#mu2404

Game Trailers are an absolutely crucial part of advertising upcoming game releases, essentially giving the public a preview of the game's characteristics, story-line, and content. Sometimes they're merely humorous or cinematic videos, but they still draw attention to the game. However, simply having fantastic visuals isn't enough. Another huge area of importance is the Sound Design, as brilliant Sound Design can truly breathe life into the trailer. 

Previously, I was presented with the task of producing the Sound Design for a cinematic game trailer by Futureworks. After analyzing three different trailers - Routine, Dead Island 2, and League Of Legends: A twist of fate - I finally decided upon completing the Sound Design for Dead Island 2.

My decision revolved around the assignment brief. Each cinematic trailer was within the 3-5 minute requirement. However, I also required a game trailer that had the right amount of content to truly show off my abilities as a Sound Designer, but not have too much that it couldn't be completed within the time given. Not too simple, whilst not being too complex. Unfortunately, this eliminated the trailer for Routine. The trailer for Routine is very minimalistic, and features game-play. This fits with the genre of the game. On the other hand, the League Of Legends trailer was full to the brim with exciting and fast-paced action, with different champions battling in several different scenes. Each champion within the game has unique abilities and characteristics, along with specific sound effects within the game that allow the player to identify them with ease. Something that Riot games considers to be of great importance to include in their trailers, which would make it difficult to reproduce. 

'One of the great challenges that we had with the sound for the cinematic was creating something that a player could close their eyes, watching the cinematic, and then instantly know that's the character they know and love in the game' (Brad Beaumont, 2013). 

After running through a couple of different trailers to use for this assignment, including Titanfall and X3 Albion Prelude, I finally decided on Eve Origins and had this approved by our tutor.

First of all, I'd like to say I have not listened to this trailer with the sound at all, as I want to approach it without being influenced by the original; I have no plans to do so until I have completed the assignment.

One of my first impressions was that the eb and flow of this trailer in terms of action was impressive. I thought this allowed it to breath narratively, giving room to have a voice over running in certain sections.

It contains every element we are required to, including foley. It will undoubtably be a huge challenge for me but with the right preparation and approach to creating the sound design I believe I can enhance the visual with sound that tells a great story.

Early this morning we set off on an adventure to Eventcity in Manchester to experience the wonders of Play Expo after having heard so many positive reviews from peers. Play Expo is one of the north’s biggest gaming expo, and after having been highly successful previously, it has returned for a third outstanding year. There were more events than ever before, and I thoroughly enjoyed every moment. 

Inside Eventcity, there were absolutely hundreds of next-gen consoles, gaming PCs, and plenty of vintage gaming systems to keep you entertained for hours. It was simply one massive celebration of gaming history with row upon row of free-play arcade and pinball machines, retro consoles, and classic computers. We even stumbled upon two giant gameboys and a giant joystick. If that wasn't enough to keep you entertained, there were University League Of Legends tournament ongoing throughout the day, along with plenty of stores selling items that would gain the fancy of every game fan. If you were dragged there by friends, family, or a game-obsessed partner, I'm sure you’d still find something within the stores you desire - Humorous t-shirts, game inspired clothing, game and film character models/figurines, typical gaming merchandise, anime merchandise, replica weaponry, jewellery, retro consoles and games, gaming accessories, and many more. 

Furthermore, another amazing aspect of the event was seeing all the amazing cos-players, and watching the cos-play competitions. One competition had a number of cos-payers stand in dramatic poses, and other cos-players had the task of quickly sketching them to the best of their ability in a short amount of time, and the best sketch won - it was very hectic and entertaining. Unfortunately, I believe that most of the cos-players attended on the Saturday, as friends who had attending the event for both days noticed there were few cos-players compared to the previous day, which is a shame as I couldn’t attend on the Saturday due to recording. Nevertheless, there was still a number of fantastically costumed individuals about.

The event also gave aspiring Game Designers the chance to meet game companies and developers, giving them the ability to discuss the industry, future of gaming, and even show off their portfolios. One Game Designer at my University was offered a job after having a lengthy discussion with an Indie gaming company. The event offers much more than fun for game-lover by presenting possible opportunities for those working towards entering the industry. 

For the past week, I’ve spent much of my time battling with our diabolical broadband connection in order to complete the small University task of simply choosing three game trailers/cinematic that I could potentially use for my Game Audio assignment. The internet connection fails to even load videos, unless left to buffer for a number of hours. As you can imagine, this has driven me up the wall. You might be thinking, why didn’t I simply complete the task at University? Well, they haven’t had much luck with internet connection either. Hopefully our home internet will be sorted and improved soon (apart from the hefty cancellation fee of £279 - yikes). However, despite the internet challenges as of late, I have managed to find a number of trailers and cinematics that seemingly fit the assignment brief, but I’ve purposely been avoiding trailers that contain dialogue, as I don’t currently know any voice-over actors. Unfortunately, this has definitely limited my options. I considered Routine’s trailer, but it solely consisted of slow-paced gameplay, which to me requires drones and ambient sounds to create the correct atmosphere, as it’s a first person horror, and most of the trailer consists of the player simply roaming and exploring, until eventually stumbling upon horrors and finally reaching the characters demise. It takes time to build up, which is to be expected due to the necessary suspense. Although one of my favourite types of trailers, it doesn’t have enough content to give me the ability to truly show off my talents, creative ideas, or achieve the best possible marks for the assignment at hand. I have learnt that it would be beneficial to choose cinematic trailers, as they appear to be more appropriate for the assignment.

Another game trailer that gained my interest was League Of Legends: A twist Of Fate. This is purely a cinematic trailer showing a number of in-game champions ferociously battling. Due to this, it is very fast-paced and action orientated. It also contains many cut scenes, transitions, differing locations, and each champion within the trailer has unique abilities and characteristics. I believe this trailer would be more suited to the assignment, although it appears to be on the difficult side, but certainly doable if I persevered. Feedback from my Game Audio lecturer has confirmed that this trailer in particular would be a great choice. Furthermore, today’s Game Audio lecture was highlighting the requirements needed for game trailers, and the traps beginning Game Audio Designers often fall into, such as attempting to create sounds for every single aspect of the trailer or cinematic. Most of the time, this isn’t needed or required. You need to think in-depth about which aspects of the trailer are of importance and will positively add to it. Well, good Sound Design often makes trailers come to life. My task for the next week is to go through potential trailers, and make notes of all the possible Sound FX that I may require - noting them down on cue tables. 

MU2404 is the Digital Tools & Workflow (game audio) module of the BSc Audio Engineering & Production degree in year 2. Today's lecture was an introduction to the module and its contents.

I'm really excited for this module as I enjoyed working on a game trailer last year for my diploma and I hope to produce a better product than last time.

There are two parts to this assignment; the first being sound design for a cinematic (game trailer) plus an 800 word essay; the second being sound design for a game level plus a 1200 word essay. The practical side to both of the assignments require the content to be between three and five minutes.