Book versus film trailers

I consider myself a bit of a trailer expert. Or perhaps, trailer addict is a more accurate description. I’ve been known to declare that trailers are the best part of going to the movies. They're this perfect morsel of a story that has the right blend of intrigue, suspense, drama, romance and action (depending on the genre, of course). The trailer’s job is to entice the audience, pulling them into the film's world and demanding that they see it upon its release.

Trailers have a short timeframe to sell the movie, forcing filmmakers to cut out all the superfluous content and focus on the main characters, concept and plot. Yes, they can be a little cliché but good trailers also manage to create an atmosphere, developing a feeling of the story world in which you will inhabit upon seeing the film. It also sets audience expectations.

A good trailer can generate a buzz—you feel it in the audience, lingering long after the trailer leaves the screen. Often you wish you were about to watch that film instead. There are less elements to mess up in a trailer in a feature-length film. But do trailers also work for marketing books?

Penguin Teen Australia (PTA) host a bi-weekly Twitter chat on Wednesdays and last week's topic was book trailers—a relatively new phenomenon that I'm still formulating my opinion on. I understand that readers today are more tech savvy; they obtain book recommendations from social media as much as they do from their friends and bookshops—if not more. It makes sense to bring book marketing to the digital world.

Book trailers (should) allow potential readers to see what sort of story they’re signing up for. It takes them beyond the blurb and cover and into the themes and mood—in visual form. And this is where I think there's a disconnect. Film and novels are two different mediums, what works in a book will not necessary crossover successfully into a visual medium. We've all seen film adaptations of our favourite books and we know this to be true. The feeling of reading a book and immersing yourself within the writer's words is a very different experience than watching a punchy visual trailer. It's a more intimate experience.

Film trailers are an expensive marketing tool. As I’ve mentioned before, I work in the VFX and animation industry and often studios have spent months crafting the shots in a trailer, some of which don’t make it into the film itself. Trailer shots are designed specifically to promote the film’s genre and story in the most impactful way. They’re then paired with the perfect piece of music to evoke the right mood and attract the right audience. I’ve worked on trailers where hundreds of individuals have been involved in its making. This is very difficult to replicate with a smaller budget and team.

Certainly, book trailers can be made on a lower budget but their creators need to keep in mind that viewers are trained to watch trailers in a certain way. Audiences are accustomed to film trailer tropes and any trailers that are of a lesser quality can turn readers off. For me, the most important element in a successful trailer is the music. If you can nail the music, and therefore the mood, then audiences will be more forgiving of the quality of video content.

If this week’s PTA chat is anything to go by, both publishers and readers are still working out how best to use book trailers. Due to small production budgets, I believe the key is to acquire the right music and keep the narrative short and to the point—similar to a blurb where the focus is often on the main character and inciting incident. Also, book trailer creators can't forget that trailers are a visual medium, so there should be limitations on how much they rely on text displayed onscreen. In trailers, images and music need to tell the story, not words.

What do you think? Love book trailers, or hate them? What’s your favourite book or film trailer? I’m loving Disney’s Maleficent ‘Dream’ trailer:  That music = perfection!

Review: Razorhurst by Justine Larbalestier

Title: Razorhurst

Author: Justine Larbalestier
Pages: 384
Published: July 2014 by Allen & Unwin
Source: Publisher

Synopsis (from publisher):

The setting: 1932, Razorhurst. Two competing mob bosses - Gloriana Nelson and Mr Davidson - have reached a fragile peace.



Kelpie knows the dangers of the Sydney streets. Ghosts have kept her alive, steering her to food and safety, but they are also her torment.



Dymphna is Gloriana Nelson's 'best girl'. She knows the highs and lows of life, but she doesn't know what this day has in store for her.



When Dymphna meets Kelpie over the corpse of Jimmy Palmer, Dymphna's latest boyfriend, she pronounces herself Kelpie's new protector. But Dymphna's life is in danger too and she needs an ally. And while Jimmy's ghost wants to help, the dead cannot protect the living.



Gloriana Nelson's kingdom is crumbling and Mr Davidson is determined to have all of Razorhurst - including Dymphna. As loyalties shift and betrayal threatens at every turn, Dymphna and Kelpie are determined to survive what is becoming a day with a high body count.

Review:

Books are magical little things, aren’t they? They can transport you overseas, across galaxies, into fantasy worlds—and in Razorhurst’s case—back in time. Opening the cover of Razorhurst was like stepping into a time machine, travelling back to Sydney in 1932, where a bloody, ruthless mob war raged in Surry Hills.

