- by Tara Maya
Cinders – Book Trailer of the Day
This trailer is by Michelle Davidson Argyle, my friend, for her recently published literary fantasy, Cinders. Read my interview in an earlier post, if you haven’t had a chance yet. I believe she did it herself. It’s simple, and low-budget, but the pace is good, the stock footage is well-integrated and doesn’t feel like modern pictures just slapped into the trailer of a story sent in a medieval kingdom.
One thing she did which makes this trailer stand out is that you will notice several shots of the title character, in appropriate attire, in different positions. This helps give the whole thing a unified feel. How did she do that? Well, she designed the dress, had it sewn and then took the pictures of the model herself. Michelle is also a photographer.
One question I asked myself is whether video would have worked better. She had the model and the dress — she could have done video easily. But I’m not sure it would have improved it. Unless you have a professional set-up, it’s harder than most people think to make video quality look good. And bad video is worse than good still shots moving across the screen with music. There is enough sense of movement here with the twirly-swirls and the pans to create a sense of action. The teaser lines don’t try to tell you the whole plot, they say just enough to give a feel for the book. And the trailer doesn’t go over one minute.
I am hoping Michelle will talk about making the trailer on The Literary Lab as part of her series on self-publishing.
