I’m a professional trailer editor who share tips and tricks for how to edit great trailers!
I made this channel to teach people how to make great trailers using, tutorials, essays reviews, and behind-the-scenes looks at the art of making trailers.
Trailers are a niche industry, but I know there are a lot of people interested in watching and making them; I want to bring together everyone who shares my love for this fun and exciting art form.
Some of my credits include: Among Us, Half-Life: Alyx, Psychonauts 2, Subnautica, Spelunky 2, Dead Cells, Ooblets, Katana ZERO and more!
I got my start in the movie trailer industry as an assistant editor at a house which produced for: The Matrix Trilogy, Spider-Man, Pirates of the Caribbean and many more.
Half the time I'm disappointed when I finally see the gameplay compared to the animated trailer. Wizard With a Gun comes to mind, trailer hooked me right away, looked amazing. Then gameplay shows up near the end and I'm like oh, that's it eh?
pardon , 1 second per 1000 usd ? where do u even get the info ? I would honor if u could show me the client willing to pay that price lmao . 1 second per 1k usd usually the quality should be traditional draw like aot (without cgi), not like deadcell ,cult lamb level , if indie really pay that much for animator ,its like a stupid call even including after effect and coloring , paying 1 second for 1k usd is ridiculous for me In fact , I do encourage indie find 2d animation freelancer to help with . Their time is really flexible , and the price is always negotiable depends their speed and knowledge ... ...which come in handy for the project later Most average pro animator will go around 300 usd per second But if u find asian animator (except jp) , they willing to help u project more cheaper with outstanding skill too
When Streets of Rage 4 was announced, the animated trailer for that hyped me up, that series is a cult classic and the in game animations matched the trailer in a way
The difference is animated trailers are art with a lot of passion Which will be watched over and over. While gameplay trailers will be boring with the purpose only selling the products which only be forgotten overtime. That's why cinematics and animated trailers are better and more popular than gameplay trailers.
For small indie creators, if you’re also good at Animation, you could do animations to announce the game, as you don’t lose anything if it doesn’t succeed.
If people don't respond positively, you lose the opportunity for a good first impression and buzz if people don't share it. If your Steam page trailer has mostly animation and not much gameplay, then you lose out on potential wishlists. Having a strong announcement where people know what your game is as soon as they see the trailer is a HUGE advantage.
@@DerekLieu I heavily agree with that one, although I recommend doing just some animation to hype things up, as if the gameplay in the trailer is not astonishing enough, add some cutscenes that you’ve hand-crafted for the game for the trailer, to add some more hype for the people who don’t think the gameplay itself is enough, as adding some cutscenes can make the game an overall better journey.
@@DerekLieu Although you do have to be really good at animation, if your animation doesn’t go with people’s standards nowadays, you’ll have a brilliant chance at failing sadly.
One exception to this in my opinion is TF2s own animated trailers - whilst not 2D, it shows off everything you need to know about the game perfectly (Engineer's taunt of sitting down and playing the guitar, building sentries/dispensers, Spy's disguising skills and building-sapping etc) and also demonstrates more depth in the characters themselves. This, accompanied with the absolutely large load of content TF2 has (despite not having updates for a long time) makes for an overall cinematic experience for viewers who feel hyped about the game itself. Also, it helps that Valve had their own engine (SFM) to animate their trailers
Also, in my video I’m specifically addressing small indie games who have trouble getting their game and studio known. Valve is so big and we known they can do anything they want.
