Best Book Video Promo of the Year

It’s witty, enticing, and makes me smile. Exactly what one would want from a book video promo:

It is, obviously, the Book video for Julia Quinn‘s upcoming book Ten Things I Love About You, created by Brady Hall, Harper Collins’s go-to guy for video. And yes, I know I called Julia’s last video (also Brady’s work) the The Best Book Video Promo Ever (more on that below), and yes (full disclosure) I am Julia’s sister, but I am also a professional. If I didn’t like the video I would simply do my familial due diligence, post it to Facebook and be done with it.

But let me repeat: Best. Book. Video. Of the Year.

Clearly, the Best Video of the Year’s filmmaker has to be one of the best out there, and Brady is. One quick click-thru of his YouTube page and I wonder why anyone else bothers. But even within his superb portfolio, the Julia Quinn promos are giraffe heads above the others.

First of all, the concepting is great, and the content superb. As a designer I know that no final work can be much better than the sum of its parts. If I get crappy content, the best I can do is gild the garbage. And Brady confesses that he has had some awful content to work with in the past. But for Ten Things, the Powers-that-Be-at-Harper-Collins, Brady and Julia rapid-fired ideas at each other and very quickly the concept of the sketches, the countdown, and the Monty Python-esque feel came together to create a fantastic springboard from which Brady could start filmmaking. All that was needed was a tight script, lush illustrations that could visually carry the film, and an actor to do the voice over with just enough over-the-topness to nail Funny without becoming Camp.

Check, check, and almost check.

“A good script is key when a trailer depends on a narration or acting performance or on screen text,” Brady points out, acknowledging that Julia’s scripting is top-notch. Julia tips a hat right back at Brady. “I am not a visual person,” she admits. “With each video Brady came up with a great concept from which I wrote a script. That makes sense, since I’m the writer. What I’m NOT is a filmmaker. I could never have ‘seen’ either video in my head. He is very good at what he does. I pretty much just do my bit and let him run with it.”

Next, the illustrations. Brady had been wanting to work with this illustrator for some time, but the project had never been right. This one was perfect. Justine Jones, whom Brady rightly calls “an insanely talented artist” worked up initial sketches for the main characters Annabel and Sebastian, and once the script was locked in and the look of the drawings was approved, Brady turned Justine loose. They didn’t even storyboard. “She whipped up a huge pile of drawings based on the laundry list of things I needed for the piece. As I received new art from her through email, I just worked it into the animation. It came together wonderfully.”

Finally, the voice. Brady could hear it in his head. He knew what he wanted but had no idea where to find someone to do it. So he did it himself for the draft. “I half expected somebody at Harper Collins or Julia to say That accent is horrible!! Whom did you hire?! And then I would have had to actually find an old British guy to do it (which might be tricky in Seattle). But nobody said anything except that they loved it!” Check.

“Every book video promo is different,” Brady says, “and that’s why I like doing it so much. You never know what you’re going to do next, and you definitely don’t know how much the publisher or author will want to meddle. Sometimes that works in favor of the finished product, and sometimes it doesn’t. There have definitely been a few projects where I have asked the publisher So basically we just have to do what this author wants and make a horrible book video promo and that’s that? and they say Yep, our hands our tied! So it’s always nice working with somebody like Julia who gets it and contributes what she knows she can improve and lets everybody else do what they know how to do.”

What I, Emily, know how to do is to call out excellent design when I see it (even when it makes me jealous that I didn’t think of it myself). And last spring I confidently and exuberantly dubbed the book video promo for Julia’s What Happens in London to be The Best Book Video Promo Ever.

I was not wrong, and The Huffington Post went on to pick up the video (via this blog, thankyouverymuch), with author/blogger David Colbert (no relation, I don’t think) saying this about book video promos:

…[book] videos are working because they’re less faithful to the books. Authors, myself included, tend to use promotion to tell readers the reasons they should buy our books, instead of just making customers desire them… Fidelity to three hundred pages of prose is the last thing you want in a thirty-second spot.

True, true, and the video for Quinn’s London was the best out there until the day before yesterday, when this new bit of spectacular promo was posted. Bravo Brady, Justine, Pam Spengler-Jaffee at Harper Collins, and of course, Julia.

I am already wondering about next year’s video.