Hello Everyone!
This is part 15 of my series on let’s make a book trailer.
Previous parts are here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13 and Part 14.
Still haven’t re-organized the parts list, but I’ll get around to it.
As with the previous posts, the following are merely my thoughts on the trailer construction process. Feel free to use or snort with derision.
Last time we looked at pan and zoom effects and how to implement them. Our video application is Microsoft Movie Maker, available with Windows Essentials 2012. You can download a copy here.
In today’s post we’ll look at how I applied the pan and zoom effects to the trailer we’re building.
Recall that our constraints for creating our trailer are:
- We’re creating a “Teaser” trailer
- Using PowerPoint to create most of the content
- No video, music, animation or voice overs
- Working with stock images or some commissioned images
We’re starting to stray from the original constraints in that pan and zoom could be considered animation.
Work Area Thumbnails
I should mention thumbnail size in the work area. I don’t mind working with small thumbnails, and for a long trailer you will need small thumbnails if you want to see the entire trailer at a glance.
However, if you want to enlarge the thumbnails, you can do this in the View menu by using the Thumbnail size drop list and selecting the size you would like to work with.
Using Pan and Zoom
I mentioned last time that you shouldn’t just throw in pan and zoom effects for the sake of using them. The temptation to do so can be great when you are working with static images in order to provide some dynamism.
Pan and zoom should be used to achieve a certain effect, such as:
- Draw attention to a character, image, or text (for example, zoom into a character’s face)
- Aid or complement the transition from one slide to the next
- Provide a sense of drama
Movement for the sake of movement should be avoided.
Pan and Zoom in the Trailer
Not counting the title and credit slides, our trailer comprises seven slides. I’ve used pan and zoom on most, but not all of them. In fact there are two slides where the lack of any pan and zoom effect makes for a more dramatic impact.
The first two “non-title” slides have Merreth sitting at a table, and I use pan and zoom in to draw the attention to her. I did this with the third slide as well.
One thing to note — pan and zoom do not apply to text labels — they will “float on top of” the slide. Thus you may have to re-position the text so that it remains legible as the pan and zoom effect causes the “background” to move.
I didn’t use any effect on the fourth and fifth slides — where I have a close up of Merreth looking first at her dagger and then “at the camera.” I wanted to simulate Merreth shifting her glance from the blade to straight ahead, mimicking movement with two consecutive slides. In order to that to happen the two slides had to remain motionless.
On the sixth slide I again used pan and zoom to draw attention to Merreth standing at the cabin door. On the seventh slide I implemented pan only, from right to left, in order to reveal more of Merreth’s torso as she stands outside of the cabin, with the open door showing the two dead bodies.
The last two slides in the trailer have no effects added to them.
Here’s the entire trailer so far:
That’s it for this installment. Next time we’ll look at some options for adding background music.
Do you plan to use a book trailer for your novel? Let me know in the comments, along with how you are going to go about making.
Thanks for reading and I will see you again next time.
