look like old black-and-white footage -- worn out film with scratch lines, and human hairs moving across the camera lens.  It's ironic that modern technology has enabled us to create the feel of old time movies.

How is the process of making a video different from audio?
Our principal focus as an audio publisher is to create an audio recording for our readalong productions, so we start with the audio production and make that first. Then we take the audio track and listen to it as we look at the illustrations, one by one, in order to determine how the art can be shot in order to synchronize it with the narration, music, and sound effects -- the equivalent of creating a storyboard, as it is done in real filmmaking.  It's important to note that we use the original artwork when we shoot the video.  Then the audio track is revised, if necessary, to make sure that it will match up with the video blueprint that we have created, and it thereby becomes the soundtrack for the video.  We then shoot each piece of art while listening to the corresponding segment of the soundtrack to insure that the sound and visual elements work together as we had planned.
 
The final step is to take all the video footage and the soundtrack into the editing room and piece it all together.  As they say in Hollywood, movies are made in the editing room, and it is no different with our children's videos. 

Are there other videos in the works? 

Our next video will be of Eric Kimmel's book, Anansi's Party Time.  It will be the fourth Anansi book by Eric that we will have made into a video--the Anansi books have become our most popular video series.