Writers Tricks of the Trade ISSUE 3, VOLUME 7 | Page 25

A NATOMY O F A B OOK T RAILER (C ON ’ TD )
secluded. Plus it was public land, so no worries about permits and trespassing.
Then we had to find a location to shoot footage of the tea shop. Craig had
found a great tea shop in the next town over, and they were amenable to us
coming in after business hours and shooting all sorts of footage, about half an
hour’s worth (in the video, it lasts 4-5 seconds). In exchange for their graciousness,
we gave them all the footage we shot so they could use it on their website.
We also needed the Booke prop to use in the video. It’s big, it’s leather-bound,
it says “Booke of the Hidden” on the cover, and all the pages are supposed to be
blank. Commissioning something like that was going to be expensive, and I didn’t
have a big budget. So Craig, used to creating all manner of props, got to work. He
ordered specialty art paper from a paper wholesaler, soaked it in tea to stain it a
bit and so he could artfully tear the edges to give it that old look, punched holes in
the sheets, and bound it together with string. Then he tied and glued it to a
wooden cover, added shape to the spine with a rounded piece of wood and more
string for texture, and glued a piece of leather to the cover. I designed some end
papers, he printed them out, and glued those in. We finished it off with a book
lock, and metal corner embellishments, I aged the leather, and then finally used
gold leaf for the title, and voila! An ancient magical Booke.
W RITERS ’ T RICKS OF THE T RADE
P AGE 17
F ALL 2017