I enjoyed both reading the book and making the book trailer. I especially enjoyed drawing the picture from the book and being able to show my creativity. When I made the book trailer I had used Keynote to animate it then I imported the movie and finished it up by using iMovie. It did take a while for me to edit but overall, I really enjoyed this project and would love to do it again.

This was the first Japanese book that I have read fully. It was hard to read at because it was a little boring and I didn’t know some of the vocabulary. However, has a continued to read, it got much easier to understand. I thought the book was very interesting and fun to read. The ending was a surprise and did not expect it at all. This is not my first time to make book trailer so it was easy for me. But, drawing and coloring the pictures were time taking for me. In general, I had fun making the video.

While making the book trailer, the most difficult thing I faced was learning how to animate. Since this was my first time drawing with frames, I had a hard time organizing each frame and editing multiple objects per frame. Therefore, the animation clips are generally short and simple. Although animating was difficult, I thoroughly enjoyed learning from it and gaining experience. In addition, I enjoyed video editing, specifically aligning the animation clips and quotations with the music to be dramatic. The background music was hard to find, yet it worked well with the trailer and added to the intensity of the trailer.

Canadian Academy

Kai Sleath (Gr. 11)

Ja Yeon Shin (Gr. 11)

Throughout this book trailer project, we definitely faced a few challenges regarding finding appropriate pictures online which resulted in bad time management. However, we fortunately were able to make a quick plan for taking real-life pictures. By following the plan, we were able to use the time very effectively and finish filming in a short amount of time. Sharing a message about the book through pictures and videos allowed us to express our own interpretation of the meaning and understanding of it in a very imaginative and creative way.

Tsukuba International School

Nikhita Kaushik (Gr. 11)

Although this was my first time making a book trailer, I did not face that much of a difficulty making it. I initially had many different ideas, but I ended up doing speed drawing. The only difficulty I had was thinking of what to put in the trailer. Because the book I read has so many important events, it was difficult for me to decide what aspects of the book I should include. I eventually drew all the characters, and asked a rhetorical question. The making of the trailer was overall a short, but fun experience.

The story of a young boy, filled with curiosity of his world, is demonstrated in this video by using his notebook as a template for the various scenes within the story. The background music, titled “Memories,” conveys a nostalgic mood in which the young boy, grown up, may be looking back at his notebook filled with memories of his childhood. Using quotes and narratives from excerpts of the book, this trailer displays the naive perspective of an innocent child interacting with his beloved grandfather. The simple motion animations of the child-like images portray the story-telling vibe of this children’s story.

The process of making this trailer was, though frustrating or challenging at times, overall enjoyable. One thing I struggled with was creating the initial storyline. I found it difficult to create a smooth transition between the death of the main character’s father and her summer trip. I wanted to accurately present the period of grief she underwent, as well as the passing of time, which was a struggle to do in under 2 minutes. I used music to tackle this, switching songs in accordance with each turn of events. Overall, this project helped me develop my skills as a storyteller.