Duel at Skinwalker Canyon: Expanded Book Trailer Script

This is an expanded version of the Duel At Skinwalker Canyon novel. I wrote different versions for Animaxia.com, the company that made the 3D renderings and assembled the scenes. The project took months. I would do it again with some future novel, but with more frequent communication and feedback to prevent rabbit holes and wasted effort. Talk to me if you are an author interested in doing a movie-style book trailer. I’m not a fountain of knowledge, but I can tell how to avoid the mistakes I made.

The following is a stitched-together version of several book-trailer scenes written for the novel. A movie-like trailer is expensive to produce, so only a fraction of the material I wrote made it into the finished mp4 reel.

Duel at Skinwalker Canyon Trailer Script

Voiceover/Text/Dialog/Graphics/Sound/Music

I. Video opens:

Intro Card: Text centered on a black screen: WHAT COULD HAPPEN IF SALEM MAGIC  CHALLENGES SKINWALKER SORCERY?

*

V: Miriam Goodspeed’s voiceover speaking in a midwestern accent: “I’m Miriam Goodspeed, one of the Moonborn race and proprietor of Charms and Sundries in Denver. My grandparents were in Salem and survived the Great Panic. The burning years are over. Now we do our best to blend in with humans. Trying to get along. You would call us witches.”

G: We see a row of wooden storefronts in Denver, 1883. A narrow shop sits between a saloon and a steakhouse eatery. A banner hangs above the shop: CHARMS AND SUNDRIES. The shop has a front window of many small panes of glass. The second story has two narrow windows above the banner. There is a wooden entry door to the left of the front window. In the window, we dimly see a séance table setting with a mounted crystal ball on the tablecloth.

S: Ambient sounds of horses, buggies, and a bustling Old West city.

M: Ambient western theme music.

*

G: Sheriff Wilbur Vance dissolves into the scene, knocking on the wooden door.

S: Knocking. Door opens with a jingling entry bell.

*

G: Vance and Miriam face each other, surrounded by rugs, hanging windchimes, and bins of bagged goods.

Sheriff Vance: “Are you Miriam Goodspeed?”

*

G: An old west passenger train travels through the western mountains.

Miriam’s Voiceover: “Sheriff Vance came to me asking for help. Six passengers were succumbing to sleeping sickness after boarding the train leaving Durango. Women passengers. Expectant mothers. Two had already died. Someone—or something—was responsible for the hauntings.”

*

During Miriam’s Voiceover:

G: We see inside a cluttered baggage car. There lies a three-by-two foot wooden crate with stenciled lettering, FRAGILE and RELICS on top and sides.

Miriam’s voiceover: Denver & Rio Grande officials wanted a U.S. Marshal or Pinkerton agent to assist Sheriff Vance. No one wanted to help. To save these women, I took the job.”

*

G: Black

Miriam’s voiceover: “And so, my adventure began.”

*

Silence and blackness for a beat.

II. Intro: An epic score erupts. Quick changing graphics and scenes, snippets of dialog, and sounds leading to the cliffhanger climax.  

*

G: Miriam on horseback, hugging the neck of a gray stallion running full tilt in the high desert, leaping over crevices. Snow-capped mountains are visible in the background.

*

G: The door to a rickety chicken coop creaks open, revealing a coyote pup standing over a dead hen. The coyote looks up, startled, then smiles and morphs into a naked infant.

*

A swarthy Spaniard in battered Stetson points a revolver with a giant barrel at the camera. We hear him cock the gun.

*

Fluttering and dark raven wings circle and dive into the smoke hole of a Navajo hogan/Kiva. Muffled shouts of startled men come from inside.

*

A Navajo maiden attacks a Spanish soldier at the mouth of a cave on the side of a cliff. The soldier wears Conquistador-style armour and holds a sword. They grapple and fall off a high cliff. It is a dreamy vision so that it can be misty or ghostly. It is the same cave where the Spaniard screams before he falls.

G: A wooden Kachina doll lies on an oak table: It looks like a pregnant, heavy-breasted female figure with a wolf-head, painted in SW Indian garb/design—zigzags, sun symbols, and rows of stripes—on khaki or burlap material with painted moccasined feet.

