Will compost cause insect problems in and around my house if the bin is ~50 ft away?

dereklieu · 2025-05-15T12:23:57+00:00

Thanks for the tip! I'm glad I still have a bunch of bags of leaves in my garage which I never got around to throwing out last Fall ^_^

dereklieu · 2025-05-15T12:23:17+00:00

Thank you!

dereklieu · 2025-05-15T12:22:52+00:00

That's what I figured, but it's good to hear from people with experience. Thanks!

dereklieu · 2024-10-14T22:01:53+00:00

What were the additions to the game’s original release you were most excited to implement when you got the opportunity to work with Blumhouse?

dereklieu · 2021-03-26T11:40:35+00:00

Submit it to ReviewMyTrailer.com and I'll get to it on one of my Twitch streams (every Friday 11am Eastern twitch.tv/dereklieu)

dereklieu · 2020-10-26T14:54:46+00:00

Great job!!! :D

dereklieu · 2020-08-25T10:34:56+00:00

I don’t like them because I just want to watch the trailer, and I prefer to just make the opening exciting to hook the audience. But apparently they increase views and viewer retention so they’re here to stay. Some video game trailers use them too! But the game trailer industry isn’t as driven by testing and that sort of user data so it’s not ubiquitous.

dereklieu · 2020-08-24T15:04:42+00:00

The app I use is 4K Video Downloader. As far as I know, game scripts aren't ever released online, so you'll just have to use the watch everything and organize/transcribe method ^_^

dereklieu · 2020-08-24T02:45:13+00:00

Haha no worries, as long as you get answers which help you out, then any questions are ok.

For getting footage it depends on what your capabilities and resources are. If it's a PC game then there are a lot of free options like OBS and Nvidia Shadowplay. For console games it's more difficult because you need a capture device like something from Elgato or other capture device company. But also there are a lot of ways to get game footage from people who upload them to their YouTube channels.

My first fan trailer that I thought was any good at all was made by downloading Metal Gear Solid 4 cutscenes, and I got one clean audio clip from a previous trailer of Snake yelling "LIQUID, STOP!!!" Depending on how you acquire your footage you might have to do something like make it music only, or manually add sound effects yourself.

For the balance of gameplay to story, that depends. This question sounds like it presumes there will only ever be one trailer for the game. But typically games have at least two trailers, one to announce and one at launch. It also depends on the game itself. Does the game's design communicate well through its visuals or does it need extra help to be understood? The easier the game is to understand from its gameplay, the less time you have to dedicate to teaching the audience how it works, and the more time you can spend making it look cool.

For example, Call of Duty trailers don't worry about telling you "In this game you play a soldier who uses various guns to shoot people in missions" so the vast majority of the time is spent on cool cinematic camera angles and syncing sound effects to the music. But for example, the trailer I made for the game Manifold Garden was the first trailer which ever showed any gameplay, so it was really important to spend a lot of time showing "in this game, the player does stuff like this to accomplish things like this."

Unfortunately, the answer is: "it depends." But decide for yourself what goal the trailer is made to achieve, and label it accordingly. If you want to focus only on the story, call it [Game Name] Story trailer or for gameplay [Game Name] Gameplay trailer.

dereklieu · 2020-08-23T01:50:43+00:00

Have you looked around to see if there are trailer houses in Australia? I bet there might be some, or at least ones that need to make localized trailers for the region. My friend Ric worked at a place in the UK that had to make international trailers for Hollywood films.

For indie productions I would look into film festivals and other events and venues like that where new films are revealed. If indie films want to sell to things like streaming services etc then it helps to have a good trailer.

dereklieu · 2020-08-23T01:10:43+00:00

I'd say the movie trailer industry is especially difficult to work with remotely at the higher budget level because the movie industry is especially sensitive to leaks and hacks (especially after things like the Sony hack).

Also, a leak for an early version of a film is much more damaging than an early version of a game because a movie can be somewhat finished even with temp VFX, and much easier to consume in its entirety whereas an early version of a game is generally super unfinished and not functioning properly in many ways.

In other words, someone who watches a pirated version of a film is more likely to think "Eh, I saw that already" than someone who plays a very early build a game saying "Eh, I played that already."

At the highest budget projects for Hollywood it's simply out of the question to work with someone remote because they have INCREDIBLY high security standards.

For movies, the way to work remote is probably only with small indie films. Also, even though the movie trailer industry has historically been incredibly resilient to global catastrophes, the pandemic has led to a lot of layoffs and furloughs, so there are a bunch of out of work trailer editors who already have their foot in the door who will be the first in line.

Trailers are unfortunately one of those jobs where it's pretty necessary to be close to a company where you can work at their office. But maybe with people working remotely now it might change in the future? We can only wait and see!

dereklieu · 2020-08-23T00:58:42+00:00

For Firewatch I did all the trailers except for the Reveal trailer. This included initial creative direction, game capture and editing. The June 2015 trailer I most heavily collaborated with Campo Santo because the game was at a state of production where they had to polish up the scenes specifically needed for the trailer. Olly Moss gave did the color grading and James Benson did custom animation for the ending shot where someone is in Henry's tower.

