Daily Archives: June 11, 2009

Cleopatra’s Perfume Video

by Jina Bacarr

I’ve been writing about Lady Eve Marlowe’s adventures in 1928 Weimar Berlin in my Berlin Sex Diary blog. For Lady Marlowe, it was as if those days came alive again. She was kind enough to assist me in making a book trailer (”You mean like the film trailers? I’d be delighted…) about her adventures in “Cleopatra’s Perfume” during World War II in London, Cairo and Berlin.

We shot the video and picked out a charming piece of music called “Paris” by Dan Graham. When we looked at the final cut, Lady Eve turned to me and said, “It’s lovely, Jina, but so many great films during the Second World War were shot in black and white.”

“You mean like Casablanca?” I asked, remembering the dramatic lighting and emotional tension so beautifully filmed by Michael Curtiz.

Lady Eve nodded. “What if we produced two videos–one in color and one in black and white?”

And that’s what we did. Here are two versions of the book trailer for Cleopatra’s Perfume: one in color:

And one in black and white:

Which do you prefer?

Best,

Jina

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Jina Bacarr is also the author of The Blonde Geisha , Naughty Paris, Tokyo Rendezvous, a Spice Brief, and Spies, Lies & Naked Thighs, featuring an Indiana Jones in high heels.