In the beginning of Razorhurst, Gloriana ‘Glory’ Nelson (inspired by real life rulers of the time: Tilly Devine and Kate Leigh) and Mr Davidson are supposedly content with their corrupt slice of Razorhurst. But they appear to be the only ones… Poor street-raised Kelpie fends for herself, with only ghosts to keep her company. Then there’s young Dymphna Campbell, one of Glory’s girls—her 'best', in fact—who’s known as the Angel of Death, as all her boyfriends have the unfortunate habit of being murdered. Dymphna plans to change her and Kelpie’s fate, but the deadly streets and occupants of Razorhurst aren’t quite ready to let them go…

Razorhurst alternates between Kelpie’s and Dymphna’s point of view and whilst they come from different backgrounds, they are connected by their ability to see the dead. With the back alleys and narrow laneways of Razorhurst often running red, it’s a curse rather than a gift. The supernatural elements add a layer of dark mysticism to the novel; I especially enjoyed the description of the ghosts, both the talkers and the silent, and the scene at Central Station was especially chilling.

Whilst the setting and era of Razorhurst could be compared to the Australian TV Show, Underbelly: Razor, it is more a personal story of survival than a tale of mob bosses struggling for supremacy. Dymphna wants to change her future, setting her sights on being the next ruler of Razorhurst, and Kelpie wants to escape the constant grey noise of the dead. Through their forced meeting, over the corpse of Dymphna’s latest boyfriend, their future is rewritten—but not before a lot of blood is spilled.

Razorhurst, like a razor, is sharp and cutthroat—the result bloody and often painful. It’s a bold Young Adult novel that doesn’t shy away from the gruesome and dirty underbelly of the era and treats its young readers with intelligence and respect. Larbalestier does a stellar job of ensuring the book doesn’t stray too far into the macabre and shrouds Dymphna’s provocative profession in ambiguity, keeping the rating as PG as possible.

Reading Razorhurst is like watching 24, with the storyline transpiring over one day. This short timeframe sets the pace and tension as we follow Kelpie and Dymphna’s plight, in what feels like real time. The only relief from the mob bosses’ relentless pursuit of Dymphna and Kelpie is the additional backstories on the characters in every second chapter. This detail fleshes out the period and further submerges you into the dark and gritty world of Razorhurst. I’ve not read such a fully immersive story-world for some time.

One downside to having the novel only take place over one day is that the budding romance between writer Neal Darcy and Dymphna could have been further developed, but time constraints would have made these developments feel forced. It’s a shame—as I wanted to care more for Neal, like I did for Dymphna and the particularly empathetic and likeable Kelpie.

Having lived in Sydney for almost ten years, I thoroughly enjoyed reading about Surry Hills, Darlinghurst, Potts Point, Central Station and Kings Cross as they would have been back in the 30s. It’s clear that Larbalestier has meticulously researched the era: the characters, language, settings and culture are authentic and enthralling. And whilst I don’t read a lot of historical fiction, I enjoyed my nightly time-travel expeditions to the 1930s and would happily return for another outing to the corrupt underworld of Razorhurst.

I give Razorhurst 4.5 out of 5 stars.

* Many thanks to Allen & Unwin for providing the advanced reader copy.

My one-year Blogoversary!

Exactly one year ago I started this blog. At the time, I was unsure of exactly what blogging was all about and whether anyone would even bother to read it—outside my immediate family, of course. But I’ve been amazed by every comment, retweet, like, share and favourite and sincerely thank you for the support you guys have given me in my debut year as a blogger.

My first few steps into the blogging world were tentative ones. I imagined my blog would be a place where I could release my writing out into the world and hoped it would be of some interest to others.You can check out my first post here and see how far I've come!

As months, and blogs posts, went by I discovered a reoccurring theme to my writing. The posts mostly revolved around inspiration, dreams, goals and the magic of books, films and TV shows. Recently, I changed my blog name and design to reflect this focus. I’m a firm believer in Walt Disney’s seminal quote: “if you can dream it, you can do it”, and my blog will continue to keep this motto at the heart of all my writing.

Later, I ventured into writing reviews and I can’t tell you how excited I was to receive my first review request approval from a publisher – thank you Penguin Books Australia! I have loved reviewing books—a responsibility that I take very seriously, and look forward to reviewing many more titles. My favourite reviews so far have been:

        Disruption - Jessica Shirvington       Prince of Shadows - Rachel Caine

                                                               

Recently, I started a new blog series that focuses on how to create successful book-to-film adaptations. As many of you know, I work in the film and animation industry and wanted to combine my passion for reading and writing with my love of films. If you haven't checked it out yet, you can find my first post for this series here.

One unexpected and wonderful benefit of creating this blog is being a part of the fantastic YA blogging community in Australia. They’ve been so supportive and I feel incredibly lucky to be included in such a great group of readers, writers and future authors.

Once again, I want to thank you so much for reading this blog. It’s a wonderful feeling to know that others are reading, and hopefully enjoying, what I write. I will continue to share my thoughts on books, films, writing and dreaming and hope to add a “My Books” tab to my blog in the not-too-distant future to keep you informed on my progress of becoming a published 

author.

