Proposal

 

For Experiment 2, I am going to make a book trailer, which is like a movie trailer, but for a book instead of a movie. Just like with a movie trailer, the book trailer’s essential function is to get the reader to want to go read the book, usually by giving them some sort of sneak preview of the story. In my case, the book is a novel I’ve started writing titled It’s Pronounced "Pegasus". The novel is a first-person narrative of a girl named Logan Ceallaigh (loosely pronounced Cal-Ae) who falls victim to a bullying scandal surrounding the mispronunciation of her last name. The story follows Logan through this hard time, only to have an unexpected turn of events (or, rather, an unexpected friendship) propel her directly into the ranks of the popular, her now-former bullies. From there, the book follows Logan through a maze of high school drama and growing self-awareness to several eventual realizations, including that “being popular” isn’t all that she thought it would be and that friendship matters more than status.

 

While I love the idea of book trailers, anyway, I am especially excited to make a book trailer for this project because that is how Logan’s story originally came to me – as a trailer – and it would be cool to see that vision made into a reality. While I don’t think making my exact vision will be feasible for this experiment (I was envisioning more of a movie-trailer-feel with live actors that I don’t have time to gather right now), I still think taking on the monumental task of making a book trailer in the first place will get me one step closer to that dream. Furthermore, I’m excited to be dabbling in a medium that feels like it’s still in its early stages of popularization.

 

The concept of a book trailer is interesting, and I’m sure many people don’t even know they exist, but I think book trailers are going to be the preferred medium for reaching young audiences in the future, which is why making one now is the right time to do it. After all, the younger generations seem to be the most tech-savvy, and they’re probably the ones most likely to be surfing the Internet and YouTube and stumbling upon book trailer videos like mine. Also, the format of a book trailer as a short video – rather than an email from Barnes&Noble or a poster – might make itself more engaging and shareable for my target audience (approximately eight- to fifteen-year-olds), thereby making the book more fun and accessible, too. Since I hope to eventually make a website for It’s Pronounced "Pegasus," I’m hoping this book trailer will be an exciting addition to the overall effort of getting Logan’s story out to the rest of the world.

 

 

Genre Analysis + Research

 

Book trailers are a relatively new phenomenon, at least when compared to books themselves. They seem to have become more popular in the last decade or so, but I’ve only been introduced to them within the past few years (and, even then, only minimally). My first step, therefore, was to research some of the conventions of book trailers. What I found was that a lot of book trailers follow a common pattern. As editor Kate Sullivan puts it, “You have to set up the scenario, introduce the characters, show what’s at stake, and leave the viewer wanting to find out what happens” (Sullivan). In other words, a good book trailer “lets the viewer get familiar with where and when your book is set, get an idea of the general tone, and meet the characters. Then it throws those characters into the thick of things and leaves the viewer wanting to know what happens” (Sullivan). As long as you utilize this common pattern, though, it seems that your presentation of that information can take almost any form you want.

 

Book trailers, from what my research has shown, can be as creative (or not) as you want them to be – really, whatever you’re imagining. I found book trailers that utilized stop-motion photography, live scenes captured on film, still pictures, animation, digital art, voiceovers, words on the screen, etc. There were book trailers that told stories from the protagonist’s point of view, a narrator’s view, or even from a made-up point of view of a character that exists within the book trailer but not the book itself. As Sullivan says, “You can make book trailers that are basically narrated slide shows, ones that are full-cast productions, and everything in between,” and I’ve found that to be completely true (Sullivan). The book trailers I found were so diverse! I was even surprised to find that some book trailers took the model above and spun it in unique directions, such as a book trailer for The Love Song of Jonny Valentine by Teddy Wayne, in which Wayne satirically endorses his own book, making the book trailer into a spoof of a celebrity endorsement/gimmicky commercial (Simon & Schuster Books). With so many different facets from which to pull inspiration, I was eager to get started forming my own ideas.

 

Consequently, having gained some ideas about what book trailers looked and sounded like, my last step was to figure out how to make my own book trailer. The Reading Agency had some good tips: 1) write a “clear and concise” script; 2) “start strong,” perhaps using a “question or quote from the book;” 3) shoot with a steady camera; 4) keep your trailer simple; 5) do something more interesting than just summarizing the plot; 6) choose copyright free music (“The Reading Agency”). While most of these tips were applicable to this project, I wasn’t sure that I wanted this experiment to involve filming. My first thought had been to use iMovie – which offers a lot of cool, premade templates to work with specifically for trailers – but I worried that the use of an empty template would require me to fill it with images and videos I didn’t want to make myself, and finding copyright-free options that fit the storyline would make the task even harder. As such, I began to research other options – including, eventually, animation.

 

One great animation resource I found was Powtoon, which seems to be a relatively user-friendly site for creating simple, presentation-style animations. Powtoon is somewhat like iMovie in that it offers pre-made templates that can be adapted to suit the animator’s needs and design aesthetics, but these templates don’t require any outside content unless the animator wants to add some. Unlike with iMovie, then, Powtoon would allow me the freedom to create without having to worry about possibly infringing on copyright. Accordingly, even though there seems to be a difference between paid Powtoon subscriptions and the free version, I’m willing to try the free version and see where it takes me; however, part of my research going forward will need to be figuring out how to use Powtoon and whether the free version of Powtoon is the definite direction I want to take for making this experiment.

