Book Trailers Project

The purposes of this project are for you to:

Identify and explore persuasive techniques.
Use technology to create and communicate a persuasive message.
Help other students locate enjoyable books in the Town School Library.

During this project, you will select a book to market to lower school boys at Town. You will create a short video trailer in Windows MovieMaker that advertises the book, using a combination of music, voiceover narration, still images, video, and text.

This entire project is worth a total of 125 tiger points per group. Since there are 8 groups per class, the entire class could potentially earn 1000 tiger points from this project.

Check here for the scoring rubric.

As a culmination to this project, we will have a screening of all trailers for the entire class. Two trailers from each class will then be selected for screening during a Lower School assembly.

Sample Book Trailers	The Adoration of Jenna Fox, by Mary Pearson Into the Volcano by Don Wood Roar, by Emma Clayton Lunch Lady, by Jarrett Krosoczka Duck, Rabbit, by Amy Rosenthal 56 Water Street, by Melissa Strangway Maximum Ride, by James Patterson
Ideas Requirements	Include either voiceover narration or text narration, or both. Use persuasive strategies to entice readers. Strategies may include: using humor repeating important words or phrases explaining why you loved this book comparing the book to other popular books (and explaining the comparison!) comparing the book to popular movies or TV shows (and explaining the comparison!) telling a little bit of the story but leaving your audience with a cliffhanger ending Provide audiences with basic information about plot, main characters, and setting. Include at least five still images. Include background music and/or sound effects.
Organization Requirements	Begin with the title and author of the book. Ending credits must include: your first names + last initials (NO LAST NAMES!), the book title and author, the book's call number.
Presentation Requirements	Use still images larger than 640 x 480 to prevent pixellation. Entire trailer should last between 30 seconds and 1 minute.
Music/Sound Effects/Video Editing Resources	Hot tip: Windows MovieMaker allows only the following audio file types: aif, .aifc, .aiff .asf, .au, .mp2, .mp3, .mpa, .snd, .wav, and .wma A1 Free Sound Effects -- Right-click on a sound and choose "Save File As" to save the .mp3 file to your own computer. SoundBible -- Searchable library of sound effects, with audio available in .mp3 and .wav formats. Digital History -- Music from times past. Make sure you download only Windows MovieMaker-supported file types! FreePlay Music -- Royalty-free music clips. May only be used for free for class projects; otherwise, you must pay for the music. You should also be able to import mp3 files from your iTunes collection, BUT you will need to figure out how to convert them to a playable format for Windows MovieMaker. Animoto -- An online tool that allows users to create and edit videos with interesting visual effects. You can use your Firefox add-on to download and convert the results.
MovieMaker Tips	Remember to choose Save Project As... after each editing session. You must save your project to the Library folder on Community, in Curly\Community\Shared\Upper School\Grade 6\ Be sure to give your project a name that you will recognize next time you come to class. When you have completely finished your movie, save the final version as a .wmv file into the Library folder on Community.