Tag Archives: filming

How to Make a Book Trailer: Part One

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clapper_klmckeeA hot trend in publishing these days is to make a media trailer to call attention to a book and its author. Whether you are an educator who’s written a textbook or a novelist, you may be considering a book trailer to reach a wider audience.

First off, what is a book trailer? A book trailer is a video that briefly summarizes what the book is about and what the reader will get out of it. Most people are familiar with movie trailers, which are used to advertise films. A movie trailer is typically composed of clips from the full-length film, which are strung together to give a preview of what the movie is all about. The whole point is to stimulate people’s interest and encourage them to go see the movie. A book trailer is very similar, except that it is advertising a written document instead of a cinematic product.

Why would an author need a book trailer? As a recently published author, I am aware of how difficult it is to get a book onto the radar of potential readers. A book trailer can be a very effective way to promote a book, along with all the traditional approaches of book marketing. A growing number of people are searching for information in the form of video. The public is already primed for visual advertisements such as movie trailers; so a book trailer is a form of advertisement that is readily understood by the public. That’s the good news. The bad news is that it can be expensive to hire someone to create a trailer for your book. Your publisher may not be willing to cover that cost, or you may be self-published and cannot afford it.

So what do you do?

Well, you can consider creating the book trailer yourself. It was a no-brainer for me to create a book trailer to advertise my ebook on how to make science videos. As I explain in my book, how we communicate has changed radically in the past few years, and having multimedia skills, such as videography, opens a whole new world of opportunity for anyone whose livelihood depends on getting a message out to end-users. In the past, one needed a trained film crew to make a video, but today we have inexpensive equipment that can capture high-definition images (even an iPhone can record 1080p video), powerful movie editing software that is cheap and easy to use (apps for mobile devices cost less than $10.00 US), and free video-sharing sites that make it easy to show your movie trailer to the world.

In this series of posts, I explain the process I went through to create a book trailer for The Scientist Videographer and then provide a tutorial to show an easy way to make one yourself with an iPad (or other mobile device).

Step One: Study Examples of Trailers. Watch a few book trailers and study what makes them effective and what aspects detract (ask yourself which parts make you want to buy the book and which ones turn you off). You want to peruse book trailers that advertise books in a variety of categories but especially those in your specific specialty. You want to know how the top sellers in your book category are structuring their trailers so that you can better decide whether to go along with the crowd or make a trailer that sets you apart from your competitors. By watching a variety of trailers for other types of books, you may get some good ideas for your particular book that will make it seem unique to potential readers. Oh, and you might also want to watch a few movie trailers as well. Hollywood has been successfully selling movies for decades; so you may pick up some good pointers from the experts.

Here are a few sites where you can watch some book trailers (and movie trailers). Note that I’m not saying these are good or bad examples, just examples to study:

http://www.booktrailersforreaders.com/

http://www.quirkbooks.com/stuff-categories/book-trailers

https://www.pinterest.com/librarygerbils/book-trailers/  (you have to follow the links to YouTube to watch the videos)

http://www.imdb.com/

In the next post, I will explain step two: Hone your story.

 

Blood-Sucking Creatures

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As I’ve discussed previously, video is being increasingly used by scientists to complement and enhance journal publications. I came across a paper published in PLOS One by Choumet et al. called “Visualizing Non Infectious and Infectious Anopheles gambiae Blood Feedings in Naive and Saliva-Immunized Mice”. They provide several videos that show how mosquitoes probe in the skin of hosts for blood vessels. One of the videos amazingly shows the mosquito’s proboscis puncturing a blood vessel ; the vessel clearly blanches as the vessel contents are sucked out. You can see that video here:

The authors of this paper included twelve other downloadable videos as well as a slide show (on figshare) that contains still images and more videos. You can access the entire paper here.

Although the authors could have submitted a paper without video and relied on a word-based description to make their points, the videos provided visual evidence supporting their descriptions of mosquito feeding. Not only can video be useful in providing visual details of a behavior or other activity (that no text description can provide), it can be essential to convincing others about a new or controversial phenomenon. I can think of several occasions in the past when I submitted a paper describing an observation that was challenged by a reviewer. The jist of their objection was that I was mistaken in my observation or that they simply did not believe what I said. If I had had a video showing what I had observed, then the reviewer would at least have had to accept the fact that the phenomenon had occurred (although they could still disagree with my interpretation).

In any case, this is a good example of how to use video to enhance a journal article. We’ll be seeing a lot more examples of this in the future.

How to Improve the Audio of Your Videos Without Breaking the Bank

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The success of your video will depend in part on good audio, which will require a decent microphone. You will need a good microphone during filming with a video camera as well as for doing voiceovers during editing. Which microphone you need and can afford will, of course, vary with your situation. Although there are many microphones that provide excellent audio quality, these are often quite expensive and may be out of reach for students and scientists with limited budgets. If so, there are some inexpensive options that will improve your audio, which I will emphasize here. In this video report, I demonstrate a few ways to improve the quality of your audio without breaking the bank.

