In the previous Chapter of the Galaxy on Fire 2 Developer Diaries, “The Sound of Galaxy on Fire 2“, we met with Fishlabs Sound Director Gero Goerlich and Jan Werkmeister, Managing Director of periscope studio. Music and Sound Design of GoF 2 were covered – aspects that are still being neglected in many iPhone game productions.[full]

The current chapter was innitially supposed to be called “Making of the GoF 2 Cinematic Trailer”. However, it quickly became evident that the interview was about more than the Cinematic Trailer. Suddenly it became a whole discourse about the reciprocal influences of games and film: Cinematic Trailer = Cinematic Gameplay?

The interviewed were Michael Schade (CEO Fishlabs), Gero Goerlich (Sound Director Fishlabs) and Peter Lund (Geschäftsführer eachfilm).

Galaxy on Fire 2 Cinematic Trailer HD

Kai: How did you come to hire eachfilm?

Michael: We produced all of the trailers for our Java games in-house. Because of the low resolution, they only needed a couple of MB. Now the trailer on iPad resolution is 450 MB compressed and a full 2.5 GB uncompressed. A totally different order of magnitude. That was one of the main reasons we said we could never pull it off internally, if only just because we don’t have the hardware for it. The other point is that everything is becoming more and more cinematic with increasing performance on iPhone 4 and iPad. Even though we have published very substantial titles, GoF with its game depth and complex storyline is something different. The trailer is extremely important, because that is where consumers see the completed game for the first time. That is why we said, ‘Let’s talk to the pros about how to make a good trailer!’

Kai: How did Fishlabs come into contact with eachfilm?

Peter: We met for the first time in Barcelona, at the Mobile World Congress and were introduced there. We talked about a cinematic trailer for Galaxy on Fire 2 for the first time at the MLOVE Confestival.

Michael: Peter showed me then on his iPhone what eachfilm had already produced for other companies: music, fashion, etc. I really liked the imagery.

Kai: What was the exact distribution of jobs in the cooperation with Gero in the sound department?

Michael: The transition was rather fluid. When I proposed the job, ‘We have to create a cinematic trailer!’, Gero said, ‘I’ll think of something!’ And at first I thought, ‘Oh great, now the sound guy is doing film. But, OK, let’s see.’ I didn’t have any concrete expectations, and then Gero came up with a really good storyline and an initial layout for the trailer. I was very positively surprised that Gero is actually not just an outstanding sound designer, but also had such a good feel for trailers. It was so good that I didn’t even notice that he provided the voice for Keith himself.

Kai: What happened next and what was eachfilm’s assignment and the work process?

Peter: The structure of the trailer was already good. Then we considered together with Michael and Gero zusammen what scenes would still have to be recorded in order to create a cinematic trailer. Our initial job was to find out what additional scenes could be recorded, how to add them to the story, and how we could bring out the special features of the iPhone game even better with skilled editing techniques. Because the iPad simulator provides just 3 images per second, Gero recorded about 50 additional scenes in real time directly from the game using a PC version of GoF2 and a special video card. He played the iPad version of the game in a variety of perspectives on the PC and thus recorded scenes from a variety of angles. We got these scenes from him on an external hard drive and imported them to our Avid system over night, so that we could then access the high resolution film material in real time during the editing. Since there was already a layout trailer, this was imported into the editing software and then we first though primarily how we could improve the flow of movement from the game in the edit.

Kai: How is the trailer laid out?

Peter: There is a very action-heavy part and a very quiet bit at the beginning of the film. In between, there is a brief moment where the interface is shown and roughly how a jump gate leads to the action part. The most difficult for me was integrating the variety and depth that’s in Galaxy on Fire 2 neatly into the story along with the action.

Michael: I noticed that our project was significantly different from the film projects you make otherwise. Your question was always, ‘Can we stick another spaceship in here? Can you deliver the graphic assets individually?’, so that we have the background, the space station, and a ship and can make something great out of them. But we didn’t want to do that. The trailer shouldn’t show anything that doesn’t exist in the game. We wanted to emphasise the cinematic aspects of Galaxy on Fire 2 without exaggerating. We didn’t want to fall into the usual overpromising/underdelivering that you see in so many trailers. The rendering is terrific and they look great, but they don’t have anything to do with the actual game. Of course, Peter’s approach to trailers, which does not come from the gaming field, is different. There, you pretty things up with some new elements and pack even more elements in so that the desired effect can be achieved – Peter calls that ‘packing the picture’. We wanted exactly the opposite approach. What the game offers in images – we have to make do with that footage. We had to conjure something really terrific out of that in order to convey in just 2 minutes what Galaxy on Fire 2 stands for and what all it has to offer.

