• When Hollywood is criticized year after year for destroying great literature with crappy adaptations, do you think it's wise to cast the characters of your book, making an indelible mental picture for your readers, and to try to capture 300 pages in three minutes? It seems like a good way to doom the book sales right from the start.
• Even a seasoned performer like Lewis Black looked embarrassed to be shilling his book in a trailer.
• I watched two trailers that were staged like a 60 Minutes segment—an interview with the author combined with an atmospheric montage. One (for In The Woods by Tana French) came across like a Match.com advertisement with glamour shots of the author in various stages of quiet contemplation. The other (Ann B. Ross, author of the Miss Julia series) was more successful, with the author describing her writing process and inspiration for her stories. I was charmed by her southern drawl and dignified demeanor—until the trailer staged a reenactment of her in a restaurant getting a story idea from a nearby table.
• Two of the trailers took a silent picture approach. Still photos interspersed with subtitles and ambient background music—it works so well in the film industry, it's sure to be a big hit.
• Of the seven, the trailer for Foreskin's Lament by Shalom Auslander was worth the four minutes. The video mixes still images of biblical artwork with archival clips as the author's voice-over introduces his memoir about growing up an Orthodox Jew. The script is funny and engaging, and the imagery fits perfectly. It doesn't hurt that the author's voice and delivery sound exactly like David Sedaris.
My conclusion, based on a survey of seven, is that there are many ways to go wrong with a book trailer. Is it worth the risk of alienating potential readers by casting a book's characters with bad actors or producing a piece that comes across like an infomercial? This brief bit of research has made me all the more impressed with Chris Huff's smart trailer for Ooligan's title 42.
So, are there any other praise-worthy trailers out there?
Why am I not surprised you're a fan of circumcision? Ouch.
ReplyDeleteI agree that most book trailers are pretty dreadful. They're just commercials, and I can't think of many of those I'd consider to be praise-worthy. Film trailers aren't any better. With most, if you've seen the trailer, you've seen the film.
I think the problem with most trailers is that they're about the product itself, and not about what makes the product relevant. I don't (necessarily) mean relevant in a news-worthy kind of way, but just in a this is what it says about the human experience kind of way. Hard to do if your hawking dish soap, but even your basic romance novel speaks to our better nature, whether it's circumcised or not.
Well, at least I'll admit to being a fan of David Sedaris.
ReplyDeleteIt's tough, too when you think about what they are supposed to do. They are there to make people who don't read books read books. And I'm not sure if it's the right medium for that or not. It could be a good thing, but when you are able to trademark the term, "book trailers" it's going to be hard to make it some sort of viable art form or part of a marketing plan.
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