Coming Soon! Teaser Trailers

[queenie]

So! Those from the old Quill might remember that once, around 2003-2004, we had a thread dedicated to a creative form of self-advertisements: of describing your story as though watching a teaser trailer in a movie studio, waiting for a film to start, or as though looking at a movie poster for it. Now, this thread shall be reborn!
The purpose of this is to have fun, to think about your story in a different way, and to encourage interest in your work. There's lots of room for creativity here, and I remember some pretty amazing stuff on the old Quill. I look forward to seeing what you all will come up with.
Now, there are two suggestions before we commence. I suggest that you only post a trailer for a story that you've already written, or started to write. Also, I strongly suggest that we keep these on the short side. The last thread had to be closed because trailers were growing to pages and pages in length. If you have a wonderful, extra-long trailer that you simply must share in its entirety, feel free to post it somewhere else - a blog or what-have-you - and link to it here.
Just as a guideline, simple is better when it comes to trailers.
Feel free to post more than one trailer/poster for the same story - but probably three should be the max.
And most of all, have fun!



Black screen. The chiming notes of 'Hedwig's Theme' begins to play.
Fade in to: the weary wooden sign hanging in the light of a streelamp in Diagon Alley: Ollivander's, Makers of Fine Wands since 362 B.C.
Cut to: Mr. Servaas Ollivander closing up the wand shop in Diagon Alley.Cut To: Mr. Ollivander composing a letter.
Voice-Over, Mr. Ollivander's voice: "To my dearest niece Calliope..."
Calliope's face as she hurries down a stairwell. She is tall, black-haired, silver-eyed.
VO: "War is an interesting catalyst..."
Calliope runs out through the lobby of an apartment building and into the street. She looks back as though beginning to be afraid.
VO: "When you know the world is changing, a part of you wants to change with it... either into cowardice and despair...""
When she steps outside, Calliope stops, panting, and looks down at a photograph in her hand, of herself and her uncle
VO: "Or to courage and brotherhood... and hope."
Cut to: Dora Tonks, speaking
DORA: Your Uncle Servaas is missing. Captured. You must return to England at once.
Cut to: Servaas Ollivander, panting as though in pain, on a cot in a darkened room.
(Male) voice: No one is coming to find you, you know.
Cut to the speaker: a figure at the door.
Male voice: I am not cruel. I am telling you the truth.
In a classroom, Calliope is speaking to a brown-haired man in a red shirt (Mark.) He speaks with a Boston accent, she with a London one.
Calliope: There's been a family emergency. I'm going back to England.
Mark: (concerned) Why so soon?
Calliope: (wincing) I can't tell you. Don't make this harder than it already is!
In a hallway of the Ministry of Magic, two Obliviators are walking swiftly - two men, one with black hair and a goattee, the other one taller with a crooked nose.
Tall Obliviator's voice: L. O., I heard about the disappearance of your uncle and wanted to offer my condolences. You suffered losses in the first war, did you not?
The second Obliviator stops walking. He has silver eyes behind his spectacles.
L.O.: Well, yes. My sister Benedicte disappeared.
Cut to: A moving painting on a white wall, of a teenage girl playing with a baby and a toddler.
VO: (Tall Obliviator) You never did find out what happened to her, did you?
In a flash of white, the picture freezes.
VO: (Linus Ollivander) ... No.
VOICE OVER by VOICE OVER PERSON: As Harry Potter's sixth year at Hogwarts opens...
A tall mansion built in the Tudor style, in Scotland.
VO: As the cracks in the Ministry of Magic begin to widen...
Dolores Umbridge, taking her place at the Wizengamot Bar with a smug smile on her face.
VO: And as an experiment begins which could change history...
A large circular slab of marble on which a nine-pointed star is carved. It fills with the white cloud of memories as bottle after bottle around its edge is knocked over...
VO: Justice will be violated.
Umbridge's Voice: "Mark Emory Printzen!" as Mark is dragged into the courtroom of the Wizengamot and shoved into the chair as the chains clink together around him.
VO: Strange alliances will be forged.
Linus standing in a jail cell, speaking to Mark.
Linus: I am here to represent you and be your counsel before the Wizengamot.
VO: Facts will fall into myth.
Cut to: Calliope Ollivander standing in Luna Lovegood's bedroom
Luna: I liked the way you told that story. You kept in all the possibilities...
VO: The world is changing.
Quick montage of scenes: Linus, running down a train corridor, throwing a Stunning Spell behind him. Mark falling, looking around to see himself in the midst of a WW2 combat zone. Calliope, in a darkened room, lighting a rope of fire with her wand and gasping in horror. Mark hugging Calliope, tightly, as though he'll never let her go.
VO: And nothing will be the same.
A silence. Then, cut to, Mark standing before a fence closing off an alleyway. He holds a white wand in his hand, and taps it against the fence.
Mark: Open... sesame!
Nothing happens. The sounds of Muggle London become clearer. Mark looks around.
Mark: ......... this could become embarassing.
Cut to black. Hedwig's Theme plays again. In white, the words The Ollivander Children appear on the screen.Then, fade to,
Servaas Ollivander, standing up in his shop, illuminated by moonlight. He turns around. The focus changes, so we see the four black-robed figures in the background, their wands pointed at his throat. Cut to: Servaas smiling grimly at them.
Mr. Ollivander: Let's be off then.
Fade to black, with white letters: Coming soon to a Whomping Willow Near You.