Louise (Navajo with glossy black hair, 20 years old): “It is called a Kachina doll, a fertility gift for Navajo or Hopi brides.”

D: Miriam, (picks up the doll)  “What could a medicine man do with it?” She gives it to Louise.

Louise (hold her palms up, refusing to touch it: “A kind medicine man can give it a fertility spirit for a new bride.”

Miriam: “What could an evil shaman do?”

Louise: “He can put a demon inside.”

Miriam: “Does this shaman have a name?”

Louise: “We must stop this talk. To speak his name would bring doom to us all.”

*

G: The shadow of an animated Kachina doll creeps through a lit doorway into a darkened bedroom.

*

G: Gray skies dim to black over a deep gorge with high craggy walls on both sides. Small dark figures on horseback (6 in the story) can be seen in the distance: lightning strikes and thunder cracks.

Deep male voiceover: “A flash flood will soon come. We have to leave this gorge!”

*

Dialogue between Miriam and Louise:

Miriam: “I can help you fight this evil shaman. I have powers that can stop his sorcery.”

Louise shakes her head: “Mother knows of your white magic. But she has said you cannot be involved.”

Miriam (peevishly): “Why not?”

Louise: “You are biligáana. An outsider. This is not your fight. It is ours, and we will defeat him on our terms. The Deities demand it.”

*

G: Bright day inside a gorge. A dreamy view of a T. rex's fossil bones/skull is embedded in a rugged cliff wall. Suddenly, it comes to life, pulls away from the rock, turns to the sky, and roars.

*

G: Daytime. A close-up view of a rattlesnake stares at us, shivering its tail, and ready to strike.

*

G: Night. Behind their backs, we view Miriam and friend Natasha peeking over teeth-like rocks into the mouth of a cave, dimly lit by a dying campfire. It sits high over a canyon floor (the same cave as the vision described earlier). Inside are small bones, kindling wood, animal skins, and a strapped (medicine) bag.

Miriam: “Where is he? Where’s the Skinwalker?”

Natasha: “He’s not here.”

Miriam: “But he left his medicine bag.”

Natasha: “Oh no.”

Faintly, a woman screams.

Natasha: “This is a distraction!”

*

G: From out of the shadow of a twisty juniper pine comes the hunched figure of a half-human with reptilian features, slit snake eyes, antlers, a flicking tongue, wolf ears, clawlike hands, dog-like legs, holding a long shaft. He is covered in animal skins. He glows in the moonlight

Skinwalker: “I’ve been expecting you.”

*

G: Miriam barely controls a giant gray stallion on a narrow path leading up the side of a cliff. Stormy rain slashes Miriam and her gray stallion. Lightning flashes. They tread carefully on a thin trail along a tall cliff. Suddenly, Miriam slips on a rock. Cut to black.

S: The horse screams. Fading to the sound of thunder.*

III End Cards A and B

Card A. Text centered on a black background: Duel At Skinwalker Canyon.

By Wes Brummer on the cover of the book.

Available at Amazon or go to

www.westonbrummer.com for more details.

*

Card B: Credits (centered)

Book Trailer by Animaxia.com

Title and End Cards: Rarainkcreative.com

Enjoy the book! If you like it, give me a review on Amazon or Goodreads.

Thanks for viewing the trailer!

(End of trailer)

***

Alternate scenes to consider:

A starry night sky and the sound of wind as the shadows of two young women's arms spread wide and grasp hands as they fly beneath the gibbous moon.

*

Miriam: “Why me, Sheriff?”

Vance frowning: “The alienist at the Colorado Asylum said you do miracles with the inmates there. Besides, no one is taking me seriously, not the marshals and not the Pinkertons. You are my only hope.”’

Miriam, rubbing her chin: “I need permission from Mother.”

Vance holding up three fingers: “Time is urgent. “Three more women will soon give birth. They, too, will die.”

Miriam in silhouette: “What happened to the infants?”

Vance: “They weren’t infants. More like coyotes or wolves. All of them escaped.”

*

G: An old west train speeds through mountains and over bridge trestles.

Miriam: “And so I went to Durango to learn who targeted these women and why their children turned into wild animals.”

**end**