Lemma Soft Forums

So I want to make a game trailer. I have Adobe Premere and Adobe After Effects.

How can I make a good trailer with these? What other programs are recommended for making a trailer?
And are there any good tutorials or trailer references I can watch?

Those two should be more than enough. I'd even use AE only, as being a member of utaite in Youtube where chorus covers require animated videos has shown me. Note that I still can't animate and is learning my baby steps. I'd suggest Sony Vegas, but since you've bought those two, don't waste them. xD

Now to make a good trailer, I'd say you're going to need:
- good art assets of your own game (sprites, some of the best---but not spoilerish---CGs)
- good music, plus some voice acting snippets if you use the latter
- good sense of storytelling through visual means (which goes when)
- good aesthetics when choosing the supporting elements (fits with the game's GUI)
- decent skill in AE

I'm looking forward for the others' opinions about this as well.

I've made some notes here for you.

Below are some links to some trailers I like. I tried to keep them all related to visual novels, thought some are not (but still intrigue me and have something to learn from).

Note the lengths of each trailer: Usually 1 minute to 1 minute and 30 seconds long. Any longer is generally considered too long.

• Gorillaz 0:21
• Stories Untold 0:40
• Phantom Ban Detective 0:58
• Backstage Pass 1:01
• Lovely Little Thieves 1:01
• Night in the Woods 1:14
• Soul Slayer 1:20
• The Letter 1:37
• Pyre 1:46
• The Crown of Leaves 1:50
• Detroit: Become Human 4:09

Things I like to see in VN trailers:

• Good music (with visuals timed to the music) (Gorillaz, Night in the Woods).
• Cutting to a black background and a simple, small logo as the final visual. (Gorillaz, Night in the Woods)
• Animation (even subtle or limited animation is good).
• Fast cuts to lots of things. (Gorillaz, Night in the Woods)
• All the character sprites slide past in a quick lineup. (Backstage Pass)
• Music swells at an important moment. (Soulslayer)
• Illustrating the choices using Twine-like nodes. (Detroit: Become Human)
• The last cut we see is of the game's logo on a black background. (Gorillaz, Night in the Woods)

Other things to consider:

• Listing what else the creator has made (Night in the Woods)
• Different transitions (Tinder-style swipe left/right)
• Text and character quotes (Lovely Little Thieves)

Cool things you can do using animation:

• Layered parallax animation (Phantom Ban Detective, The Crown of Leaves, Pyre, Backstage Pass)
• Camera moving over 3D object (moving over 3D book close-up in The Crown of Leaves)
• Character sprite slides in
• Lighting (the candle in The Letter)
• Glitches (The Letter, Gorillaz)
• 2-second hand-drawn animation of characters (Backstage Pass)
• Logo shine/glint (Phantom Ban Detective)
• Flip character sprites to different poses (Phantom Ban Detective)
• Slow fade to black (Phantom Ban Detective)
• Lens flare (Phantom Ban Detective)
• Show WIP art, then final version (Lovely Little Thieves)
• Overlay videos (The Crown of Leaves)
• Sparkling stars
• Slow-motion floating objects (Stories Untold)
• Animated text (Pyre)

After Effects is very good for editing trailers. I've heard OpenShot is a good free alternative.

Hope this helps!

Wow! Great list of trailers. Especially "Detroit become human". Resource bookmarked. Thanks.

A very well thought-out trailer check list! Thanks for sharing!

Here is a trailer for our WWII themed visual novel. What do you think?