The technophobe’s guide to making a book trailer

Hello – a few people have been asking me how I made the book trailer for The Silence.

You can view it here.    https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=7Sv-gwfEFiM

It was my first attempt at anything like this and I know it’s far from brilliant but it was fun to do and ridiculously easy so if you’re thinking of making one and are as much of a technophobe as I am I hope this will help.

I used iMovies because it was already installed on my iPad but there are other free options you can download such as Shotcut if you’re a Windows user. Or you can pay someone to make a trailer for you, which will almost certainly look more professional and has the advantage that it won’t be a recognised template. But whichever you use you need to decide roughly at this stage on the storyline and how you want to illustrate it.

I started by distilling the storyline down into a few short lines of text. I did this by taking the blurb and highlighting the key points and underlining bits I wanted to convey somehow.

I scribbled out a basic story board in a notebook using the key phrases and stick men sketches.

Then I looked for pictures to illustrate those points. It’s worth thinking about the trailer as early as possible so that you can build up a stock of stills and video clips. I made mine all from stills but video clips are great and you can buy these quite cheaply from picture sites if you don’t have your own.

I had some pictures of my own but had to source others. It’s worth bearing in mind that you will need a lot of pictures as the frames move quite quickly so it’s best to collect more than you think you’ll need.

If you’re short of time or have very specific requirements it’s probably worth paying for images from a picture sites like Shutterstock. You can buy a small package of photos or an individual video clip without having to subscribe. Canva has a wonderful selection of photos for $1 each.

However, I found some great copyright-free images on Pixabay and stocksnap.io which are copyright free.

One word of caution – the only close-up, identifiable pictures I used were of my children. You can’t use identifiable images of people in a way they might find offensive without their permission even if the pictures are copyright free. You might choose to avoid pictures of people altogether to be on the safe side. You don’t have to be too literal with your picture choice. A shot of the sky or a beach or a some cherry blossom might be all you need to convey a mood and there are lots of free silhouette shots.

I collected the pictures in a folder that I named Trailer on my desktop. When I was ready I went on to iMovies. On the first page you’re offered a choice of Movie or Trailer and I selected Trailer, then selected the template I wanted from a range of different genres that come complete with music.

You can watch their sample trailer and then select Create (top right) to create your own.

The instructions are quite easy to follow – you just tap on a picture silhouette on the right hand side and upload your picture or video from your folder and then tap on the text line and write in the text. You can edit it as many times as you like.

When you’re happy you can press the share button at the bottom which will give you options to share the video to Facebook, YouTube etc.

 

Well this is the closest The Silence will ever get to the big screen but I hope this post was helpful. Please ask if you have any questions and I’ll do my best to get an answer for you. 🙂