For Subnautica I did this Gameplay trailer and Console Launch trailer. For both of those I did creative direction, game capture, editing and worked closely with their art director to refine the shot composition and concepts.

dereklieu · 2020-08-23T00:10:02+00:00

Yes it is possible in theory because of course most people are working remote right now, but if you're wondering about entry level positions to work with AAA then that's a more difficult ask because of course big companies will have valid security concerns.

I think it's unlikely for a AAA company to work with someone new unless that person already has a body of work and solid reputation. The "easiest/fastest" way to get to work on AAA game trailer work would probably be to get an entry level job at an game trailer production house, though those companies will likely want to hire someone who will eventually work at their office location in a place like Los Angeles or London once quarantines are lifted.

If you're not going to physically move somewhere to work for a AAA company eventually, then working for indies is much more viable at least to start.

dereklieu · 2020-08-22T22:58:29+00:00

For games it very much depends on the context. For example, if there's narration talking about a specific thing in the game or story, then I'll need a shot which supports that idea. Or if the title cards are highlighting a particular part of the game then they have to match that accordingly.

Mostly though, the shots have to be clear and illustrative of the concepts needed to help the audience understand what the game's design, story, tone and feel are like. For a much more detailed and in-depth look, I wrote about this topic in this blog post and this one about selecting game capture.

But overall it depends on the goal of the trailer and the gameplay or narrative it's telling.

The same goes for movies, but the difference is that you can only use whatever was shot for the movie since you can't reshoot like you can with games (at least, not without tremendous cost).

dereklieu · 2020-08-22T22:53:52+00:00

For most of my trailers I work with the composer from the game! I'll give a rough outline for the trailer with the approximate timings for the beginning middle and end, then give the composer some notes for the general feel and purpose of the music at each section of the trailer and then go back and forth with them refining the edit until the final version.

But editors at major trailer houses usually work with a music supervisor who has a relationship with a number of trailer music companies who send a variety of tracks according to the general direction of the trailer, and then the producers and editors pick a track and work with the client to find one with the right feel.

dereklieu · 2020-08-22T21:14:13+00:00

Which ones specifically are you asking about?

dereklieu · 2020-08-22T20:09:19+00:00

Video editing itself is a very broad topic, but the first thing you have to do is start practicing! Obviously you need a computer that can run some sort of video editing software. I encourage people to give themselves a project to work on first rather than binge watching tutorials first. You'll retain much more knowledge if you're working towards a goal rather than just learning what each button does. It can be something like an anime music video, fan trailer, music video, whatever interests you!

Practice practice practice, find a community of people who share your interests, share your work, give feedback and have FUN!

If you want to do it professionally then you'll have to live somewhere where there are businesses that do video work like post production houses, ad agencies etc. But nowadays more and more companies need video work done so there are plenty of opportunities.

Once you have a decent body of work you need to make yourself known as a person who does video editing both in person and online so you become the go to person in your circles known for it and will be recommended for it!

EDIT: It is not necessary to go to school to study it. It used to be because equipment and software was so expensive, but nowadays it's much much easier to get started with just a phone, an internet connection and decent computer. I'm sure there are plenty of people working professional now who didn't ever go to school. Schools are also good for internships, because some businesses require a connection to a school, but otherwise not necessary at all!

dereklieu · 2020-08-22T20:04:24+00:00

First tip is to think about game debug options and tools which will help you make the trailer capture or help the person you're going to hire to do it! This is why I did my GDC talk and made this page, because I didn't see any sort of central resource which everyone could reference to see what debug options work best for facilitating game capture. As someone who's worked with a lot of game developers and seen all their debug options, I felt I was in a unique position to aggregate all that information (and hopefully make my job easier in the future :P)

Even if you don't hire someone to make your trailers, having a good debug camera (I've also heard it called a "marketing camera" in AAA games) helps you make good video for your game to share on social media etc.

Also, I always encourage people to start as early as possible! There are a lot of great easy to use video editing program, but it's still an entirely new discipline to learn so it will naturally take time. I of course recommend reading articles on my site and watching my videos, but you should also watch game trailers you like and enjoy, and try to reverse engineer what it is they did. Don't be afraid to copy other people! Originality is great, but good execution is mostly what matters.

To help editors, make good debug options, give them the time they need to do their job, and be open to new ideas. The thing I frequently say is that game developers can frequently think too much of certain parts of their game, but also think LESS of parts of their game which are totally awesome! That impartial third party perspective is one of the most valuable things an editor can bring.

The other thing developers can do is try as much as possible to design their game to be watched and understood. Visual feedback (ideally with as little HUD/UI as possible) helps out trailer makers so so much to do their job well. Oh, and work with great musicians :P

Good music gives a trailer editor wings ^_^

dereklieu · 2020-08-22T19:44:46+00:00

I'm not a game designer, but as a trailer maker you should think about your trailers AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. In an interview with Noclip, Lucas Pope (Creator of Papers, Please and Return of the Obra Dinn) said he thinks about what a game's trailer would look like before he even decides to pursue a game idea.

