The Teens and Technology Interest Group organized a panel program on booktrailers and video on Saturday afternoon at Annual. Here are some of the highlights and resources discussed by panelists.
New York Times best-selling author Simone Elkeles discussed two of her booktrailers: Perfect Chemistry and Rules of Attraction, available at http://www.simoneelkeles.net). Elkeles wanted to make a booktrailer with music. She said she was a “child of the eighties” and wanted to make a booktrailer like the Fresh Prince of Bel Air’s opening credits — a rap book trailer. She felt that because teens are on the Internet that is where she needed to get them interested in her books. The edgy Perfect Chemistry was filmed on a green screen for about $5,000.
The booktrailer for Perfect Chemistry was very popular, but Elkeles felt that for her next book she needed to do something bigger. She thought maybe she could fool the teens into thinking her book was a movie, so she decided to do a movie trailer. The booktrailer for Rules of Attraction was filmed in Hollywood with a professional film crew. Simone wanted the hottest guy in Hollywood to play Alex. When asked, “If you could have anyone to play Alex, who would it be?” she answered, “The groom from Katy Perry’s ‘Hot and Cold‘ video.” Elkeles was able to get him to do the booktrailer. Simone hopes to keep setting the bar higher in her booktrailers. Elkeles said many guys have told her that they have gotten out of gangs because of reading her books.
Joy Millam, the District Library Coordinator/Teacher-Librarian at Valencia High School in CA, uses booktrailers in her library to get kids interested in reading books. She feels it is important to reach kids on portals that they are used to seeing. Teens today are very visual. Her first booktrailer was for Thirteen Reasons Why. She has a small monitor and a DVD player in the library to show book trailers. Millam has taught students and teachers to make booktrailers. Her students use Microsoft Powerpoint to save their slides as .jpegs and then put them into Windows Movie Maker to edit. She emphasizes to students that the right music can make all the difference in setting the mood for the trailer. She and her students use Freeplay Music for copyright-friendly music choices and Audacity for music editing. Millam has shared all her tutorials and staff training materials on the wiki, booktalksandmore. Millam encourages students to make about 12 slides of 5 seconds each, always starting with the book cover. Millam shared some student examples which are available on her wiki and she said they vary in quality. The hardest part of making a booktrailer is choosing the images. She encourages students not to get stuck looking for a certain image and said, “Be willing to change your idea and that may make your trailer even better.”
Jennifer Wooten created and runs the “Read-Flip-Win” contest at King County Library System. Since 43 branches participate in the progr
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