Take these opinions with a large grain of salt, because I've never done video teasers or ads for my books.
Combined feedback:
- The aspect ratio doesn't matter to me, it will depend on how you are showing it. If you're showing it in ad spots, the square 4:3 or so format might be better. If you intend to put it on your own website or promote it to fans, I would prefer the normal widescreen 16:9 format.
- The music doesn't fit IMO with what the imagery and copy is trying to tell me. If you intend to play these with sound anywhere, I would find something more suited to the genre
- I think the fog moves way too fast. If you can, maybe try slowing it down by 4x or 8x if it's not pre-rendered (if it's pre-rendered, slowing it down might make the framerate go wonky so it could look worse)
- I think I prefer the sign in front of the fog in option 1. Well I don't dislike option 2's sign. Maybe if it was a little taller, but depends on if that's something you can easily fiddle with or not, and making the sign taller might interfere with how you're trying to layout text.
- I'm not entirely sure I like the font. I think mostly because I found it a bit hard to distinguish the commas from the periods.
In option 1, there is no fade out for the text starting with "The San Joaqin valley".
In option 2, there's no fade out for "We can't wait."
Just wanted to make sure you're doing it on purpose
Of the copy between the two videos, I prefer option 1. Option 2 almost sounds like poetry, but it's really hard to figure out what the book is about. You might wait for other feedback, but the line "Sleeping pills..." seems out of place in both. I would try a different line to try to explain your blurb/synopsis more. If you don't want to try a different line, in option 1 maybe see how it feels if you move it after the first line? I think "we can't wait" might be a good cliffhanger to end on.
So, even in option 1 I don't have a perfect understanding of what the book may be about which is why I was thinking you might consider changing the Sleeping pills line.
I think it's serviceable. You can tell it's not pro quality, but especially for a short video on a tight budget I don't think it's a problem.