Peter: This approach was really exciting for me. Essentially, viewers can experience the scenes they see in the trailer on the iPad. Then when they play GoF 2 and get into the game, they’ll think, ‘Hey, they promised something and actually kept that promise!’Of course, we had to understand that first. The trick then was to find out where elements in a scene could be additionally emphasised. We enhanced the nuances without giving the feeling that something had been tacked on later.

Michael: In the second production meeting, we reached the point where we had to deal with the composition. Peter went into the individual scenes and worked with speed ramps to make the cuts smoother. Of course, that’s something that doesn’t happen in the game, so that all at once the frame rate increases or the game is suddenly slower. With artistic postproduction techniques like that, we not only fit the cuts exactly to the music, but also certain scenes, such as mass explosions or a dramatic tracking shot, were more heavily accentuated overall through the composition.

Kai: What sort of problems or unusual occurrences happened during work on the trailer?

Michael: What I found really remarkable was that requests from the film production fed back into the game. For example, we had situations where we unanimously thought, ‘We don’t have enough spaceships here! There’s not enough going on! We need more enemies, there has to be more action, sparks need to fly!’ After meetings like that, Gero went to HCK and asked if we could have 20, or even better 40, spaceships at once in a scene. That wasn’t planned, because we never thought the iPad could handle that. But then we implemented it and suddenly saw, ‘Wow! Everything still runs smoothly!’ This way, we wound up with mass battles in the trailer, where it’s just crawling with enemies, and this found its way back into the game. In another example, Gero placed the camera right in front of the cockpit, so that suddenly there was a first person view. That wasn’t actually planned for the game, since it would be impossible for us to build more than 40 cockpits with animated instruments and so on – and that is the only way we would have wanted to implement that. But we liked that very simple view, with just the head up display, so much that we said to HCK, ‘the first person view has to go in.’ Now it’s in the game.

Kai: That underscores a bit what you hear more and more in the games industry lately in terms of games competing with the classical media as an art form, especially film. GoF 2 seems to be a good example of games being a medium in which all these elements converge, sound, storyline, cinematic assets, and moreover there is actually an artistic influence from the player.

Gero: If you start making a game, for example a first person shooter, where the camera follows along from above only for film purposes, then when you make a trailer, it may be that you suddenly consider having the camera from the side or the front for the trailer. When you realise, ‘That’s cool!’, it comes back into the game, and suddenly you have a new perspective in the game that was actually made for the trailer and not the other way around. The work with film literally gives a whole new perspective.

Peter: After I saw the teaser and the rough version of the trailer, I really wanted the game. It spoke to me personally. After transferring Gero’s scenes, I thought, ‘Yes, that’s really good, but will that work in our cooperation?’ The first step was sorting the action scenes, so that all of the movement directions of the spaceships were sorted: all the spaceships fly downward, they all fly to the right, etc. Through this selection, I suddenly spotted an overarching visual logic in the game that I hadn’t seen before. When the first rough cut was finished, the music could be clearly heard, suddenly I thought, ‘…I destroyed the galaxy!’ I was totally overwhelmed by the effect.

Michael: …you’re the boss!

Peter: …and then I thought, ‘I can’t tell anyone about this! How could I explain it, with all the gigantic explosions, the destruction of huge battle cruisers in front of suns, planets, and nebulas?’The pure visual mass spectacle. ‘That is totally wicked.’
Then we went into more detail. The advantage in this project was that we already had a super dedicated soundtrack from Gero in advance, giving us specific timing: quiet, disruption, and acceleration. We placed the images to the music, so that the movements in the game are supported by the music.For example, when the camera slowly turns around the space cruiser while umpteen fighters fly through space around it, and it all fits perfectly to the music, then you have the feeling that you’re right there in the scene.