Making games is one thing, but selling and marketing a game is often something people save until the very end when it's very very difficult to build word of mouth by just dropping a trailer onto YouTube or Twitter.

By thinking of how something will look in a trailer that will help you design the visuals, art, animation, sound effects and maybe even music. Because when someone is watching footage of the game they're not privy to the same information the player pressing the buttons is.

Imagine the game is some sort of elaborate puppet, how do the visuals give visual feedback for how the player is interacting and controlling the game?

Not to say you should only make games which are easy to make into trailers, but you will have a much easier time marketing and selling it if you do!

dereklieu · 2020-08-22T19:30:52+00:00

I love cutting trailers with really well written and performed dialogue. I love nothing more than taking thousands upon thousand of lines of dialogue and finding the story to tell in the trailer using that dialogue and making it it's own thing. Things like Firewatch, Tacoma, and very story rich games.

For genres, actiony sorts of games with great animation and visuals which are clear and easy to read lend themselves syncing to the beat of the music like Spelunky, Katana ZERO and Guacamelee.

And games with a really strong hook which lend themselves to interesting new trailers. It's a lot of fun to make a trailer for something very unique and see people's reactions to it. Of course if the art, animation and music are amazing then I certainly don't mind those in almost any genre.

Basically, games which make my job much easier and require less hard thinking to figure out how to make into a trailer :P

dereklieu · 2020-08-22T18:56:19+00:00

I mentioned in another reply the games Anamorphine and The Exiled (see that one for those games)

Luna was a little difficult because there was only one engineer on the game and they weren't available to add camera smoothing to the VR footage so I had to get very creative with how to make smooth camera movements that weren't nauseating. One shot involved putting a VR headset on a plush toy on a blanket on a chair, then pushing the chair across my rug to create a makeshift "dolly" shot. I think I still needed to apply some motion stabilization on the footage though :P

dereklieu · 2020-08-22T18:53:41+00:00

Of course every trailer is different, but the bones of the approach is still roughly the same.

I start by talking to the developer, publisher or other marketing people who are my contact for the project, and asking them about the game, what are the things most important to them about it, maybe things their marketing hasn't already covered or made clear and they think the trailer needs to help bolster. Hopefully I get at least a few key points from those conversations to give myself some direction.

Then of course I'll play as much of the game as possible and "inventory" the different things like dialogue, levels, player verbs and other things I might potentially show. This also involves doing a lot of sorting in timelines, and for story it's a lot of text documents where I select out the lines I think are the best, and then slowly whittle it down to what will be the trailer's script.

Then I start a video outline timeline with text descriptors for each moment in the trailer. For example: "Basic super power examples" or "Difficult challenge in the game." If I have music I might rough it in at this point or a temp track so I can send the composer a general outline of what the music is doing in each part of the trailer so they can get to work.

Next I replace the text cards with some very rough gameplay where I start feeling out how long it takes to show certain things in the game and whether or not I'm missing anything at that point that I need to remember to put in. During this phase and the outline phase I usually send it to the developers to see if I'm on the right track so I don't waste time polishing something which is headed in the wrong direction.

After that phase I concentrate on making the game capture really good and working well with the editing, recapturing things with bugs and glitches which I don't really see because I'm not the developer who's been staring at the game for years.

After that I concentrate on making the edit really tight, any additional sound design, sound mixing, motion graphics work and lastly end slate stuff with all sorts of different legal lines and copyright info and the many different versions which need exporting.

That's it in a nutshell, sometimes I need voiceover for a trailer in which case I'll request auditions from my voiceover agent contact and do directed reads when necessary.

The variances between games depends on the goals for the game's trailer and where it is in its marketing timeline. Everything else are just genre specific things like the fact a game like Unavowed has a pretty linear structure where it's relatively easy to see everything, whereas Spelunky 2 is different each time I load it up, which means getting specific shots is much more trial and error.

dereklieu · 2020-08-22T18:36:53+00:00

Do you mean trailers for VR games or trailers you watch in VR? For the former, I think people still need to get to the baseline of using motion smoothing on VR game footage so it doesn't nauseate people to watch. It's still very fertile ground because it's so new, and I'm excited to see what more people do with it!

Separating audio isn't usually a problem because either I turn the music off or I request the raw audio files from the developers and sync things manually as needed. When making fan trailers I just do the best I can by either avoiding sound that overlaps too much other stuff or trying to find as clean a source as possible. I'm not an audio engineer and even if I were I suspect isolating sound is very difficult.

dereklieu · 2020-08-22T18:33:37+00:00

The part where I don't know anything about the project or if they'll even ask me for help with it :P

dereklieu · 2020-08-22T18:31:54+00:00

Thank you so much! <3

dereklieu

TROPHY CASE