In the vein of if you can't beat 'em, join 'em, the book industry has finally embraced film with the introduction of the book video. "Book video?" you say? Yes. Now, in addition to coming up with a "high concept" idea, thinking cinematically in terms of story construction and visual appeal, and plotting to the beat of moviedom, authors might learn they're to "star" in book trailers and videos. Several companies are already on the move, such as Expanded Books:
ExpandedBooks, one of the more recently-founded book video production companies, focuses on author interviews, giving viewers a glimpse into the author’s process and ideas for writing a book.“To us, a book video is a catch-all term that can be used to describe any one of numerous types of videos,” Skye Van Raalte-Herzog, producer of ExpandedBooks, told The Book Standard. “Specific book videos such as book trailers and viral videos portray an original, vivid and memorable introduction to the book, while book video interviews are more in-depth and offer a portrait of the book and the author. There are other types of book videos as well that portray dramatizations and others that closely resemble ads.”
(Kimberly Maul, The Book Standard - 10/12/2006)
This year also saw the beginning of The Book Video Awards Competition held by The Book Standard. The good news is that so far there is an interest in safeguarding the reading experience:
"We try very hard to make VidLits different from movie trailers or television promotions,” Dubelman (Vid Lit, founder) said. “We never show a character unless the author does, because reading is a collaboration between the author’s imagination and the reader’s imagination. We wouldn’t want to take away from the magic of reading.” (Maul, The Book Standard - 10/12/2006)
Learn more from Kimberly Maul's Book Standard article, Book Videos: Where Did they Come From? and of course you'll want to visit the blog Book Trailerpark. So now do I put together a "book vid" for my teen novels...ideas anyone?
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