Jane and the Damned - Book Trailer of the Day

Three minutes plus -- on the long side. I didn't watch it all the way through the first time. But I did come back to it, because it's well done.

This uses a technique of "pseudo-animation": A series of cartoons or illustrations that accompany the text, or, in this case, voice over, at a sentence-by-sentence pace. Unlike a random jumble of stock images, the succession of cartoons gives the trailer a unified motif, holding it together with greater style. A few stock photos are thrown in, for instance, a shot of Bath. It works okay. The color scheme is simple but striking. The cartoonish b&w drawings are highlighted by red. A nice way to quietly shout: Hey! Vampires!

The voice over and sound effects really carry this trailer, even when the cuts could use a brisker pace. I laughed my head off when the ridiculous French accents began at 1:39. "Those English bastards! They cut of my...!"

The premise of the book is also a riot. Here we have the Jane Austen and the Undead craze joined with the Use Famous Writers as characters craze, and hell, a little Alt Hist thrown in for jolly fun. At least, when I last took my Survey of Modern European History Since the French Revolution, I don't remember the French invading England twice. That alone made me want to read this book.

Jane of the Damned, by Janet Mullany.