Book trailer adventures pt. 6, it’s a wrap
In March of this year I began the filming and still photography for my book trailer, now six months later the video is finished. While I have reasons (and a few excuses) as to the time it took for me to finalize the project (more on that later), the most important element going into the trailer was being able to film at the right time of the year. The novel’s setting is a vineyard that has fallen into decay, therefore filming the video during a vineyard’s dormant stage was absolutely necessary. (side note: I'm lucky to live in the middle of Virginia's wine country.)Now, as fall descends, the vineyards have blossomed throughout spring and summer and grapes are being harvested. I’ve learned a lot through the process of creating my first book trailer. I learned the initial music I had my heart set on–Schubert’s Serenade–was too light and lively when combined with the footage. I was blessed to have a talented musician provide me an original piano recording of the music which I hope I can use with another project. The music compromise was difficult, but I am very pleased with the new score. As I mentioned in previous posts, I relied heavily on my photography skills. While video is not my forte, I was blessed with the assistance of a talented video editor who was able to tweak my footage into a seamless 55 second trailer. Her eye, computer skills, and willingness to provide critiques and suggestions were extremely valuable. I too, took the video apart, and then I set it aside for a time before returning to view it with fresh eyes. As we all know, self-editing no matter the medium, is difficult. During my final fresh look at the raw cut I took specific notes on the music, clips, color/tone and speed. I checked off the parts of the video that needed no fix (music, overall tone) and made editing notes on what I felt needed tweaked. For example: my female character was featured spinning too many times. In the novel, she spins and dances in the shadows to torment her murderer. But, in the video I realized too much time was spent on her spinning–although I found it visually enchanting and I was able to create a few beautiful still shots to use elsewhere. There were a couple of clips that needed an adjustment in speed and we reversed another clip to flow with the music. The last clip of the broken wine bottles was judged too harsh in color tone. The wine appeared to resemble blood, so the video editor tweaked the color component of the clip by darkening the red hue to resemble rancid wine.
I still have the other iphone created video available for viewing if you want to compare the finished product with the sample video.
I experienced the usual technical difficulties which imparts the importance of having backups and backups of your file backups. I can’t stress this enough. After a computer crash and then a faulty file export, my editor was able to recreate and relocate the finished product. This minor mishap though was not without about 30 minutes of gut-wrenching stress. Now I am stepping onto the marketing path to invite as many views as possible of the trailer with my goal to raise the interest of prospective readers. Let’s be honest, you create a book trailer to help sell your book. I’ve uploaded the file to YouTube and I’ve shared it with friends on Facebook who are sharing it with their friends, etc. And, I can’t thank them enough. One final piece of advice I can impart on those contemplating a book trailer–take a chance and let your imagination run and don’t worry about the criticism. Do your best and don’t be afraid to ask for help.
