I make no comments or opinions about the book since I have
not read it. What I write is about the trailer only.
The book trailer for Samantha Wilcoxson's book Plantagenet Princess Tudor Queen, proves that simple can be best.
Here we have no flashy special effects, voice-over, or silly fonts. The sparkly floating lights lend just enough of a mysterious quality, and the text says enough to tell us what the story is about. The use of images is spot on.
I especially like the choice of music, its rise and fall, and how it times out perfectly to the end of the trailer.
The book cover appears at both the beginning and the end - a must!
I make no comments or opinions about the book since I have
not read it. What I write is about the trailer only.
Dear book trailer creators, begin your trailer with a title
page, especially one that includes your book cover. This gives the viewer a
moment to settle in.
In the book trailer for A Different Kind of Cheerleader by
Lira Brannon, the first slide begins the synopsis, and I wasn’t quite ready yet,
so had back up and start over more than once.
From that point on the trailer does a decent job of telling
us what the story and story conflict are. The duration is spot on.
It’s a bit confusing, though, as to what the slide “WORSE”
means, and the next slide says, “She made new friends at bible camp.” This
refers to the best friend. I think. And this also means the bestie made friends
with Jesus?
In the slide that says, “She’s out to reclaim those dreams”
use the heroine’s name instead of “she”. Otherwise, we may still think the
reference is to the best friend.
The varied “wipes” that are transitions between the slides
are gimmicky, amateurish and distracting. Avoid them.
Overall, the premise of the book is made fairly clear, the
images support the text, and the music syncs with the slides. This may be enough to entice readers of this genre.
I make no comments or opinions about the book since I have not read it. What
I write is about the trailer only.
In the book trailer for A Different Kind of Black Belt by Lira Brannon, we depend
primarily on the text which is done in a simple, readable font. Overall, it
gives us a clear synopsis, including the conflict of the story. How rarely this
is done!
My little complaint is that the way the text is broken up makes for
confusing reading - I had to watch a couple of times to get it straight.
Further adding to the confusion due to the phrasing is at about the 37th second
mark where the two lines of text are different sizes:
Where
she discovers a different side of her
physical therapist she can't resist
The photo collage
supports the narrative nicely and the background music is appropriate.
I do like to see the
book cover at the beginning as well as the end.
(At youtube I see
that this book trailer shows the category as "Comedy." Ms. Brannon
should probably correct that.)
Overall, this trailer shows you can get the job done without flashy effects
and annoying voice-overs.
After I made the book trailer for The Maiden Seer, I went on to make one for Loveweaver, which I felt was more well developed. Since I had a few weeks left on my paid month of Animoto, I decided to create another book trailer for The Maiden Seer.
Using the same format of still slides, I added addition images to further tell the basics of the story. The main thing I wanted to ramp up was the music. After a good deal of searching through websites that ask hundreds of dollars to license a song, I found Melodyloops. $12?! There I also found the perfect score by Jon Wright for my book trailer.
I fully own the fact that the music is dramatic, but the build was what I was after. And because the beats are per second, it made it easier to sync the music to my slides.
I begin and end with my book cover, keep to one font (except for my book title), and don't make you read too much. It's a minute and a half, which is on the long side, but that was to utilize the score.
I make no comments or opinions about the book since I have not read it. What I write is about the trailer only.
For a prime example of how a book trailer should be done watch the trailer for the book Startup CEO by Matt Blumberg.
In a clean, but approachable gray scale color palette with punctuations of red, the slides come and go at a swift, effective pace. The theme of silhouetted graphics and line art is consistent and restrained which projects a professionalism that we will expect to find in the book and its knowledge.
I'm even okay with the voice over, something I normally dislike in book trailers. It lends a human touch where just captions might be too cold, or overly dramatic, or require the trailer to move more slowly. Brad Feld (I hope I got that right) speaks just quickly enough, getting the message across without hyperbole.
I make no comments or opinions about the book since I have not read it. What I write is about the trailer only.
This book trailer for the book Jazz Baby by Beem Weeks shows a much more restrained effort from Fresh Ink Group than what I saw in my previous post.
They've apparently got a wide range of special effects, design options and talent at their disposal. But the secret to a successful book trailer is to decide on a theme -a vibe - and stick with it throughout.
With the Jazz Baby trailer they do that. The newspaper on screen with bold headlines and with photos alive with black and white video clips is very clever. It really sets up the story question, and a clear idea of time and place. The jazzy score is kinda perfect.
I make no comments or opinions about the book since I have not read it. What I write is about the trailer only.
The book trailer for Fantasy Patch by Steven Geez is the silliest thing I've seen in a long time. I think it may actually be a joke. Maybe a satire of book trailers?
This thing is all over the place with no theme, countless unrelated images, video clips, goofy special effects, varied fonts, and the dreaded voice-over. Adding so many elements is distracting, rendering this trailer as comical and ineffective.
I still don't know what the book is about, but I did get a good laugh. That is what they were going for, right?