 

Works Cited

 

• Simon & Schuster Books. “Author Teddy Wayne Endorses His Own Book - Now in Paperback.” YouTube, YouTube, 5 Feb. 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YyuT9XVA9A.

   

• Sullivan, Kate. “10 Great Book Trailers and Why They're So Effective.” TCK Publishing, TCK Publishing, 24 Aug. 2018, www.tckpublishing.com/10-great-book-trailers-and-why-theyre-effective/.

   

• “The Reading Agency.” 6 Tips for Making a Book Trailer That Works | Reading Agency, 2014, readingagency.org.uk/young-people/003-skills/5-tips-for-making-a-book-trailer-that-works.html.

   

 

Sketch

 

In Powtoon, my plan is to introduce the characters, a bit of the plot, and the setting, just like what was mentioned in my research. I’ll probably start by introducing my main character, Logan, since I want her to be the one narrating the book trailer/telling the story. Then, I’ll move on to the setting (high school) and a bit of the plot. The details on the plot will include a few facts about Logan (that she’s a klutz, doesn’t have a boyfriend, etc.) that will lead us into the important part, which will hint at why the book is titled It’s Pronounced “Pegasus” without giving too much away.

 

I would also like to introduce a few other characters as simply as I can. For now, probably just Wes and Marcy, who are two of the most important characters in the novel (aside from Logan). After the trailer has introduced these characters, the setting, and the story, it will end with a slide encouraging to audience to read the book. This slide will include some text about reading the book, as well as the title of the book and the release date (for now, I’ll just use April 2019). All in all, I’m hoping for the trailer to be about a minute to a minute-and-a-half, which is mainly to avoid losing the interest of my target audience.

 

On the idea of keeping the target audience in mind, I think that the overall presentation of the trailer should be fun, clear, and easily comprehensible. I’d like the trailer to be colorful and fun to look at (perhaps with different colored backgrounds for different slides). I also plan to use occasional text effects and pops of color to add emphasis to certain words and ideas, as well as keep things from getting too boring. Furthermore, since Powtoon has the option to add characters and other fun extras, I’d like to include some of those animation pieces in my trailer, such as moving figures for Logan, Wes, and Marcy. Hopefully, with all of these simple and fun little touches, my book trailer will be appealing to readers of all ages!

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Sample

 

To view the book trailer, click the image below:

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Reflection

 

Making this experiment was a lot of fun, but also a bit frustrating at the end. I enjoyed researching and watching book trailers, and I was excited to get to start making my own, but when it came time to actually make the book trailer, I ran into several unforeseen obstacles that slightly soured my creative mood.

 

Even though my original plan was to use iMovie to make the book trailer, I chose to use Powtoon (a site I had never used before but hoped would be a good option), despite my initial qualms about what the differences might be between the free version and the paid version. Using the free version, my book trailer turned out mostly how I wanted it to, but I had to make a few compromises. For starters, the free version of Powtoon only has access to a handful of animated characters in comparison to the Pro (paid) version, so I had to settle for characters that looked “close enough” to my actual book characters instead of getting to pick exactly what I wanted. Furthermore, once I finally finished the book trailer, there was no good way to download the video except to try to publish it on YouTube or Facebook, which were both options I didn’t want to choose.

 

Considering this is just a project/draft and not something I’m quite ready to permanently share with the whole world yet, I shied away from publishing this video by itself on such public platforms as Facebook and YouTube, but Powtoon offered very few alternatives. My aversion to the Facebook/YouTube route only grew when I read the fine print of the uploading portion of the website, which essentially stated that publishing my book trailer video on YouTube (I only read the fine print for YouTube) would allow Powtoon to manage my YouTube account and therefore give Powtoon some access to my personal data. I didn’t want that, obviously, so I was stuck. Now that my video had already been made, I was forced to settle for the unsatisfactory link to Powtoon’s website that the free version provides instead of the ability to download my own mp4 file video. If I could change something about this whole process, then, I might take the time to find someone who would lend me their YouTube account to publish on (and then I would delete the book trailer after I’d downloaded it off of YouTube), or otherwise find some way to publish my video and then download the mp4 file myself.

 

Other than my technical woes, I realized that I got a bit carried away with making this project. My Experiment 2 is nearly fully realized already, so if I could go back, I’d probably save some of it for later so I could fully realize it then. Instead, I think I will fully realize this project to completion by adding a book cover to the final slide of the video like most book trailers do. Hopefully that addition, plus maybe figuring out how to download the file properly, will be enough to count this Experiment as the one I fully realize. (Edit: In case you noticed that my book trailer does include a photo of the cover, I wanted to point out that I ended up adding the cover anyway when I had to make one for my Experiment 3, even though the book trailer did not turn out to be my "fully realized" Experiment.)

 

Either way, though, I’m excited that my book officially has a book trailer. It may not be high-budget or super high-quality, and it may not be what I’ve always pictured in my head (with live actors/actresses and a bit of doodle-y animation), but it’s a step toward the book trailer of my dreams, and that’s something to celebrate.