"Is it too much to ask for the things to work out this time?"I've been seeing some book trailers making the rounds on various blogs lately, and I have to say I'm a bit underwhelmed. They're good, but not nearly what they could be. They tend to essentially be slideshows--pretty, evocative pictures in the background with music for atmosphere and rhetorical questions posed by text that "explodes" towards the screen (I'm not sure what exactly the effect is called, but it's everywhere).
--Blink 182, Lemmings
They're not that bad, and a couple of them have even made me interested, but they're lacking one very important thing: voices. I understand the difficulties involved in getting good voiceover talent, let alone recording it, but I think that voices are key to building excitement. When you hear someone else talking about the end of the world, it's just a bit more real than if you see a picture of it with some text explaining it.
Something I'll be playing around with whenever I become involved with book trailers, either as a publishing professional or an author, and something I think that authors (whom I believe are the ones commissioning these trailers, to their credit) should keep in mind.
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2 comments:
There are several book trailers with sound.
This is a full production book trailer-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTlwh7ogMRk
Here is one with voice over-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k76HSy_NaM
Often publishers or authors don't want voice over because they play them at conventions, where you can't hear the voices.
We try to create them so you don't have to hear the voices to understand, but each author is different and some want full narration, others none.
I like a little of both.
Thanks for the links...I'd be interested to see how the different types of trailers are received.
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