A Streamline Approach to Book Trailer Development

By Neal 

dan-blank-headshot.jpgIf you’ve been here a while, you know I’m a big fan of Peter Walsh and his practical anti-clutter philosophy. Turns out Dan Blank(right) is, too, and he applies Walsh’s ideas to videomaking in a way that everyone who’s ever wanted to do a book trailer should think about:

“If you are making a video, every second counts, especially the first 10 seconds. Intro music, slides, statements of names and titles… all of these things leave the viewer asking: What problem of mine are you solving? What passion of mine are you allowing me to experience?”

Sometimes when I’m watching a book trailer, I feel myself wishing that it would just get to the point already, and if I wasn’t getting paid to watch all the way through… but those of you readers who have experience in promotional filmmaking: What’s your take? How viable (or desirable) is it to hit the ground running, as it were?