Want an Effective Live Action Trailer? Here Are 3 Essential Tools for Gaming Creatives

It’s been about twelve years since I wrote the script for my first piece of live action gaming content. It was a spot for Ubisoft’s Rocksmith, if anyone remembers that one (basically Guitar Hero but with real guitars). While I turned the brief into shots and accompanying VO, it was the Creative Director who really made it sing. He added that little piece of magic that brought the idea to life: after playing Rocksmith, the gamer stores their electric guitar next to their console, as though it’s an amp. Guitar Hero, but with real guitars.

Twelve years on, here are a few overarching tips I’ve picked up. I suppose I’m aiming these predominantly at newbies, but it never hurts any of us to revisit first principles. So while there are no rules (that I know of at least), here are Three Essential Tools for creating effective live action gaming content:

1. Understand the parameters

The normal challenge we face as writers is the dreaded blank page: you could write anything. The opposite is true in gaming, where we must factor in the game’s parameters from the outset. What lore must we be aware of? What are the game’s mechanics? It’s no use inventing a character who doesn’t fit the world, or showing that a player can skate off a building and survive, when in the game their avatar would be a splash on the sidewalk! So we should always understand the parameters, and adhere to them in order to maintain relevance and authenticity.

A hero returns. Characters provide a narrative backstory for strategy game, Total War: Rome Remastered.

2. Provide a unique take

That said, we have to offer up an intriguing angle. This is a tough one, given our need to stay true to the game, but our concept must provide the viewer something they can’t experience in-game – otherwise we should just be showing the game, right? This becomes ever more true as graphics and capture techniques continue to improve – albeit mobile and/or strategy game trailers can afford a bit more licence, since we’re often fleshing out a game’s experience, rather than seeking to replicate it in live action.

Not the station he was expecting. A Nintendo Switch gamer enters the world of Metro Redux.

3. Pull don’t push

As much a story lesson as anything else, but often a compelling concept is best predicated on a question that will pull the viewer through the narrative, making them an active participant. Too often the temptation can be to show everything (all the characters, all the weapons, all the mechanics and features!) And it can take a bold marketer to resist. BUT: think about any memorable game trailer you’ve seen – live action or otherwise – and odds are that in some way, it’s pulled you through the story with a hook, a question, leading up to the big reveal, as we:

4. End with a bang

Wait, that’s Four – you said Three? Yes. I also said that there are no rules! (Crazy, I know.) We’ve got to pull something unexpected off at the end: a beloved character reveal, a launch into a terrifying open world, a bloody great big dragon – or, of course, storing a real electric guitar alongside a gaming console. Whatever it is, sear that final image onto the audience’s eyeballs and leave them EXCITED. The moral of the story should always be: and then they were excited to play the game…