Literature for Adolescents
Book Trailer: Princess Academy by Shannon Hale
When I first learned that we were going to have to make a book trailer, the task seemed daunting—I had never made a video before, nor did I think I could easily craft a short glimpse into a story that would peak a potential reader’s interest which is what a book trailer should do. Putting aside my reservations, I came up with a game plan for completing this project. First, I would choose a book. Then I would write out the narration and record it for the video’s audio; lastly, I would choose pictures to go with the audio and put it all together using a free video editor app.
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After much consideration I decided to re-read Princess Academy by Shannon Hale. For most of my late elementary and early middle school career, whenever anyone asked me what my favorite book was, I’d say that it was Princess Academy. This was mostly because it felt impossible to choose just one book that I preferred over all others and Princess Academy was always an easy go to since I did genuinely enjoy the book. Regardless of the reason, Princess Academy had a strong impact on young Ezra so I thought I could kill two birds with one stone: I would see how I liked it now that I’m 23 and also use it for a school project. Shannon Hale’s writing is lyrical and swept me into the world of Miri Larendaughter, a fourteen-year-old girl who lives in a village on Mount Eskel. Overall, I enjoyed the book although there were parts that I felt covertly reinforced social norms around class and gender that I would’ve preferred to be contested. However, I know no book is perfect and given that I could see how I wanted to write the narration for the trailer I set to my next task.
As might be obvious from the rest of my website, I tend to be verbose in my writing (and my speech if you’ve ever heard me participate haha). While I try to do my best to not overstay my welcome as it were in speech, I don’t often hold back in writing because I figure, the reader can always choose to skip ahead or stop reading altogether. When I say I don’t often hold back, I mean that when the need arises I do cull back my words, but it often takes me twice as long so I tend to only do it when needed. A trailer is definitely a time when brevity is best; it took me a couple of tries but I finally got the narrative to be as succinct as I thought it should be and I moved on to recording it. Even though I genuinely hate my voice for a variety of complex reasons, I knew that if people were going to use my voice to make assumptions about who I am (re: gender) then I might as well use it to advantage and voice the narration which I had written from Miri’s first-person POV.
Once I was satisfied with my pacing and intonation, all that was left to do was choose some pictures and the app I wanted to use and put them all together. I write “all that was left to do” but, in reality, that was its own time-consuming process. To make my life easier I decided to just use the video editor application that comes with windows, which is called video editor. It was surprisingly easy to use. On the bottom is a horizontal panel that is called your storyboard, and the top half of the screen is split in two with the left side being your project library and the right side showing you what the video will look like as a finished product. The project library is a section that allows you to upload, and then easily access, pictures or video clips that you want in your video. The storyboard is exactly that, a space where you can arrange and edit the photos in your video to your liking. Below is a snapshot of my video in process.
I got the pictures from various google searches. Some of the pictures are illustrations done by fans, some are just pictures of random landscapes, granite, or flowers that I felt were close enough to the book’s description that they were apt, and still others were pictures from the Princess Academy musical. Prior to this project I had no idea that they had made the book into a musical. I also found out that Hale wrote two other books in the Princess Academy series! I now have both a book trailer and two new books to read haha.
I think the book trailer can be useful in the classroom in two main ways: to get students engaged in a book and as a creative way to show that students read. To further explain what I mean, the book trailer, just like a movie trailer, is a fun way to get students’ interest piqued in a class book. Plus, if you make it yourself, the students/class can potentially bond over your (I’m assuming) amateur attempts. Not everyone enjoys reading nor can everyone easily start a book and the book trailer allows these students a way into the novel that will hopefully convince them to pick up the book and start reading. The second way a book trailer can be useful in a classroom is by having the students make their own book trailers. I think that to make a good book trailer, one needs to have a proper understanding of the plot and the characters so they know what to say, what to leave out, and how to best leave the audience wanting to know more and/or what happens next. Thus, by making the trailer the students are demonstrating to the teacher that they have read the book and at the very least comprehended its basic plot. If you have the students use quotes from the book, such as having them write from the characters perspective and using lines form the book like I did, or have the students include themes/symbols in the book trailer the activity can also demonstrate analytical and perspective-taking skills. Overall I think a book trailer, when utilized well, can create an engaging classroom environment.