Most camcorders and other cameras that shoot video have built-in microphones that will work fairly well–as long as the speaker is close enough to the camera, and there is not a lot of background noise. Many of my videos were filmed using the built-in microphone on the camcorder or digital camera. This approach works fine when the speaker is stationary and speaking directly to the camera from no more than a few feet away. If the speaker is moving around or standing a distance from the camera, however, then it’s best to use some type of external microphone to boost the quality of the audio. The lavalier or lapel microphone is likely to be what the scientist videographer will find most useful. These are tiny microphones that clip onto the lapel of the person speaking and are connected via cable or wirelessly to the camera or a separate recording device.

Unfortunately, not all video cameras come with receptacles for microphone jacks. One of my favorite point-and-shoot cameras, which shoots outstanding HD video, has no option for attaching an external microphone. My solution is to use my iPhone as an audio recording device and an external microphone with a jack designed to work with the headphone receptacle.

The other situation requiring a good microphone is when doing voiceovers for your video. If you rely on the microphone on your computer or an inexpensive external microphone, your voice will likely sound “tinny”, and the overall quality of the audio will be noticeably poorer. I invested in a studio-quality microphone with a USB cable to connect to my computer. The better microphone has made a huge difference in the quality of my videos.

New Gear for the Solo Science Videographer

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I’ve just gotten some new gear to assist with making solo science videos with a Smartphone….for those times when you don’t have anyone to help you. In the following video, I introduce some accessories (microphone, cable, monopod) that will facilitate filming alone with your Smartphone and will also make your videos look and sound much better.

If you like the tip, please leave a comment!

Links to where you can purchase this equipment are given below the video.

The microphone you will need:

Edutige EIM-003 i-Microphone

The cable you will need:

Smartline (ESL-001) Extension Cable

The monopod you will need:

iStabilizer ISTMP01 Smartphone Monopod

 

Can You Describe a Scientific Method in a One Minute Video?

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I’ve been discussing the pros and cons of short science videos and how length influences viewer engagement (see previous post). In general, the shorter the video, the more likely the average viewer is to watch it through to the end. However, a colleague questioned whether it was possible to adequately describe a scientific method in only a minute. My response was that it was possible, although not necessarily easy. And, obviously, not all methods could be described in such a short time period.

Although it’s good to strive for brevity, your video, especially if for instructional purposes, should be of a length appropriate to the purpose and for the target audience.

So I thought I would critique a couple of videos describing a scientific technique and see how successful they were. The first one, done by the Texas Parks and Wildlife, shows how to use the Daubenmire frame, a widely-used method for surveying vegetation. I selected it because it happens to be about a minute in length, it has a clear purpose, and the method is one that most people, including non-scientists, can comprehend and replicate with inexpensive supplies. Take a look and then we’ll consider how successful it was.

I thought this video was well planned, nicely executed, and accomplished its purpose of explaining what a Daubenmire frame is and how to use one to gather data about the vegetational composition in an area. The video begins with a short, simple explanation of the purpose of the Daubenmire frame and then moves into explaining how to construct the frame (briefly) and how to select sampling sites. It briefly describes how to position the frame and what data might be collected (numbers of each species present or their percent cover).

Note how the video minimizes the “talking head” shots and uses cutaways to show what the narrator is talking about. Also, there is a variety of footage shot from different angles, which were clearly planned in advance. The video opens and ends with the narrator talking to the camera, which nicely “book-ends” the instruction.

The video does not get bogged down in explaining how to get a “random sample”, how to identify plants, or how to estimate percent cover. It assumes that the target audience already understands these concepts or will get that information somewhere else. One thing that could have been explained in one sentence is why it’s called a Daubenmire frame (named after a plant ecologist who developed the canopy-coverage method of vegetation analysis). This fact is not essential to the instruction but would have answered an obvious question and added a bit of history to the video.

The audio is clear and without distracting background noises. It looks like the narrator is wearing a lapel microphone, which would help ensure that her voice is recorded properly. You will also notice that a transcript is provided along with this video. This is important for viewers who may not understand your language well or are hearing impaired.

I think the style and tone of the video was just right for instructional purposes. The narrator (Kelley Bender) is professional, poised, and dressed appropriately for the setting. Her delivery is confident without being preachy. She has no distracting behavior such as waving her hands or scratching her head. The tenor of her voice is nice, and her speech is not interrupted by annoying uhs and ahs.

It’s important that the viewer who is interested in learning a new method feels that the instructor is credible and professional, and that’s the case with this video. Perhaps a video would get more views if it is humorous or entertaining but it will likely turn off many target audience members. The latter are interested in only one thing:  to learn how to use the method you are describing. They are not interested in being entertained, surprised, mystified, or emotionally moved.

In summary, the science video with the objective of demonstrating a method should be clear in purpose, straightforward in execution, and professional in tone. The length may be variable but should be no longer than necessary to cover the essential points. For simple methods, such as using the Daubenmire frame, it’s possible to keep the length to around 1 minute. If the method is complicated, then consider breaking up one long video into a series of short videos.