International School of Sacred Heart
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.
International School of Sacred Heart
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.
The illustrations are very sophisticated and used effectively in the work. The conversational style also shows the student’s rich creativity. This is a high-quality, attractive book trailer that is carefully designed to the smallest details, such as the size of characters and the use of animation.
The narration is outstanding, and the hand-drawn illustrations are also very high quality. This trailer presents the creator’s deep understanding of the story, and has succeeded in making the book highly appealing to viewers.
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.
This is an extremely high-quality work that skillfully combines hand-drawn illustrations and music that well reflect the content of the story. The sadness of a plate that is not being used is well expressed, and a viewer can be naturally invited to grab and read the book. BGM is also good.
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
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 combination of photography and CG is impressive. Expressing the butterfly as a color and as the only movement enables to depict the symbolism of the butterfly creatively. Also, by changing the whole image itself from monochrome to color, the work expresses well the hope that the character finds out. It would have been even better work by a bit of contrivance in transition and music.
The idea of a trailer using the creative process is excellent. Not only the quality of the illustrations is high, but by showing only the characters involved in the trial, the work succeeds in accurately conveying the contents. It's a simple trailer, but naturally enhances a viewer’s curiosity about the book.
Kyun Yong Park（12年生）
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.
Nina Ishida (Gr. 11）
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.
This work effectively conveys the contents of a heartwarming story with cutouts and hand-drawn illustrations. It clearly tells what "Earth Observation Team" is and what is happening to the main character's grandfather by pictures of important scenes and things with a carefully combined narration. The ending stimulating the reader's curiosity is also good. Consider using the sketchbook horizontally, not vertically.
It is very attractive and impressive that the visual image and music effectively reflects the content of the story and that the work is completed with the question that sharply approaches the theme of the book and makes the viewer think deeply. The concept of "swirling of sadness" is consistent and impressive. Various images are creatively and effectively used, that produces great visual appeal.
"Boku no Doragon"
『ぼくのドラゴン』
Kasey Swisher（Gr. 10）
For this yearbook trailer I think it was much difficult than last year since we didn't have much time to work on our book trailer in class so the only way to work most of the book trailer was at home and winter break while working our book trailer we also had other events so it was really hard to work on book trailer. Also since we became grade 10 we had to pick a difficult book so reading the book was the most difficulties I had since it took time to read and there some kanji that I don’t know.
"Itsumo Kokoro no Naka ni"
『いつも心の中に 』
Jiwoo Choi（Gr. 11）
I walked across different challenges on how I could best portray a trailer of ‘いつも心の中に’, so that the audience was left interested. First, I had trouble finding CC licensed clips that best fit the settings that took place. Next, I had to make sure the captions I inserted were grammatically correct, and gave concise amount of information. However in the end, the fact that I blended in creative commons licensed clips with the clips I took, I was able to insert relevant clips, along with the captions making the trailer look concise.
This trailer is full of creative ideas using beautifully refined visual images. The part that gives rich expressive power and sense of humor is also good. It might have been better if a BGM that matsches the content and image of the story a little more accurately was chosen.
The picture of the drama style is beautiful. The work clearly explains why the main character is feeling a pain and what happened to him in America, based on the creator’s deep understanding of the story. It would have been even more effective if a narration was combined.