If you have any suggestions or requests on what you’d like to see more of on my blog I’d love to hear them in the comments!

Short attention spans and the future of entertainment

I find myself surrounded by people who love books. Whether it’s following publishers and authors online, conversing with fellow book bloggers or frequenting book launches and events, I feel like everyone around me reads… But is this a proper representation of the general population? Or is my impression swayed by the company I keep?

Over Easter I caught up with my cousins who are in their early and mid teens. One cousin was excited about an upcoming movie adaptation of an extremely popular YA contemporary novel (I bet you can guess which one!), so I asked her what other novels she likes, prepared to bombard her with recommendations. Sadly, she said she doesn’t read frequently outside of school.

Then I was talking to my aunt about her son who isn’t really into movies. I found this an odd concept; surely everyone likes films of some genre? Then she told me he prefers watching videos on YouTube. Offhandedly, I commented that it might have something to do with a shorter attention span, as the younger generation are used to receiving their entertainment in short, immediate bursts such as with gaming, social media and YouTube. My aunt agreed that this could be the case, which concerned her a little.

This made me question my assumption that the younger generation are all avid readers. It also made me wonder about the future of movies and books. Will future generations still want to sit for a few hours at a time and watch a film if they’re not able to actively engage in it? Will teenagers still invest hours of their free time to read hundreds of pages in a novel? Or will short videos like YouTube and Vine Videos be the main form of entertainment?

With the Internet and social media constantly at our fingertips, it’s easy to understand how younger generations may lose patience with the more traditional forms of entertainment. They’re so accustom to actively engaging with their media and immediately receiving it whenever they want. Illegal film and television show downloads are a sad side effect of this. Audiences can’t, or wont, wait—sometimes only a few hours—to watch a show they love. They want to decide when and where they watch it, as they do for their other forms of entertainment like mobile games and online videos.

I’m hoping that novels can survive this change, as you can choose to read as many, or little, chapters as you like. The reader is more in control of how they engage with a novel, than with a movie. I suppose, as storytellers, this will also force us to work harder to sustain our audiences’ attention. Each scene must be impactful and meaningful, removing any superfluous content, or we’ll loose them.

Perhaps we will see a resurgence in popularity for short stories and films in the future. Or even poetry. 

What do you think? I’d love to hear from teachers, parents and of course from teenagers themselves—do you read for fun outside school? What do you see as the future of entertainment? Please let me know in the comments.

Movie review: Divergent

From a box office perspective, Divergent is already a success with the current takings at over $124 million. Consequently the sequels have been green-lit and there’s talk of splitting the third book into two movies to further extend the franchise’s success and box office takings. As a fan of the novels (mostly books one and two, with less affection for book three) I’m not surprised at the film's success.

Author Veronica Roth created an intriguing dystopian world where the remnants of society are divided into factions, driven by one virtue: Abnegation (selflessness), Amity (kindness), Erudite (intelligence), Candor (truth) and Dauntless (bravery). At the age of sixteen, each member of the community participates in a test to assist in choosing a faction and either stay with their families and the faction they were born and raised in, or deviate and never return. Only sixteen-year-old Beatrice Prior’s test is inconclusive, receiving multiple faction results. She is ‘Divergent’, someone who can’t be controlled. Being Divergent, being different, is dangerous to the stability of this society. Beatrice (later renamed Tris) must choose a faction and hope she is not uncovered for being Divergent.

Divergent is a well made film and the grey crumbling Chicago, in which the society lives, is eerily beautiful. The film's beginning made me hopeful that this was going to be a moody, tense film about differences, finding yourself and standing up for what you believe in. However, I found myself questioning the world’s logic. In the novel, it’s easier to accept that a war could have fractured the community into such distinct segmentations. However, on the big screen, seeing everyone dressed in their faction colours and behaving only within the confines of their faction’s virtue, was more difficult to accept.

This is one downfall of dystopian novels; the author has to completely break the world as we know it to be able to create a character, or characters, that will then stand and fight the new order. And sometimes it's broken to the point of unbelievability. Unfortunately, having only one virtue that defines you (aside from the Divergents) results in the characters being one-dimensional and hard to relate to.

Tris is often a difficult character to connect with, which unfortunately tainted my impression of Shailene Woodley’s portrayal. The novel is written from Tris's perspective so we gain a clearer understanding of her thoughts and actions that are absent in the film. There’s a greyness to Tris, and not just because of her clothes, but because she’s grown up in Abnegation where they’re taught to never think of themselves. This means Tris is a bit of a blank canvas, a work-in-progress: a “Stiff”. She thaws out a little during the movie, the scene where she zip-lines through the night’s sky is particularly satisfying, but unfortunately most of the time she feels a little out of reach and detached.

