![]() It’s really intimidating when there are infinite shot possibilities, so narrowing it down as soon as possible really helps. Before I had a build of the game I brainstormed shots based on the dialogue, and put title cards to get a sense of the timing. With the paper edit finalized Sean could record any missing dialogue, and I started to think of shot ideas for the trailer. Scripts are important for when you have multiple people who all need to work on their own separate part of the trailer. We made up for it by shortening the script for what the person at the conference would be saying to introduce the game. In the end we decided to go over our time limit by just a few precious seconds. When it’s just on paper you can’t necessarily tell that the whole thing might be 30 seconds too long! It was really important to me that the rhythm of the dialogue sound natural, so I compressed every moment as much as possible for breathing room. Throughout this process I recorded temp voiceover of myself, and cut it into a sequence to see how much dialogue could comfortably fit in the 60 seconds. This early rough cut was already about 23 seconds too long. I usually assume the actors or narrators will perform slower than my temp VO so I put in as much buffer as possible. ![]() It’s important to time dialogue out, especially when you have a time limit. After my initial pitch, Sean and I went back and forth writing script ideas until we whittled it down to just a few lines. The middle section of the trailer needed to tease how Henry and Delilah’s relationship develops, and introduce a bit more intrigue with the teens at the lake. At this point I could already see how the final moments of the trailer would play out, and hoped it would leave the audience in chills. But after talking over the alternate options we decided this would work the best. ![]() The “Then who is?” immediately stuck out as a huge “OH SHIT” moment, and the only reason I considered not using it was because I didn’t want to spoil that moment in the game. The next most important beat to nail down was the climax. ![]() I love cold opens for trailers, so the cave scene was one of my first ideas because it’s funny, says a lot about Henry and Delilah’s relationship, and most importantly it’s short! Having seen a fair number of press conferences I was confident that a moment like this would really stand out and hook the audience. My hope was that by the time the last shot cut to the title card everyone in the audience would be dying to find out what happens next. With only 60 seconds we needed to very quickly hook the audience, move on to some exposition, and then end on a super intense cliffhanger. My text document of potential dialogue (redacted) When going through a script I highlight dialogue with short self contained thoughts, and usually pass over dialogue that’s too specific to a moment in the story I boiled it all down to a few pages of potentially usable dialogue, and started on a paper edit to pitch to the team. The high level direction for this trailer was to show the audience in no uncertain terms that SHIT HAPPENS IN THIS GAME.įirst thing I did was read the whole script, and select expositional dialogue or character moments. Most of what had previously been shown was dialogue, some gameplay systems, and very small hints at the plot. I had a lot of creative freedom, the only hard guideline was that the trailer had to be a minute long. Doing it themselves would’ve cost precious development time, so I was glad to help! ![]() He basically said they had no mental bandwidth to concept, capture and edit a trailer so they needed someone to take over the project. Editing trailers for games is my day job, but I also freelance and occasionally just for fun I cut trailers for games that I like!įirewatch was already on my list of games I wanted to edit a fan trailer for, so you can imagine how ecstatic I was when six weeks before E3 Sean contacted me with the gig. Hello there! I’m Derek, and I put together the Firewatch trailer for the Sony E3 Press Conference. We should have known better: the first image he included is a cat photo, which cements this as a Great Post. MAKING THE FIREWATCH E3 TRAILERįirewatch had a trailer in Sony’s E3 2015 keynote ( read more about that process here), and though everyone at Campo contributed to putting the trailer together, it wouldn’t have been more than a pile of clips without the help of the trailer’s editor and producer, Derek Lieu.ĭerek put together a blog chronicling his creative process when he finished editing, including a bunch of behind-the-scenes process imagery, and then we accidentally sat on it for months. Here’s a post that was almost lost to the ages, fallen between the cracks during the rush this Summer. ![]()
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