Michael: …By the way, that with the camera that tracks around the space cruiser at that point is also a function that we didn’t originally have in the game. Until then, it was always the case that you flew after your enemies in third person view following your own ship and blew them away more or less from behind. When they were after you, you could switch to the turret view, but that was fixed to the rear. When we recorded the trailer, we realised that we simply needed more camera angles to convey the enormous scope in GoF 2 and thought, ‘Oh, wouldn’t it be cool if we could do all of that in the game.’ That’s where the feature comes from where, in the external view, you can rotate the camera freely around your ship with the touch display. We call that cinematic gameplay in Galaxy on Fire 2.You approach a cruiser with your wingman. You fire your primary weapons from every tube and toss in three or four more heavy rockets. In the last turn, you switch to the orbit camera, fly away from the cruiser and – as though you were cameraman and director in one – position you and your wingman in the foreground, with the cruiser behind you bursting into a thousand pieces in front of a purple star. What a screenshot – it doesn’t get any better!

Kai: Would Galaxy on Fire 2 work on a big screen?

Peter: The game works on both big and small screens. The combination of reaction and interaction is impressive. The camera movements in GoF 2 are like those in a big budget, American space saga production. It is those camera moves that create tremendous dynamics and thus an orientation in space. It is those movements that pull the player so deeply into the game – just like in a film!

Michael: Funnily enough, it was after repeatedly watching the cinematic trailer that we realised what the term really meant. We have to do a launch event for GoF 2 – in a cinema! Even on the big screen, the trailer looks so great that you can say, ‘Everybody sit down and fasten your seatbelts!’, and I guarantee, people will be blown away!

Peter: Something has occurred to me while we were talking about this. Essentially, the game is even fun when you’re watching. Because GoF 2 is so cinematic, people who view it from the outside can still experience it.

Kai: Is GoF 2 a space shooter whose aesthetic only appeals to men, or do you think that women will also get into Keith’s adventures on their iPhone or iPad?

[long pause]

Gero: [coughs] Errrmmm…

[All laugh]

Peter: It would probably have to be more the ‘warrior’ type. It would need to be tested. That would that be an interesting study, wouldn’t it, Michael?

Michael: We think they’re great! But GoF 2 is very martial and very technology-heavy. We indulge in the cult of weapons and are happy with how cool our spaceships, gadgets, and equipment are – we guys like that! Keith is the cocky but still lovable sort. Like we’d all like to be…

Kai: …So, a bit ‘where men are men’ and we replace the western horse with a spaceship…

Michael: Exactly. If GoF 3 – or whatever it will be called – really is multi-player, the community aspect would naturally be expanded. A lot of journalists have asked recently, for example, if you can customise your spaceship, give it your own look. I think when you get into this area, it looks completely different. If in GoF 3 it is not just spaceships that are the heroes, but you actually see characters who, in turn, wear individual clothing and with whom you can identify, then suddenly it is the person on stage and no longer just the technology. If it then has more to do with individual character and personality as a result, then more women will also be interested in GoF.

Gero: Nevertheless, you shouldn’t forget that GoF 2 already offers more than flying around shooting things. For example, there is a complex trading system and ore mining. But to deal with the game…

Michael: …you have to press the fire button…

Gero: …Definitely. You can’t get by without it. But you also have the opportunity to do other things and to discover other aspects of the game. Trade and mining are just two examples.

Michael: Well, you certainly aren’t going to win first prize in political correctness with a title like this, but that was never the goal.

Peter: What I really liked was the concept of the jump gates. In GoF 2, there is a technology that makes it possible to bridge more than space. I found this aspect totally exciting, because it expresses a kind of magic, namely that the universe in which we find ourselves is simply infinitely large…

Kai: …and we don’t leave it…

Peter: …Not to mention that the jump gates just look cool.

Kai: OK, our time is running out. Any last words?

Michael: I really can’t wait for people’s reactions when the trailer finally goes on-line. Maybe something like, ‘Is it really like that in the game!?’

Kai: And? Is it really like that in the game?

Michael: [laughs] Even better!

Peter: Our intern Basti, who missed the editing and production of the trailer, saw the trailer for the first time after his holiday. His reaction was exciting. He immediately asked when the game was coming out.

Michael: Yeah! Mission accomplished.

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