Trailer Finished

After 4 weeks of work I wanted to finally present to you my finished trailer for the game I thought of called "Samurai Overload". Sadly, every time I tried to upload my video I had an error (possibly due to the format of the video).

As some of you might be aware, I've based my trailer mostly on material from games such as "Total War: Shogun 2" and "Way of the Samurai" franchise with the exception of the soundtrack which comes from a movie called "Last Samurai".

I've decided to use this material because it is based on the theme I'm working on and also because these games are the most popular and highly rated by both critics and players. Personally I've played these games myself and I've enjoyed them a lot since they fit the theme very well. Also the "Last Samurai" was the first movie that came to my mind since I've watched it many times and one of its best traits was the soundtrack which I've decided to use.

During the making of the trailer itself, I've added features to it such as transitions for both audio and video, titles including my logos created in the previous elements of the assignment, colour mats and variation in opacity levels or 'how transparent something is'.

For audio, I've inserted a transition called "Constant Power" as it equalised the difference in level between each piece of soundtrack, making the variations between tracks less noticeable, thus causing it to seem as if it was all one soundtrack.

For video, I've added a transition called "Dip to White" as it made the flow between each scene smoother due to the individual bits of video being 'merged' together instead of each piece being suddenly displayed one after the other. Also this effect itself gives the trailer a more cinematic effect.

At this stage, personally I'm satisfied with what I've produced as everything runs together smoothly, presenting a Japan-themed trailer for a PS2 game which matches the previous elements making everything consistent and so more professional. If I had to do another similar assignment, I would create a trailer for a game but using more advanced techniques such as the “green screening”. Next time I would spend more time on finding higher resolution video sources, making them more detailed and less time using techniques I know as I now have experience with them. 

 

Trailer Update

Hi everyone, I'm back again to tell you all that my trailer is now 30 seconds long which means that half of it is done. So far I've used video material from "Total War: Shogun 2" which I have already considered to use.

The trailer itself isn't yet rich in features as I only managed to sort out my material and start to trim and join bits and pieces. However, I plan to add many more features to it such as transitions which would make my trailer run much smoother as well as some more vids from other games such as "Way of the Samurai" franchise. Also another major feature I will add to my trailer is audio itself. So far I've considered to use soundtrack from a movie called "Last Samurai" and I think that I will stick to this idea as I'm convinced that it will work nicely with the video, adding a 'Samurai' mood to it.

I predict that I will finish the trailer soon as the work has been going quick lately, so everyone stay tuned for my next and possibly final update on this trailer :)

Trailer Settings

Now that I've gathered my ideas together, it's time to create my trailer workspace. I'll call my file "FirstEdit" as it's the first time I will work on my work and also because it won't matter later on as I will be able to name the end file.

The video display format will be set to 'timecode' as it will be easier for me to set the video to be exactly 1 minute long since the scale will be displayed traditionally in secounds. The audio display format will stay as 'audio samples' and the capture format will be set to 'DV' as it's relevant to the required video format in which I will need to upload my work.

Nextly I'll set my working space to "DV/PAL Widescreen" format at 25fps. This is also required by the specification so that the file at the end will be in correct format. The sequence name in my opinion isn't of significant importance to the project and so I'll leave it as "Sequence 1". Before I start working on my trailer, I'll need to set up my workspace. This will include creation of new bins and naming them so that any files I use in my project will be stored in a structured way. Now that the workspace is all set up and ready, I can finally get started with the creation of my trailer.