Movie Trailers and Writing

By Annette Cole Mastron, Communications Director for Southern Writers Magazine

Anyone who follows Southern Writers Magazine's blog,  Suite T can figure out I'm a movie buff. I lean towards independent films, especially those based on little known real-life events. 

Recently, I spent a rainy summer day at the movies with my daughter, who also loves movies. As the lights dim we settle into our seats and watch the dancing movie food ads, silence your cell phone notice and the warning against filming any portion of the movie complete with penalties for anyone who does. Late and damp movie goers arrive and get settled. 

Then one of my favorite parts of the movie experience occurs. The movies soon to be released trailers. On this day we were to see the movie, Florence Foster Jenkins. It came to my attention via a trailer when I saw another independent film about publisher, Max Perkins titled Genius. I recently blogged about this film on SWM's Suite T. 

However on this rainy day the trailer did not disappoint. Based on a true event that I did not recall occurring in 1994, titled Denial. Here is the movie trailer that piqued my interest about the Holocaust being a lie. What? Someone actually preported the position and sued the character portrayed by Rachel Weisz. Denial adapts the true story from Deborah E. Lipstadt's book, History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier. The author, who fought a legal battle against a man, played by Timothy Spall, "Wormtail" from The Harry Potter movies. He makes for the perfect actor to play the man who denied that the Holocaust ever happened. I'm hooked and will be seeing this movie for sure. 

Florence Foster Jenkins is an excellent British film starring Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant. I will not spoil the movie for you. If you chose to see it just remember the events portrayed occurred in this "dramedy." For TV's Big Bang fans, you will love Simon Helberg's brilliant performance as Florence's pianist. This is a great story that actually happened, yet another bit of history I knew nothing about until this movie. 

Thanks to a movie trailer I was drawn to these three movies. It makes me wonder about how author's can create a book trailer to draw readers to their book. I've also blogged about creating a Vine to attract attention for your book. Sometimes a book publisher will make a book trailer to run on TV but these are now a rarity. With various apps, PowerPoint, and iPhones, you can make your own book trailer and link all your social media to draw in readers. Make sure you ask your "tribe" of readers to share your book trailer to expand your exposure. 

If you have a book trailer send us a link in the comment section so our blog readers can connect with your book trailer.