TRAILER TO INCLUDE ORIGINAL MUSIC BY GANG OF FOUR’S ANDY GILL
American Fever: A Tale of Romance & Pestilence
New York, NY, APRIL 4, 2012: Peter Christian Hall knew it wasn’t enough to write an innovative novel and have it published. If he wanted to reach a wide audience, he’d have to find innovative ways to market American Fever.
When tasked to issue a video trailer, the novelist-filmmaker faced the challenge of creating something as fresh and original as his source material: a harrowing, yet humorous and romantic thriller that depicts an East Village blogger’s view of an H5N1 avian flu pandemic.
“The book trailer is a hybrid beast that hasn’t really paid off for many publishers and authors,” says Hall, who notes that the best trailers contain great music, inviting quotes from respected sources, and compelling images.
Hall has been praised for his own filmmaking. His narrative feature Delinquent was hailed by the Los Angeles Times as “one of those great little near-no-budget movies that every now and then seem to come out of nowhere to give hope for a truly independent American cinema.” He also knew he could get compelling music: The U.K.’s legendary Gang of Four had scored Delinquent, and the band’s guitarist-composer-producer, Andy Gill, was eager to write a short piece for American Fever. Plus the novel’s website contains a gallery of fantastic images contributed by artists from various countries.
Still, he couldn’t imagine what to do. Says Hall: “Live action? Animation? Some sort of montage? I was stumped. I’m too close to the material.”
Spurred by a friend who was marketing books for a big publisher, Hall realized he should seek fresh thinking via a crowdsourced book trailer. “There’s a world of enterprising talent out there in film schools and tiny production companies — scouring magazines, websites, and the great DSLR blogs — itching to make an fast impact with great images.”
Hence Hall devised the contest, in which publisher Arterial Witness will pay $1,000 for the 73-second video that best captures American Fever’s spirit. Contenders can read the novel at AmericanFeverBook.com, download the music, reviews, and cover at ArterialWitness.com, and post their entries on YouTube. No purchase is necessary and people can submit as many videos as they like.
“I can’t wait to see the things they come up with,” says Hall, who intends to issue non-cash honors for such standouts as funniest video, scariest entry, most P.K. Dick-like video, most-viewed entry, and so forth. “Surprise us!”
The deadline? July 4th— America’s Independence Day!
More about American Fever:
Kirkus Reviews compared Hall’s novel to Daniel Defoe’s classic A Journal of the Plague Year, TeleRead’s Court Merrigan said the live-linked blog narrative struck him as “by far the best stab at the future of the novel I’ve seen,” and the Midwest Book Review concluded: “Suspenseful and terrifying, American Fever will keep the reader glued to the page until the very end.”
More about the Contest:
For further information, please visit ArterialWitness.com and AmericanFeverBook.com, or email aw (at) ArterialWitness (dot) com. Join American Fever‘s Facebook page.
For press inquiries, please contact Patricia Gostyla at gostyla (at) gmail (dot) com.
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