The first decisions I had to make when creating my trailer, were to lay down the basic specifications for some of the more technical aspects of the trailer. I also roughed out some basic ideas for the trailer, then going on to pad out a few of the ideas further. these are explained in further detail in the blog post below:
Technical decisions and basic ideas (blog)
I then decided upon a final idea, and created a storyboard, character development and dope sheet to explain exactly what I had in mind, as well as help me create it.
Storyboard (PDF)
Characters and backgrounds (PDF)
Dope sheets part one (PDF)
Dope sheets part two (PDF)
Pre-production list (PDF)
To create the trailer, I then had to improve my skills in after effects. This process is shown on the blog page below, with the intermediate stages of the creation of my trailer also being shown:
After effects improvement and examples (blog)
I then used GIMP and adobe after effects to create my trailer, which can be seen below:
Review and evaluation
Post - Production list and evaluation (PDF)
Once I had fully completed and uploaded the trailer, I then asked my peers to view it, and give their feedback on what they did & did not like about it, as well as answering other specific questions about the trailer. This form can be seen below:
Once I had gained enough feedback from the form, I then collated all of the data I had received into a spread sheet, and used that data to help me create an analytical report on what the responses meant, as well as if it was an issue with either the form or the trailer. This report can be seen below:Form responses report (PDF)
Action plan
receiving responses from the feedback form gave me some interesting new viewpoints on exactly what the general public opinion was of my trailer. I found it useful to consider what other people might consider the best and worst parts of my short animation, and figure out what lead them to that opinion. Generally, I found that there weren't a great deal of parts in my trailer that the responders found massively distasteful, but there were some issues with the animation.
The first of these was that the viewers generally believed that there could of been more footage of the gameplay. I only included around 3-5 seconds of gameplay in my trailer, which I can understand might be a little less than the average gamer would like to see. I believe that if I was to amend the trailer, I would add another 5-10 seconds of gameplay, some potentially ambient in the background so that if the viewers wanted to focus on it, they would be able to.
The next issue that some of the viewers seemed to have, was that they weren't quite understanding that the game was about a fight between the massive robot and a massive pigeon. I feel that I could ease this issue by adding some more shots to the trailer, extending its runtime with some footage of the robot and the pigeon actually fighting. I think that this would make the narrative of the game explicitly clear.
An action that I would take out of personal and subjective tastes, would be to add in more varied camera shots. This would be so that the animation seems more flowing. If possible I would add in a shot that scrolls across the city, while mega mecha runs toward the pigeon. This would be next to the shot where it is a first person view of the crew inside the head of mega mecha
The final potential amendment to my trailer that I could make would be that the visual style is somewhat inconsistent, as I switch between mid detail cel shaded shots, and low detail silhouette shots. I think (as well as the form responses showing) that it would be both more visually pleasing as well as more accepted by the audience to just stick to one shot style.
I believe that after these amendments, audiences would both enjoy the trailer more, as well as finding it more informative. This is because the visual style will be more solid, with the audience being able to grasp the core concepts with less effort (obvious shots of fighting between the robot and the pigeon, for example).
