Coming Soon to a Bookstore Near You (UPDATED 1/21/11)

Wednesday January 12th, 2011

Books are not about to let themselves disappear—they’re keeping up with the movies. Not only do books have snazzy covers and online marketing campaigns, they’ve recently started to offer up trailers.

Luckily enough, we have two great contacts to learn about this new marketing form. One is Marianne Nowicki, a former art buyer who now produces book trailers through her company Nowicki Productions, and the other is Australia-based photographer Jon Love. Jon’s images have been used for a few book trailers; since you can find plenty of examples of Marianne’s work on her site, I’ve embedded a couple of the videos of Jon’s trailers below. Surrounding the trailers is an interview that Marianne graciously agreed to do, which explains the production process.

-Asad

Who usually does the photography for your book trailers?
Most of the photography for my book trailers is stock – sometimes directly from photographers, but more often from stock houses. The turnaround time for trailers is always very quick and rarely do I have the time to shoot. Also, most of the time trailers are paid for by the authors themselves (not the publishers) so the budgets for photo shoots are usually not there. However, I am always looking for new sources for different and beautiful photography and would love to actually shoot one sometime. The benefit of working directly with a photographer even if it is just for stock, is that they often have a series of images that blend seamlessly – and the quality can be so much richer. Much of my time goes into researching and manipulating stock photography to blend with the image that comes before or after it. I also use stock footage at times.

How do you generate the ideas for the images you want to capture?
The ideas for the images always come to me while I’m reading the book – I read every book I produce a trailer for from cover to cover. I have always been a very visual reader and can see scenes very clearly. Who the book is written for and the basic feel of the trailer (edgy, tween, etc.) also plays a role in how I want the final trailer to look and feel. The book cover itself usually influences the feeling and color choices as well, as that is essentially the way the book is being branded and it is important to remain consistent.

How did your experience as an art buyer lead to your current work?
My experience as an art buyer has made me very sensitive to finding “just the right images” for a project. I just finished a series of meditation videos as well – so much gorgeous photography. I understand the value and impact a photograph can have, which is why it isn’t such a leap for me to produce dynamic videos from still images. There are many ways to produce a trailer, and while I do use footage as well, it is actually really exciting to me to be able to showcase still photography to tell a story. Combining still images with music, footage and other video elements can create a whole new world. It is as if my love for photography and for reading have combined into this fun new art form. It has been a great creative outlet for me.

UPDATE 1/21/11:

Jon has re-edited one of his trailers with unused images. Take a look!