We need to be able to connect to our main character, it’s through her eyes that we see the film and garner our feelings and expectations. I wanted to love this film, to feel something, but unfortunately I was left somewhat apathetic. There needed to be more humour, more anger, more heart. Tris goes through hell, however I felt like I wasn’t taken along for the ride.

This is not to say I didn’t enjoy the film, I did. Theo James was well cast as Four, although standing next to Shailene Woodley, their age gap was a little too apparent. He did the strong and silent type with a hidden soft side successfully and I could see why he would catch Tris’s eye.

Kate Winslet played an entertaining villain and I also enjoyed Tris's friendships with her new Dauntless friends Christina (Zoë Kravitz) and Will (Ben Lloyd-Hughes), this gave her more warmth as a character. The action scenes and visual effects were impactful and effective and there was real suspense towards the end of the film, although I knew the ending.

Whilst I didn’t love Divergent as much as I’d hoped, it is a successful, and fairly faithful, film adaptation. Insurgent is a superior book in my opinion, so it will be interesting to see how the second film turns out.

I give Divergent 3 out of 5 stars. 

Have you seen it yet? What did you think?

From Page to Silver Screen: Fairytales for Wilde Girls movie

Welcome to my new series that combines my background in film and passion for reading entitled 'From Page to Silver Screen'. Here I'll present books I believe would make for great films. As I mentioned in my movie review of Vampire Academy, not all good books make for good movies and I wanted to delve further into this subject and suggest novels that would be ideal for a big screen adaptation, and what methods should be used to bring them to life.

These days it feels like all popular YA novels are being adapted into feature films. Film studios are determined to replicate the overwhelming success of the Harry Potter films, the Twilight saga and The Hunger Games. However, not all attempts have been box-office darlings or deemed sufficiently faithful translations by fans of the books. I believe this all comes down to the source material and how it has been adapted for the big screen. The films need to be accessible, and enjoyable, for fans and newcomers alike.

My first book-to-film adaptation suggestion is Allyse Near's debut novel Fairytales for Wilde Girls, which recently won the Aurealis Awards (Australia’s premier speculative fiction awards) for Best YA Novel and Best Horror Novel. I read Near's dark, whimsical fairytale in 2013 and loved the lyrical and emotive quality of her writing. I believe Fairytales would make for a great feature film due to its highly visual, mystical and captivating tale.

Fairytales for Wilde Girls follows Isola Wilde, a gothic Disney-esc princess raised on a diet of darkly twisted fairytales. Isola is protected from the harsh realities of her real world, and the often dangerous creatures of her fantasy world, by her "brother-princes": ghostly apparitions of mythical beings that only she can see. Isola has never been frightened of ghosts, until she discovers an angry, vengeful dead girl dangling in a birdcage in the forest that borders her home. The ghost is determined to destroy each of Isola’s “brother-princes” and take Isola's life. By uncovering the truth to the girl's death, Isola's fantasy world painfully collides with her real world.

There's such sweetness and beauty to Near's writing, which contrasts with the haunting, often gruesome, creatures of Isola's fantasy world. This blend of sinister and sweet would lend itself well to a stop-motion animation adaptation. Stop-motion films are charming, slightly-offbeat and often eerie forays into storytelling, à la The Nightmare before Christmas, Frankenweenie or Coraline. This medium would fit perfectly with Near's left-of-field, enchanting and shadowy fairytale.

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

Coraline (2009)

Frankenweenie (2012)

Coraline's Other Mother is still pretty frightening!

There's something inherently adorable about stop-motion animation, due to the miniature characters and worlds. Even at its most sinister and frightening, stop-motion manages to maintain a level of charm that other mediums lack. For example, in Henry Selick’s Coraline, a live-action Other Mother with buttons for eyes would be truly terrifying, yet the stop-motion technique prevents the tale from diving too far into the realm of horror. Fairytales would benefit from the tangible cute-ness of stop-motion, balancing the elements of horror and whimsy that the novel achieves so successfully. 

There's also a plot reveal towards the end of the book, which would work well in stop-motion animation as compared to live-action. I don't want to say too much as it would spoil the plot, but the story would gain from the magical misdirection only animation can provide.

Near's book is full of creative, loveable and slightly creepy characters that would spring to life as detailed stop-motion puppets. The book provides gorgeous illustrations of the “brother-princes” that yearn to be fully realised in three-dimensions: 

Evocative character illustrations by Courtney Brims

The enhanced textures in stop-motion animation would further imbrue the tale with quirky charm to counterbalance the bizarre and macabre, allowing the film to be accessible to a wider (and younger) audience. 

What do you think? Have you read Fairytales for Wilde Girls? Do you agree that horror elements are less frightening in stop-motion animation? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.