*Book Trailers

Book Trailers are like Book Talks but are represented in a visual format.  When we do either a book talk or a book trailer, we want more than anything to "hook" the audience, just like a movie trailer does.  To get in the right mindset for thinking about trailers, you might want to take a look at a few movie trailers and think about what is done well and what needed some work in each trailer. 

Here's a movie trailer that's pretty intense and demonstrates the "hook" well:

Unbreakable movie trailer 

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT:

*try to develop a "hook"--a sense of suspense/action/mystery by use of music and/or images.

*when designing your trailers, weave in information about characters, setting, plot, and especially CONFLICT!

*try to keep the trailers between 1-2 minutes long (too long makes people b o r e d!).

*don't give away the ending!

Now, let's take a look at a few book trailers. Think about what works well in these trailers and what you'd do differently.

Chronicles of Vladimir Tod #1 book trailer

The Adoration of Jenna Fox book trailer

For teachers:

When was the last time you saw a movie trailer and were hooked?  What if you could get all readers as excited about books as they are about movies?

Using that idea, Travis Macy and I taught students to “hook” readers by creating book trailers—1-2 minutes visual representations of their books, usually with music and/or voice elements.  With HUGE help from Kris Fritzsche, students took their pre-existing knowledge of filmmaking and expanded upon it, thinking critically about their novel of choice and which images and music would best represent their book and lure viewers into wanting to read more.  We think you’ll be amazed by the results. . .see their work below!