Poster(s) and suggestions about posters to follow.

[magikcat]

Lovely job! I'm interested already!

[queenie]

Thank you very much!

Now, on to posters. This is an example (again, from The Ollivander Children of how you might describe two different posters like any other you might find in a movie theater. Remember this is a poster, so it should not move (even though mine below includes the use of Wizard photographs, this should be imagined as in a Muggle cinema). Remember that this can be a fairly liberal interpretation of what happens in the story, as long as it's not wildly out of context.
If you have a DeviantArt or similar sort of account, feel free to draw the poster, post it there, and make a link to it here; we'd love to see your vision come to life!

Poster One: On a background of parchment paper, a slightly faded photograph of Mr. Ollivander, about twenty years younger than we met him in PS/SS, standing in front of his shop. He has his arm around the shoulder of a ten-year-old girl, his grand-niece, who holds a new wand with a proud smile. However, when one looks at the photograph more closely, it becomes clear that she is starting to fade from the waist down into nothing. The writing beneath it reads: "Myself and Benedicte on her 10th birthday" - however, the name Benedicte is fading at the bottom, as though it was erased.
Tagline: Never Forget.
Title, in gold at the bottom: The Ollivander Children

Poster Two: in the antechamber for the Obliviator's and Paramnesiac Department, on a marble floor bearing the department's insignia: a half-white, half-black circle with a white star in the center, and a crescent moon on either half in the opposite color, facing away from the star.
Standing in the foreground are three people: Calliope, Linus, and Mark. Calliope, the tallest, is in the center, looking at the camera with a determined expression. She holds out a paper with the Deathly Hallows insignia.
Linus, in his grey Obliviator's cloak, is to her right-hand side, looking beyond the camera anxiously. He holds out a photograph of a teenaged girl, a toddler, and a baby sitting on an armchair.
Mark, wearing a red jacket and jeans, is on Calliope's left, holding out a wand, tenuously, in both hands. He looks to Calliope with a concerned expression.
There are three taglines, one floating above the heads of each character.
Over Linus, the tagline reads: What happens when your own memory betrays you?
Above Calliope, it reads: What is the contribution of one untrained soldier?
Above Mark: What happens when you Presume above your station?
In silver, at the bottom, are the words The Ollivander Children.

Now, have fun and start piqueing our collective curiosity!

[queenie]

I feel like I'm chattering away to myself, the only person to post anything - feel free, step right up!
(Maybe later we could make another thread dedicated to trailers of original work...)
Anyway, I recently compiled some drawings that I did of my characters, and set my Photoshop skills to work to make a viable poster for my story.

I'm going to post a link to my Deviantart account, and I'd like this to be the example followed in future, just in case.
Now, the Poster:

vifetoile.deviantart.com/art/The-Ollivander-Children-120837107
*ding*