Within this, I am going to recreate and layout a detailed brief of the work that was produced each week by our group (Ryan, Tarek, Jonae) and how we reached the final outcome of our trailer.
Introduction
To begin with, the first few weeks was aimed at us producing the skeleton on our game trailer, we brainstormed and changed ideas, but throughout all the brainstorming came to the conclusion that to achieve a distinction we must produce an idea that is attainable and fits with the criteria of a game trailer. Here are the results.
Week 1
11 December
- Lewis pitches an idea and organises class into groups me being in a group of three.
- Immediately we start brainstorming potential ideas of what we can produce, the ideas are as followed, Star wars, and rocket league
- After narrowing it down we chose Star wars, due to its creative fluidity, we could obtain probs easy as well as come up with a solid storyboard and build from it
12 December
- Under much collaboration and discussion we all came to accord that star wars may have been too ambitious, as we would have to implement a lot of effects to create something remotely linked to star wars and as that’s not what the brief was assessing us on we decided to scrap the Idea and go for a more approachable suggestion which was Street fighter X Yakuza.
- Once coming up with the ideas we instantly got to work allocating specific roles to each group member, Jonae being the storyboard artist, Ryan being the editor and me being the theory writer Documenting each week’s progress as well as finalising locations and paperwork. We all collaborated to be Director, cameraman as we all had amazing creative approaches to the project and felt collaborating those ideas as a unit was the best approach to a successful outcome.
13 December
- Today we being choreography of our piece, Since our project was based of a mixed martial arts game we sort it best fit to add a sight sequence within our trailer. IN keeping to the time frame we didn’t expect the scene to be to long however we knew we could add alot of interesting and unique shots in what little time we had.
- We grabbed a camera and began practicing outside the college, just getting a visual interpretation of how each movement would look like as well seeing what angles work best with particular sequences. Once done we were happy to have a rough recording of how the fighting scene would be framed
18 December
The following days leading up to the 18th was a mixture of communicating and adding more ideas for our trailer. We decided to make a group outside of college n snapchat to enable us to be in communication 24/7 giving input or adding constructive information when need be, due to this key coordination it enabled us to really work as a solid unit and never quarrel about clashing ideas. As well as brainstorming and adding more ideas we delegated locations. We each had different ideas on where we wanted to film our trailer, we had a few locations in mind such as Richmond park, however, ended up with shooting in Wimbledon park in a secluded woodland area. We chose to have our main scene to be shot in the woods as it fit with the overall theme of our trailer, As we had an important action scene to shoot we thought a secluded area could best capture this.
The last Location within the trailer included Ryan’s house as we needed a realistic home environment to highlight the contrast between make-believe and real life.
19th December
during the holiday we decided to get together and film, we wanted to do it early on in the holiday to get a head start from everyone else to enable us to have time to fine-tune and edit the scene when the time arose.
The night before we communicated that we would all meet with ur probs at the location by 12:45 which was achieved, upon arrival we set up our scene as well as the camera and began filming, the whole process lasted 3- 4hours not including reshoots. Within this time there was alot of decsion to take into account such as camera angles, distance, lighting and continuity, since we faced a challenging task of choreography a fight scene we needed all angles to be shot well and precise, as well as this we used different angles to make punches seem more realistic on camera again adding to the whole effect. As stated before since we all decided to direct the whole experience of filming was a joy as we incorporated a little bit of our own individual style to the scene as a whole and that will definitely be an aspect that will be noticed when viewed.
21st December
Although we had the bulk of our fighting scene shot on the 19th we decided not return back to Wimbledon to take some reshoots, the reasoning behind this was that some science were either blurry, not to a high enough standard or were scrapped as a whole. The reshoots took 2 hours as a whole and by the end, we were ready to edit.
22nd December
By Tuesday we had our main scene compress and ready to edit so thats what we focused on, as a team we would give points and collaboration to where scene should go as well as how the lighting should be, Ryan taking on hoard these implements suggested his own ideas and began organising and bringing life to the scene, using tools such as special effects taken from websites or correct editing and specific times this scene was really starting to take shape, Lastly the chosen software that was used was aftereffects as it was taught to us all last year thus making it the most familiar software to use.
29th December
The days following the 29th was spent editing and sharing feedback with each other just honing what we have already produced. Now that we had our main scene edited we decided to use the facilities of the college and record are sound effects in a soundproof room giving us full advantage of different ranges. During our session we recorded a magnitude of sounds from kicks to punches to grunts and much more, everything you hear in the trailer is original and produced by us. Once complete it was a simple method of just implementing those sounds to garage band and tinkering with them, adding reverb or playing with the EQ.
1st February
We still had one extra scene to film which was the scene to end the trailer and as mentioned before would be filmed in Ryan’s house. In keeping with that we decided to meet up on the weekend and finish up the trailer with the ending scene. Unlike before This scene was much easier to film as it was not in the open and we were shooting in a controlled environment, not having to worry about passing people. Once complete we imported it on Aftereffects and began combing it with the rest of the trailer, Now all we had to do was finish editing the end scene and add all the sound that was recorded.
5th February
The days following the 5th was the rest of the editing being completed and polished, once done post production was our main priority, We spend this lesson fine tuning the whole trailer making sure there were no errors to be seen as well as cutting unnecessary parts, We new continuity was a big factor into this project so checking that the lighting was seamless was also a huge priority. To conclude we added the sound from garage band into our trailer and made sure that the sound didn’t clash with the video.
Health assessment
throughout all the locations our top priority was safety and making sure there were no hazards that would interfere with the wellbeing of our health, some examples of the safety measure taken are the following
- Removed any sharp objects from the ground giving us a clear surface area to act
- Kept constant communication with family members in case of an emergency
- Bringing first aid equipment such as bandages and disinfectant to the scene incase an accident surpassed.
Locations
Even better if
A constant error we had with are trailer once receiving feedback was how long it was, even after trimming the trailer there were many scenes that should and could of been shorter if we cut them, if I were to improve on this trailer I would cut these long scenes making the trailer look more fluid and straight to the point.
Conclusion
To conclude as a group we found this project to be very educational as well enjoyable. We learned Practical skills such as communication, teamwork and compromising, as well as theoretical and technical skills such as adding visual effects to videos in an effective way ,As well as organising work flow to make our progress look presentable. Off course there were minor issues that weren’t attended to such as not being fully equipped when coming to filming as there were times where the camera died, and we had no way to film, in saying that those experiences were rectified and we learnt form our mistakes being better prepared for the near future. overall we have had a very positive outlook from this project.
Even better if
A constant error we had with are trailer once receiving feedback was how long it was, even after trimming the trailer there were many scenes that should and could of been shorter if we cut them, if I were to improve on this trailer I would cut these long scenes making the trailer look more fluid and straight to the point.
Tarek's Game design college course 