Trailer, V2

[sleigh]

OK, since the majority of the respondents, via e-mail and LJ comments, gave me variations on "That moving text makes my eyes bleed" (hey, when haniaw tells me it's a problem, it's a problem...), I now have a Version 2 of the A MAGIC OF TWILIGHT teaser up on the site with a voiceover rather than compressing text. Mind you, the voice is mine and I probably should find someone (hey, Frank!) with a more melodious speaking voice, but what do you think now? Better? Worse?

EDITED TO ADD: Make sure you reload the page if it's in your browser history. I just went to make sure it had loaded properly, and got the old one until I refreshed...

Comments

WoW!

[lsanderson.livejournal.com]

Silly me, I missed the little apple play thingies yesterday and just thought it wuz a picture... So, anyway, I got to see both today.

Don't like the alignment with the cover. Nice on the left, not so nice on the right.

Like the music.

Text:
Don't like what the text is doing. It looks as if you've just discovered one feature of PowerPoint and you're doing it to death, whether it needs it or not. There's no there there as to how the text comes in. It's just animated. I think the text could work, but there has to be flow and logic behind the animation. (Even if it's 1958 Drive-in Movie retrochic.) The text, I think, could work better.

Voice:
There's too much. It needs to be a teaser not a taser. TMI. If I've not read the series, I'm lost at the names. If I've read the series, I know the names. Give me a teaser of the plot. War, old (decadent?) ruler, magic, miscreants... Tease me with the ideas, not with the facts. (If that makes any sense.) Pitch the plot. Pretend I'm a studio executive who's given you 30 seconds to sell me on your new baby, and the second I'm bored, your baby goes out with the bathwater. In other words, let the pictures and the music speak more. And you, less.

[stevengould.livejournal.com]

I kinda liked it. I certainly liked it better that v1.

I can see the point made about brevity. I've always liked Mike Cassut's perfect Hollywood pitch:

She's a chimp. He's the Pope. They're Cops.

Pius and Bonzo, this fall on NBC."

[stevengould.livejournal.com]

Here's a link to a book teaser video I did over a decade ago for my second published book. 20 seconds--1.6 mb. Hardly anyone watched it because we were all dial-up back then.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qHUAYH-_Rs

Thanks

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for all the comments on my blog! Thought I'd show up here and return the favor. Your site looks great, as always. But I gotta say that I've never heard of anyone spraining their ankle in bed. Hope you're moving around better now.

So how'd you do the voiceover? Sounds like fun.

--David B. Coe

[anghara.livejournal.com]

AARGH.

Sorry, but the word "Kraljica" is Serb for "Queen". If you're gonna PRONOUNCE it out loud in your trailer, for the record, it isn't "Kral-jicka", it's "Kralyitza", with a soft Y, rather like the middle sound in "soLUtion".

(and - one more thing - I thought "novitiate" was the entry-level stratus of monastic clergy - the people who are IN a novitiate are actually called novices...as far as I know my nunnery...)

And I know I'm a biased audience, but I probably come to the books with a pre-conceived idea of what to expect, if you're using "Kraljica" as a title, and I have a pretty good suspicion that you won't deliver that. Your church images would be VERY different if you were going where the word "Kraljica" would lead me - that's an Orthodox-linked word, an Orthodox-linked title, and the churches are not the great Latinate things but the hushed gilded Orthodox cathedrals where you *never see the altar* because it's too holy to be profaned and is hidden behind the great gilded and painted iconostas beyond which only the ordained priests may go...

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

Interesting... Don't remember where in my research it was (but I suspect it was in "A Nervous Splendor: Vienna 1888/1889" by Frederic Morton), but in looking for a substitute for Emperor or King, I came across "Kralji" and liked the 'sound' (despite my mispronunciation of the source language) and especially the 'look' of it, and so used Kraljiki and Kraljica as the male and female terms.

Indeed, if you're expecting Orthodox, you're not going to get it. The Concenzia Faith in the book(s) is indeed more Latinate, with some touches of Islam thrown in. The world in the book(s) is a loosely-disguised Renaissance France/Italy/Austria-Hungary, and I freely 'borrowed' from several cultures and languages to build the world.

It is what it is. I'm pleased with it.

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

I like that, and it amply demonstrates what you were talking about. Gotta think on this some more...

Re: WoW!

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Larry -- you echo Steven's comments below, and I suspect you're both right. I like the images, but I'll think on the voiceover some more.

Re: Thanks

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

Thanks, my friend. The voiceover was done in Garageband (recorded on Denise's laptop, actually, just using the built-in mic), saved, and then dropped-and-dragged into iMovie, and chopped up to align with the pics. I feel like (and am) a total amateur when it comes to video, but I thought it might be fun to try...

WooT!

[lsanderson.livejournal.com]

Liked that! And found the perfect example not to follow: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ED-EXuA8PM

Re: WooT!

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

Hey, mine's better than that one! :-)

[haniaw.livejournal.com]

I like this much better. But I would agree that the voiceover should be a bit shorter.