3D BOOK TRAILER - MARKED

Book trailers are becoming more and more popular these days. Publishers are hiring big companies to produce high end trailers for their upcoming books. Book trailers like movie trailers give you a preview of what to expect. They can be as simple as moving pictures with floating texts and some music, or like mine, a complete 3D animated trailer.

In the end, it all depends on how much you’re willing to spend and what your objectives are. For me, is to get as much visibility for my books as I can. What can a book trailer do for an author? Think of it as an investment in your career. If it goes viral, you’re more likely to be noticed by the media, readers and booksellers.

Here’s how I did mine:

Phase 1: Storyboards/Character Design/Environments

Since I chose to do a book trailer in a 3d medium, I hired a fantastic character designer to create my characters in 3d. With my limited budget, I could only afford 5 characters. Since I had my storyboard in my head, I knew which ones I wanted. He sketched them out on paper first.

Then slowly modeled them in 3d.

 

We also needed to determine what to use as backgrounds. Environments are really important to the look of the final movie, they set the mood. We created 5 different backgrounds for the trailer. Some were made entirely of a 3d environment and some were just blurred pictures as backgrounds.

Phase 2: Script/Animatic/Layout/Cameras

Like any great movie, a good book trailer starts with a script. Work in a beginning, middle, and end to your trailer. You need to grab the viewers’ attention, but don’t give away all the details of your story. They need to be left with a sense of intrigue, enough for them to want to read your book.

Next came the animatic (series of moving images edited together to determine timing and shot sequence). As a retired Animation Supervisor this was a no-brainer for me. I put together an animatic to determine the mood and pacing of the trailer. I used the software Adobe After Effects and inserted images in a timeline to get an idea of what I wanted to see. Once I was happy with it, we moved on to the Layout and Camera phase. This is where the 3D begins. The layout was done in a 3d software called XSI from Softimage. I hired an animator who transformed the 2d animatic into a 3d moving story. In the layout, it’s very important to set the cameras so that we only work on what we ‘see’ in the scene. The animator then did a ‘blocking’ phase with the animation (key poses and timing). Think of it as a rough sketch before you start coloring.
Click here to see the Blocking movie clip.

As you can see in the clip, the final animation is somewhat different,but the general idea is there.


Phase 3: Final Animation/final Cameras

With the blocking approved, the animator now had a visual reference of shots and timing. In the final stages of animation, the animator locks all cameras and polishes the animation with facials, and subtleties that were not animated in the blocking (hair, cloth).


Phase 4: Lighting/Textures/Special FX/Renders
After months of hard work, the animation was approved and could now go on to lighting, textures, and FX. Here’s an example of a shot before and after lighting:

Here’s lighting and FX added for Kara’s power:

Phase 5: Music/End credits

If you want to add music to your trailer, make sure you own the rights or have permission to use it. You can choose to download some public domain music or purchase music clips. I hired a musician who composed the music for the trailer. Good choice of music is critical, it sets the mood.
We put all the renders into After Effects, added the credits and music and outputted the trailer. Done.



Phase 6: Youtube

Upload your trailer to Youtube, your website, facebook page and any other social media sites. Book trailer awards are also a good place to get more visibility.

Marketing your book trailer:

You need to market your book trailer as much as you can. Make sure to put it up on Youtube, Vimeo, Facebook, your website or blog and get people to write blogs about it. There are also blog tours where they can help promote your trailer. Another way to get noticed is to enter your book trailer in competitions like the International Movie Trailer Festival's 2013 competition:

http://www.internationalmovietrailerfestival.com/all-trailers/marked-soul-guardians-book-1/






More on the trailer

Here is an animated clip of Kara and David at Orientation.

 

Another animated clip with David fighting a Higher Demon. Still needs textures and effects, the blades are not finished.

Higher Demon 3d design. Love the style of these bad guys. I think the team has captured a unique style for all the characters. Love it!

David in 3d. Still not approved, but i do love the style.

A 'work in progress' model of an Oracle. I think this is a great representation of what I had imagined them to look like.

 

Here are preliminary drawings for the 3d Marked teaser i'm working on with my friends. I love all these characters. The next step is to create the 3d models of the characters. Then we apply the textures. In the next month we should have 3d renders of the characters with lighting.

What do you guys think?