Thread: Book Trailer: "Lost Gold of the Shenandoah"

Here is a book trailer I produced for an American Civil War-based novel entitled, "Lost Gold of the Shenandoah" which has just been published. I would greatly appreciate your comments about the effectiveness of the trailer; what kind of impact does this trailer have on you? Would it make you interested in buying this book? Based on the trailer content, what kind of story does it suggest? If you like it, or don't like it, please let me know.
Thank you in advance.



EDIT: 01/21/2011 The above video is the FINAL version of the trailer. The previous takes discussed elsewhere in this thread have been removed. Feedback is still welcomed. - 'Digger'

I like it! My only comment would be that at the end it says "By:". I'd take out the colon and make that on one line as it's not really a list.

Originally Posted by photographer

I like it! My only comment would be that at the end it says "By:". I'd take out the colon and make that on one line as it's not really a list.

Great suggestion! I have now taken out "By:" completely on the master. Much better. Thank you.

I liked the flag but I would have made the old movie a bit bigger at the beginning. I thought the statue over the wording didn't look right. I didn't like the bump map effect you had on the clips when talking about the town. The VO seemed to have a little to much reverb, a more intimate feel would have been better. Apart from that I liked it.

I think you made the story sound interesting which is the important thing the rest is just personal taste.

I liked it fine, but I'm with M-Blue on the voice over. I would take some of the reverb off and also change to a smaller room. I also think the voice would sound more drmatic if it was dropped a bit in pitch. (People do that with voice overs all the time in commercials).

Originally Posted by Swoopie

I liked it fine, but I'm with M-Blue on the voice over. I would take some of the reverb off and also change to a smaller room. I also think the voice would sound more drmatic if it was dropped a bit in pitch. (People do that with voice overs all the time in commercials).

I concur on the reverb. Will adjust. But that 'pitch' was my natural voice. Is there a way to alter speech pitch in Vegas?

As far as I know, Vegas will only allow you to change the pitch by changing the speed, so it will slow down the vocal track to lower the pitch, and then it won't be in sync with the other tracks anymore. You need a wave editor that will allow you to lower the pitch while preserving the temple. Audition will do it. I imagine Sony's more high end wave editor will too. Also, I believe Audacity will do this, and it's a free editor. I don't have any experience with it though.

Originally Posted by Midnight Blue

I liked the flag but I would have made the old movie a bit bigger at the beginning. I thought the statue over the wording didn't look right. I didn't like the bump map effect you had on the clips when talking about the town. The VO seemed to have a little to much reverb, a more intimate feel would have been better. Apart from that I liked it.

I think you made the story sound interesting which is the important thing the rest is just personal taste.

I agree with making the old movie within the flag bigger, but a little problematic. The movie clips are from the Public Domain old silent film "The General" which is DV 4:3 ratio, while the trailer is down in 16:9 HD format. I suppose I could push in" on the old movie a bit more, and use an elliptical cookie cutter mask, instead of a circle. I'll play with that.

Do you have an alternative suggestion to the use of the Bump Map on the clips?
Thanks

Originally Posted by worddigger

Do you have an alternative suggestion to the use of the Bump Map on the clips?

What were you trying to communicate with the FX ?

There is a Pitch shift audio effect in Vegas if you wanted to use it.

Originally Posted by Midnight Blue

What were you trying to communicate with the FX ?

There is a Pitch shift audio effect in Vegas if you wanted to use it.

On the Pitch Shift: I found it and made a slight shift adjustment.

On the Bump Map, the idea was to communicate an 'impressionistic' picture of the story, using actual photographs. I have considered 'cartoonizing' the pictures, but that does not look quite right for the theme of this book.