Easy-Peasy Book Trailers

W.H. Beck — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 05:34:08 +0000

So what else can you do with Animoto, my new hobby?

Authors–how about using it as a book trailer? Here’s one I pulled together for my Follow That Food Chain series from Lerner.

Photos used under Flickr Creative Commons from dpape, Stephen Barnett, chem7, belgianchocolate, kento.ikeda, and antaean.

Granted, it’s not as flashy as some and I didn’t have complete creative control over it. If I had my life-long-dream book coming out from a big publisher, I’d probably do something a little fancier. But–on the other hand? This was scary easy to do. And it was free. So for my little school/library series, this works just fine.

How To

Animoto walks you through making a video in just three steps. Well, four, if you count going to their site and logging in.

1. Images

I searched for Creative Commons licensed photos in Flickr and uploaded them to a new video in Animoto. You can also upload your own. (Having not been to Borneo, sadly, my collection was lacking.) The librarian in me reminds you to note the photos’ sources for later credit in the video.

I also added some text slides.

2. Music

I picked music from Animoto’s free tunes. Again, you can also upload your own. Again, librarian-me says makes sure your sources are legal and that you credit them.

3. Finalize Your Video

Add your description and your credits here. Let the rendering process begin.

Animoto analyzes the music and the photos and matches them up with tempo and transitions, so you don’t have to worry about that. So voila! It’s done.

Want Something a Notch Above This?

Courtney Summers wrote a great guest post on Danette Haworth’s blog on how she used Movie Maker to make her book trailer (heck, that’s where I first learned about the Flickr Creative Commons licensing!).

Really Gung-ho Over Book Trailers?

Read this post by Darcy Pattison. It’ll probably take you three days, but everything you could ever want to know–well, it’s all there. It’s amazing.

WARNING: Cute Baby Animal Video

W.H. Beck — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 13:48:48 +0000

In our Follow That Food Chain: a Mangove Forest book, we wrote about clouded leopards. They are so secretive that not much is known about them. They are also very much in danger of going extinct before we can even learn about them. But now two clouded leopard babies have been born at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo. (And two more at the Nashville Zoo.) While these leopards won’t get to grow up in the wild tangles of the mangrove forest of Souteast Asia, they may help us understand their species better.

(I dare you to watch and not go, “Awwww…”)

W.H. Beck » mangrove forest