On a side note, I really liked this trailer which started as an animation but smoothly transitioned into gameplay: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-XZzOxEK7hXo.htmlsi=QnIghNH4GdaIt2UU
Played riven for the first time 4 years ago. Became my favorite game. (Btw the trailer was gorgeous. I replayed it countless times already to find the new stuff and be amazed by the graphics. And love Gehn's line at the end)
In my opinion, despite animated trailers being fun, I hate animated game trailers. For so many games it seems like they spend more budget on the trailer than the actual game and I would much rather see gameplay than a lie. (This is 1000x more true for board/card games. I hate so much when the only trailers show absolutely NOTHING about the game itself) Edit: I fully agree about the already successful part. I was actually thinking before I wrote this comment that an acceptable way to use animated game trailers is when people know the characters and it shows them off in a better way
I watched the animated trailer for "wizards with guns." (I forgot the name, it's by Devolver Digital) and I was pretty disappointed when the gameplay trailer turned out to basically look like Don't Starve with wizard gun flavor. It felt like the animation set up some worldbuilding, which I really appreciate as an avid reader and artist, but the game trailer just fumbled that hype and lost that feeling for me. It almost felt like the animation overpromised, raised my expectations way too high, so even if I would've appreciated the gameplay trailer for what it was before, I just felt like it wasn't living up to the high bar the animation had set. That's just my personal story on what an animated game trailer has done for me in the past, but yeah. Certainly a finicky way to promote your game.
I don't really mind animated game trailers, *as long as I can do the stuff I see in the trailer itself* My Friend Pedro is a great example. Basically everything you see past 15 seconds you can do. Skateboarding, frying pan ricochets, ziplining, everything.
Derek wean do you think it's the right time for indie developer like myself to make game trailer ? For example right now I'm working pvp multiplayer fps that have public testing version, However this game don't have most the important mekanic implement yet, I know that now it's not the right time, However how i will able to know wean the right time is.
@@DerekLieu okay What did you mean with store page you mean the itch io That I published the game or wean I'm going to selling this game because right It's free for anyone to try? This game right now it's only for playing testing yes it's possible to play the game with 1 friend and have fun. However the only option to play the game is with split screen 😔 at this time. Also I don't have killed count and I have only 1 weapon at this point. Wail the Player movement and kill respond ECT work's the are still multiple bug, And the are not yet version to play with network. The only way to play is with same device. This the reason my game is not ready yet, The other reason I believe it's not ready for trailer yet is because on the state this game now It probably have updated very frequently seen the are so much mekanics bugs to fixed ECT even if make trailer right now I will probably have to make another one wean something drastic changed. Maby wean I implement all the besic mekanics it will be the best time for trailer. As for how party the art my is pretty looking already, I mean as long people like low poly art style.
I think if and only if the animation really helps people understand the HOOK of your game then just focus on gameplay. If your story and setting is your hook, ask if describing your story and setting sound like any other game. If it sounds similar to a bunch of games then it’s not a strong enough hook.
I added the ability for a second controller to manually adjust the player's camera beyond what the player can regularly do (basically like a no-clip mode). It's good for getting glamour shots, but I don't think it would be feasible to use for a trailer without two people operating them both with good coordination. Slow-mo toggle has been really useful though, since I can capture gameplay in slow motion and then return it to normal speed in the video editing software.
@@DerekLieu I WILL! Actually I did tell them to not hesitate asking for stuff. But as you mentioned in your video, they really did not want to bother me, especially since I'm a solo developer. Thanks to your videos I have a better idea of what they might need, so next time I'll come up with tons of things before they even ask! Thanks again for sharing.
Animated trailers are great when everything in it can be done in the game, like how everything from the trailer of my friend pedro can be done in the game
I have different question how to fix the image quality on OBS For some reason wean I do screen record ⏺️ with OBS and move camera It have image quality lost can eny one know how to fix that ?
In short, you're probably capturing with a low video bitrate which is creating pixelation. This video is a good guide about settings, but the most important one is using CQP, with a setting of between 18-25. This setting makes OBS change the bitrate based on how complicated the shot is. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-aLxDKcMsRps.html
@@DerekLieu thank i already fix the quality record lost thank to video you send my i was very annoying before that i was recorded forgets for my game and have worsh image quality for the true quality on my game for now on i my i will have better quality.
