Creating a Low-Budget Book Trailer: The First Steps

The first thing I did in the process of making the book trailer for Pirates Off the Deep End was to decide what are the key points of my book. Pirates is a middle grade, ages 8 to 12, adventure with some tense moments, but it has a funny side—after all it involves three brothers ages 10, 12 and 13 and the trouble they get into. The main character and narrator is the middle brother, Tommy. Another main character is 400-year-old ghost pirate, Francois l’Olonnais. If the name sounds familiar, he was a real pirate in the 1600s. As the main characters, Tommy and l’Olonnais had to be mentioned in the trailer.

Set the Mood
Since my book has adventure and comedy, I wanted to have at least one ‘tense’ scene appropriate for the book’s age range and a funny scene. Cute dogs and babies always score points with people, but I don’t have any babies in my book. I do have a scene with a dog. Fortunately, I have four dogs of my own to choose from to star in the video. Turbo just happened to fit the bill. Much of the story takes place on a boat, so I need to let the viewer get the feel that the video is shot on a boat. Two huge problems for me—I don’t own a boat, and I live in the desert. Most problems have solutions, and I’ll get to mine later.

Actors or Not?
I have two reasons why I didn’t want any actors other than Turbo. I like my readers to create their own image of my characters in their mind, so I never describe my characters in great detail. I certainly don’t want to put their image in a video…unless a producer wants to make a movie of the book. That would be an exception. Otherwise, it’s my personal preference as a writer to let the reader get creative. Another huge reason to avoid actors in a low-budget book trailer is that the acting probably will be less than stellar if you recruit your child, a friend, or a neighbor. For good acting, you’re going to have to pay, and that will increase the cost of your trailer.

Use Your Words
One more thing before you grab your camera is to pick out some of your favorite lines from your book or lines that tell a lot about the story in a few words. A book trailer has to hold the audience for roughly a minute and 30 seconds, so you can’t have a huge chunk of text for them to read. If you’re switching scenes like I did, they may only have 8 to 10 seconds to take in the action and read the words.

Get Your Ideas down Quick and Dirty
So, if you’ve been following along and you want to try my method, you should pick out a few key scenes, main characters, and lines from your book. I figured that if my book trailer was a minute and 30 seconds, I’d have 10 scenes at the most. I know 13 seconds doesn’t seem like a lot of time, but it is for a trailer scene.

After I had a rough idea of what scenes I wanted to recreate, I divided a sheet of paper into 10 sections and sketched the most basic drawings of items I needed in each scene. For Pirates, I sketched a boat (the kind that looks like a banana with a sail) in one section. It’s just a placeholder for an idea, so who cares? I filled in all 10 sections with quick drawings. Next, I wrote down the lines from the book on another piece of paper. I’m a VERY visual person, and yes, I do have Photoshop and other graphic packages, but I didn’t need to spend time making it look perfect. Do you type your grocery list? Quick and dirty. Now match the lines with scenes.

My next blog will discuss filming tips and techniques, editing, and where to get the video and audio you can’t shoot on your own—all within a low budget, of course.