Pacific Drive - Gameplay Trailer

We were tasked with creating the trailer from concept to completion. To do this, we had to take care of all gameplay capture, editing, VO, motion graphics, VFX, and overall production polish.

One of the major additions to this trailer was the in-game TV and narrator, which was used as the vessel to carry the trailer through its various paces. We had to take care of the motion, design, VFX, and overall graphic style of the retro TV screen, including animating the effect of the TV and motion tracking it on to the 3D model in the game.

The effect of the footage on the TV took a considerable amount of work, finding the right balance of projector-based decay and 1950s recording technology, and combining it with the look of a VHS recording on top. Various iterations of the style were developed internally, until we landed on what you see in the trailer.

The writing and approach of the VO was established over time, where we combined and iterated our capture process to showcase the various elements of the game in a unique and interesting way. All capture was done in real-time with no pre-scripted camera movements.

Audio was another really important facet of the production. The audio bed was built from a mix of in-game audio and custom SFX we created, such as the analog TV sounds, and a portion of the car noises.

Music was another key asset of the trailer. We spent a considerable amount of time going through a number of music tracks and styles to find the right tone and feel that worked for Ironwood. Landing on both tracks used in the trailer, we set the stage and emotion of each section depending on what music piece we used.