I like hands-free, but I'm an automation nerd. I use voice to text, convert that text to a limited set of commands and words (tokens), and finally use the converted text with a "remote controller" program that interfaces with the game or other program. Now you look like a crazy person talking to a computer, but a highly functional one! There is probably a solution you can buy, but these days with AI you can make your own pretty easily. Just be ready to prepare saying each word like 30 times with various inflections and tones so you have plenty of good training data.
@@DerekLieu go to level 3, kill all, pause time, spawn XYZ at relative vector x = 5 and z =30, create revert point ABC, enable record new video on revert, revert to ABC, (realize it is not understanding ABC so you choose a new name), create revert point Dog 3, revert to Dog 3 (scene reloads properly and starts), revert to Dog 3, revert to Dog 3... (Then you realize maybe I should just bind this to a hotkey. So....) Bind voice command "revert to Dog 3" to spacebar. Then you forget you have it running and try to type an email and wonder why you hear the sound of XYZ every single time you hit the spacebar...
I use a Steam Deck (the handheld console) for quite a few things. Using the stream function, then using the device as a controller only allows me a lot of freedoms that'd be a little fiddlier with just my desktop setup. For a start, Valve has created an incredibly robust set of tools for dialling in controls for very very specific needs that they couldn't foresee. For example, if I need a slow panning backwards shot, I can set the left stick to only actuate a specific amount (number between 1-100) to keep the the shot slow, and I can even disable the other axis to stop my wiggling thumb from accidentally pushing it left or right during the backwards pan. Also any button (but particularly the back buttons) can be programmed to do basically anything, like actuate a macro command, or whatever, for cheats. A more common use of it: I regularly set one of those buttons to reload so that I don't have to take my thumb away from the right stick to do that, and my movement stays smooth. While a Stream Deck (like Steve uses) certainly has room for more functions, I feel like the Steam Deck's tools are uniquely geared towards solving problems before we even encounter them, and so it often bypasses the need for me to ask for extra things from the developer to get started. Clickable-only debugs continue to be a roadblock, though.
Also possible to use a keyboard with autohotkey or a similar software if people don't want to spend money on a stream deck. I can't remember what it was called, but there was one that let you use a separate keyboard not bound to anything only for hotkeys. Though devices with screens on the buttons like the Streamdeck definitely can lower the cognitive load
I would love love love a video talking about what tools you expect when coming in on a project. Or what tools you found very useful but you wish more developers added
My first GDC talk was on this topic! You can watch it and look at the accompanying blog post here (plus a couple other posts I made): www.derek-lieu.com/blog/2018/5/1/the-best-debug-tools-for-game-trailer-capture www.derek-lieu.com/blog/2021/11/1/debug-tools-for-recapturing-shots www.derek-lieu.com/blog/2022/11/19/how-to-make-a-freecam-or-marketing-camera-for-game-trailers
This has valuable insights -- thank you! But... I think words in the title are out of order: "How to Movie Make a Trailer" instead of "How to Make a Movie Trailer." Has no one noticed this? Maybe it was intentional?
There have been several times when I’ve thought an animated trailer looked awesome, thought “I should check this game out, it looks sick,” and immediately lost interest when I saw the actual game footage
You’re definitely right, although I’m sure many animated trailers produced by indeed developers. I’m most likely created by the develop themselves with little to no expense other than time and passion.
Some are produced in-house like for Klei games, Have a Nice Death, or the upcoming game UNBEATABLE, but I think the majority of the big flashy 2D animated trailers are outsourced because most indies don't have that sort of animation in their games.
I don't usually comment on things but this video game is absolutely life changing. The depth of the characters and the intertwinedness they have with each of their own regions of the world. It's emotional and hits hard but it's entertaining enough and complicated enough to keep you sucked in and not constantly sad. Combined with the perfect soundtrack. I bought this game on a whim and it's magical
@@DerekLieu yeaaaah but wouldnt it be better that way? think about it, you would be more creative AND you can draw/animate...i dont really see a downside.
