2017 HS-B
First Place
「にゃんともクラブ」
International School of Sacred Heart
Joyce Skeete (Gr. 12)
This project is good and allows students to learn in depth about their books, but it was also time consuming slotted into the schedule of a high school student. Because most of the filming has to be done at home, it was difficult to use the time in class effectively. Overall the project is very beneficial, especially for new Japanese learners.
The actual technique used is quite simple; it is just putting pieces of paper on the screen. However, there is a lot of creativity in how this is done. From the way the story comes out of an origami piece to how different colors and shapes tell the story, it is as if we are watching an animated "kamishibai, a paper-play."
Second Place
「七夕の月」
「空へ」
The American School in Japan
Sara Schwartz (Gr. 10) & Yo Suzuki (Gr. 9)
We think that our trailer is very creative, yet well interpreted. We spent many hours working on our stop-motion drawings, as well as editing the final footage, and we got a very satisfying result from our hard work. The organization, as well as the style of the trailer and the way we showcased this book really captivated the attention of the viewer.
Hokkaido International School
Nina Nielsen (Gr. 9)
This was my first time making a book trailer. I had a hard time changing colors of the words because I did not know what color would stand out the best. I had a good time drawing pictures because I liked to draw and I did not have to look for pictures. It was very challenging but I had a very good experience making a book trailer. I’d like to do it again next year.
You can see that a lot of effort has been put into this piece by the sheer number of high quality drawings. They explain the story well. Also, the transition from black and white to color, and vice versa, illustrate the tone and the feelings of the characters well. Adding some words to the beginning and ending frames would have made this trailer deeper.
This is a high quality trailer, the content from the introduction to the main part was well conveyed. It was particularly good to add changes to BGM in relation to the development of the story.
Third Place
「ようかいいじわるひょうしき」
「脱走ペンギンを追いかけて」
International School of Sacred Heart
Tori Duncan (Gr. 12)
When making the book trailer for いじわるひょうしき I wanted to use real life videos. The story is about a boy who takes a shortcut home and gets lost in the shortcut, that is actually a maze. I wanted to use real life street signs to make the book trailer seem more real. I also had the idea of putting faces on the signs to make it look similar to the illustrations in the book. I wanted to leave the trailer with an tense feeling so I used tense music to make the audience wanting to find out more.
The American School in Japan
Koki Someji (Gr. 10)
I made this trailer with the focus of capturing the main character's excitement towards capturing the penguin. I I think this trailer was overall competent and pretty good, but maybe I could have explored further the theme of 'friendship' that is present in the book.
Even though the music and narration gave a mysterious effect, the trailer was also humorous. The mixture of movie and Yokai pictures was good idea. There is a good combination of filmed footage, narration, and computer graphics. Together, they illustrate how evil signs might suddenly appear in daily life, and it is conveyed that this may cause feelings of anxiety.
Viewers can feel how Kota is sad about not having friends at his new school. However, he became motivated to find a missing penguin. Sound effect is used well. It would have been better if you talked about Kota and his new friend and their journey to find the penguin.
「脱走ペンギンを追いかけて」
「どうぶつがっこう」
International School of Sacred Heart Riya Mahajan (Gr. 11)
Although making the book trailer in a busy high school schedule was quite difficult, it was also a very good experience. I had the opportunity to draw using different technology, software and applications. It enabled me to use my imagination as well as the different features of iMovie, Sketchbook pro and Wacom. It was very interesting to choose different music for different scenes and narrating in the trailer. This experience has been very interesting and enthralling. I am excited for next year’s Sakura Medal Book Trailer Contest.
International School of Sacred Heart Seoyoung Chung (Gr. 12)
Because I chose a short chapter book with a nondramatic plot, it was quite difficult to create a book trailer that makes the story sound interesting and attracts audience’s attention. Therefore, I tried to use bright colors and include different techniques (such as stop motion, drawings, music, etc.) in my book trailer to illustrate the warm and child-friendly atmosphere that this book portrays. Overall, working on my Japanese book trailer was a very enjoyable experience and I learnt more about film making in general.
The hand drawn illustrations and narration tell the story effectively. You thought of turning the volume of the BGM down first and up when the narration was over. If you could display the sadness of the main character moving to a big city, and his excitement of searching for the missing penguin with his new friend, viewers would empathize with him more.
The music matches the book and characters are drawn beautifully. You should make the text bigger so the viewers can read them more easily. Having narration would also help with comprehension of the content.
「空へ」
「アカシア書店営業中!」
Canadian Academy
Sue Min Son (Gr. 11)
Kiho Lee (Gr. 11)
To make the book trailer, we decided to film most of the footages ourselves for maximum quality and similarity to the actual story. It was hard to film many of the scenes because the setting that we could film was limited. However, to film an important part of the book, we went to a shore nearby and filmed our “stone skipping” scene there. An important thing we learned was the importance of keeping the tone and the theme same in the trailer as the book. In order to do so, we tried show the tone and the theme represented in the book in our trailer as well. This included the choice of music, the words we included, the order of the footages we took.
Canadian Academy
Min Suk Shin (Gr. 11)
Yongseop Park (Gr. 11)
First of all, producing the book trailer was a big step in terms of understanding the Japanese culture. The whole process of making the book trailer allowed to increase my cooperation skills with my partner, as well as producing a media type using Japanese, which is my foreign language. The difficult part of creating this book trailer was trying out the stop motion effect since it was a new technique we haven’t learned. We solved this problem by practicing our stop-motion drawing skills and it turned out to be a satisfying book trailer. Overall, it was a great and joyful journey in creating this book trailer and I felt passionate when producing this media.
The detail of the filmed footage tells the story well. The change that occurs within the main actor from the beginning to the end of the book shows how they mature throughout the story. This trailer also conveys how the two boys became closer by showing their feet becoming closer. Make sure the end roll is played slowly so that people can read the texts.
The background music matches the content of the book. The movements within the movie keep the viewer engaged. The character found out that the bookstore is closing, and if you display the relationships between the main characters and the bookstore, viewers would be more sympathetic. A robot-like voice should be avoided.