In today’s world, if you’re getting a book published, putting together a book trailer is a matter of course.  They help you reach out to your audience in a new and fun way.  And recently book trailers have come a long way from a simple montage of photos with an accompanying voice over.

The minute we had a book contract, Mom and I started planning our book trailer.  The first decision was the easiest – we knew we wanted Nick – who’s not simply a great director, but our son/brother – to direct it.  That turned out to be one of the best decisions we made.  Nick worked harder than anyone, and the result was a trailer we loved.  We decided to ask Nick a couple questions, to get his side of the experience.

Q 1: Video trailers for books are relatively new. Unlike music videos or film trailers, there really isn’t any fixed template to work from. Where did you start, and did you think of it as a commercial or a short film?

A: The Lady Vernon video is definitely a commercial, and memorable commercials are essentially short films. A good commercial should not only imprint the product’s name on your mind, but entice you to buy it. With the Lady Vernon trailer, my object was not to take viewers away from the source material, but persuade viewers to check out the book. 

I started with one fixed concept: don’t give a clear image of any faces. Visualizing the character’s in the mind’s eye is part of the enjoyment of reading. If I showed a character’s face, it would have stripped the potential reader of the ability to envision the character.

I also did not incorporate the book cover until the end, just as the face of Frederica is about to be revealed – steering the video toward a revelation of Frederica’s face and then opening the door onto the book cover plants the image of the book at the climax of the ‘story’. I’m saying, “The only way to see these characters is to buy the book.”

Q 2: You have produced, directed and edited several short films and promotional videos – how was this project different, and what about those projects helped you in developing this one?

A: We did start with a script, but otherwise, we essentially worked backward, starting with the music. We spent days sifting through songs on audio sites until we found the clip we wanted to lease, and then I spent about two weeks working with the clip to see if it could be cut down to the time that would correspond with the script. Then I did a rough recording of the dialogue in the script and placed it at different markers on the musical track to make sure that I could put the dialogue and the music in the same time frame. When I was convinced I had a match, I hired voice actors and recorded the lines in a studio in NYC and then replaced their recorded line readings with the rough ones.

After that, I began storyboarding. Because the audio was now locked, my storyboards had specific limitations; it was like putting together a jigsaw puzzle – there was only one place that each piece could go. Storyboards took about two weeks to sketch, and I had to continuously ask the authors, “Am I allowed to do this?” or “Would these characters do that?” to make sure I stayed as true to the period as possible. This is all the reverse of my usual process, which is to storyboard first, then film, then record any sound and music. The upside of doing it this way was that post-production editing went very quickly – it was literally a matter of plugging in the best take of each shot as it had been laid out in the storyboards.

Q 3: You had to put out a casting call for two separate casts, voice actors and physical actors, but for your crew you called on Nathan Troester and Deepak Chetty, both of whom you have worked with several times – what are the advantages and disadvantages of working with friends?

A:  Whether you’re working with someone for several months on a film set or for a single day (as was our case), the job will come with its own stress – the advantage of working with people you know is that you like each other, you’re comfortable with each other and you know their temperament and their skills. That means a lot when you’re shooting on a tight schedule.

Q 4: By the same token, some people advise “never work with or for family members”, but for the Lady Vernon trailer your mother and sister (the authors) were your clients. Were there any issues working with family that you might not have had with another client?

A.  Not really. In the city, I share an apartment with my sister, so I always had a go-to person when specific questions came up – and being the son of the other client is that she will love you even if she hates what you hand in!

Q 5: Because you only had your locations – The Mainstay Inn and The Hotel Alcott in Cape May, NJ – for one day, how many “hats” did you have to wear? How did it influence the order in which you handled separate tasks.

 A: The shoot was the next-to-last element of the video – everything else, getting the music, scouting locations, renting costumes, casting, recording vocals came first – so I guess I was location scout, costume scout, casting director, vocal coach, director and finally, editor. Basically, I was anything I had to be in order to get the project completed.

Q 6: How did you go about budgeting the trailer? How close was your projected budget to the final cost?

A: I discussed with my clients what their budget was, and then worked with their script to list all of the things I would need – I looked up sample budgets online, and researched the cost of items like costumes, crew and actors, as well as factoring in costs like transportation and meals and add a reasonable “cushion”. I think I came in a couple hundred dollars under budget.

Q 7: The Lady Vernon trailer is somewhat elaborate in that it required licensing music, renting costumes, hiring professional actors – do you have any advice for authors who are thinking about producing a book trailer?

A: I recently watched an acceptance speech given by Stanley Kubrick – he told the story about a conversation with Steven Spielberg, and said, “I asked Steven what he thought the most difficult and challenging thing about directing a film was, and I believe he summed it up about as profoundly as you can. He thought that the most difficult and challenging part of directing a film was ‘…getting out of the car.’”

So, trust your instincts, don’t be intimidated by the fact that it’s a new field and get out of the car.

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