Our minds have the power to give birth to worlds in which we can lose ourselves in, but to capture those mental images into a medium, it’s quite a challenge. As a writer, trying to materialize those words into reality, and share that vision with the world, I had to rely on one of the most creative artforms: animation. This is a quick glance at how book pages turned into an animation to create Vandella’s trailer.
Like any other kid, I was attracted to cartoons. It’s almost engraved in our genes: Children love the exaggerated characters, the vibrant colors and the wacky narratives. For the young minds, cartoons are the best way to explore the imagination and to bring fantasy to life. Animation has a particular way to represent things and situations in a distorted manner, focusing on some aspects to make them more relevant, more relatable, and disregarding others at the same time. This quality has been leveraged in story telling to make characters more memorable, and that’s why, many times the live-action adaptations of cartoons feel shallow at best. I grew up watching cartoons, and I could not deny the impact that animation had on me, and how the stories told in animated films, influenced my creative work.
I’ve never considered myself a good writer, but I’m good at novelizing the movies that I play in my head. Writing my debut novel, Vandella, I had to translate into words and descriptions the people I imagined. Acting as a film director, I had to coordinate the actors, and as cameraman, I had to frame the action that ended up in the page. And trying to bring Vandella outside of the page and into reality, I had to basically reverse the original process and transform the written words back into the film I had first imagined in my head.
Vandella is a dark fantasy story about Maia, the main character, travelling to the hereafter to save her grandmother. The surrealist nature of the situations and characters that Maia faces, and the otherworldliness of the locales she visits, presented a huge challenge to represent them in a realistic manner. And being in that predicament, is why I considered to leverage on the power of animation to breathe life to Vandella.
Part 1: Animating the World of Vandella
Everything started by translating the descriptions and visual references of the characters into sketches with the help of a terrific artist, Daya (@daya_rih), and from there, we worked on refining the gestures and features to properly capture the personalities of the characters. The addition of details grounded the characters in the world described in the book, and the color work made the designs pop, granting distinctiveness but familiarity at the same time.
From there, I had to pick iconic and reminiscent scenes or situations for each main character of the book and created story boards which represented the actions of the characters, in some cases with slight variations to fit the narrative format of short trailer. I collaborated with the great animator Splitsy (@spli_tsee) to translate my sketches into drawings that were animated frame by frame to simulate the motion and actions of the characters as I’ve envisioned in my head while writing the novel. Animation is a lengthy process, considering that each frame needs to be individually drawn and colored, but the result provides a unique look and feel that portrays fantasy like no other medium can.
Once the individual scenes were animated, everything had to come together in post-production. Sound effects and music were added and properly mixed to have adequate levels. Additional to this, as part of the editing, clips containing editorial reviews and the closing book animation were created by my brother and amazing 3D artist. (@cc.landa). And all this effort was needed to bring Vandella to the screen.
Part 2: Final Thoughts
Book trailers have fallen out fashion in recent years, as are perceived by authors as risky investments, considering that return in investment might not be as positive compared to other marketing tools. Then, why develop a book trailer? And specifically in my case, why develop an animated trailer for my novel?
First, as a marketing tactic, I believe attractive book trailers have lot of potential with the current boom of video social networks like Tik Tok. Also, this is a resource that can be used by authors in multiple places like author websites or even to be projected at in-person book presentations. Well executed, a book trailer should withstand the passage of time, and be a tool that as authors, we can continuously resort to.
As I mentioned earlier, a graphic representation can transmit the tone and aesthetic of the novel to potential readers which is quite difficult to convey in any other way. A peek at the characters and the situations to be found in the novel can entice them into jumping into the world we have created with words. If the book cover is often described as the most important marketing tool for a book, for me, a proper book trailer should be like having a book cover in motion that expands into the motifs.
Finally, and in a more personal note, as a long-time fan of film and animation, having my stories represented on the screen have been one of my dreams since I started my created endeavors. Finally watching my characters come to life in such artistic manner, it’s just incredibly rewarding, and being able to share my vision of the story with my readers, is simply amazing. I wish I could have had this trailer, back when the novel was published, but I want to believe that it’s never too late.
If you haven’t seen all Vandella animated trailers yet, please visit my social networks, and I hope that you enjoy watching it as much as I enjoyed creating it with the help of such incredible artists. And please don’t forget to share your thoughts in the comments, did you like them? Which was your favorite? Would you like to see a full adaptation of the novel?
Hopefully, one day.
But that’s all from me for the moment.
M. Ch. Landa
Here is the full list of links to Vandella Trailers:
Vandella Book Trailer: https://youtu.be/eAXNNR-dlmA
Maia and Luvena Trailer: https://youtu.be/54xeY0p1d9w
Maia and Sidney Trailer: https://youtu.be/V-k7v3XgFNc
Samael Trailer: https://youtu.be/6sKuELDJHuw
Alek Trailer: https://youtu.be/PdmuxfCUW5o
