Book Trailer

Crown Of Feathers Book Trailer Process Description

My book trailer is made for Crown of Feathers, a remarkable book by author Nicki Pau Preto. Her book features a vibrant fantasy world full of rich, representative characters and realistic conflicts. It is a book I enjoy very much, and I wanted to pay tribute to it through my creation. 

The first thing I did after picking what book I wanted to make a trailer for, I drafted a script and a cast. I gathered friends for roles and conferred with them on the ways to best execute the trailer (what software to use, how to record, etc). That done, I had a friend help me record the dialogue, which was originally taken from the book’s synopsis. I also created props for the trailer by redecorating a Halloween raven and stripping and cleaning turkey bones. 

One of the most common setbacks for this project was inclement weather, as all the scenes needed to be filmed in a natural environment. Film days would either needed to be delayed or rescheduled entirely. Eventually, though, I was able to get what I needed.

After obtaining the raw video footage, I went through the editing process. I trimmed out unnecessary segments and created the audio file that was to be overlaid on the footage in a program called Soundtrap. I sampled sounds, music, and gifs I couldn’t create myself from free, non-copyrighted sources like mixkit.com, MUSIC ON CHARGE on YouTube, and vecteezy.com. All unoriginal works were used with proper permission. 

The last step was putting everything together. Using Adobe After Effects, I edited the clips together, added transitions, and overlaid the sound. I sought critique and fixed issues as needed. Taking all scheduling conflicts into account, the project took around one month to complete.