Arranger Reveal Trailer
Here's a shot-by-shot breakdown of the trailer I made for Arranger and the intent behind each of them. I don't usually go this in-depth, but I thought it might be interesting to read about the reasoning behind every shot in what I'd consider a relatively "simple" trailer.
I forget exactly how I first crossed paths with Furniture & Mattress Co-founder Nick Sutter, it might've been my guest appearance on the podcast he co-hosts, but however it came to be, that's how I got this gig. I was very excited to work with Nick and David Hellman who was the artist for Braid. This ended up being one of the smoothest projects I ever worked on, and big shout out goes to Nico Recabarren for programming tools which made this one dirt easy to capture.
1. Jemma Wakes Up
This is to introduce the lead character of Jemma with a slow intro that also shows gameplay and player agency. It might be less clear that the player is what causes Jemma to stir in her sleep, but by the 5th second we can see her moving about via the player's inputs. For this shot I deliberately repositioned the bookcase to be above her bed so it would follow behind her as she left the room. This was to emphasize how the objects around Jemma are caught up in her movements. This scene also shows the story art capsules which flesh out the setting.
2. Jemma Walks Through the Messy House + Pedigree Card
In this shot we see the bookcase has dragged behind Jemma, and we can see how the clutter in the house moves with her. This is again to clarify how Jemma affects the world. In this shot I repositioned the oven and bread so she'd drag it behind her into the next shot. This is also a subtle reference to the anime trope of characters running to school with toast in their mouth. This is followed by a pedigree card. The names are arranged in this order because the title "ETHEREAL" compositionally looks most balanced when it's in the center. If it were on the top, or bottom it would look very unbalanced compared to the shorter names of CARTO and BRAID.
3. Jemma Leaves Her House
This shot is to show the wider world Jemma walks around and how she interacts with NPCs. The oven and toast track behind her to continue to clarify how Jemma affects the world around her. The NPC dialogue here is just one word to make it quick and easy to parse.
4-5. Jemma Meets the Gardener & Cat
These are more shots to show NPC interaction. The gardener shot is wider so you can see more of the story capsule art. Her interactions with the NPCs are to emphasize the coziness of the town. The cat is there to show you can pet the cat :3
6. Jemma Never Really Fit In
In this shot, Jemma's movement through the world causes a person on a ladder to fall off from the sudden jolts. For this shot I repositioned Jemma to be coming from the top of the screen so you could see the plant pot dragging behind her and so Jemma is closer to the person on the ladder when she jolts them. When this scene happens in the game, she's about 5 tiles away instead of 2 tiles. Since she's closer, your eye doesn't have to move as much. I also requested for Jemma's dialogue to be shortened to make the reading faster.
7. Jemma Goes to the World Beyond
This shot is to imply the size of the world and the sense of adventure. Because the game is very puzzly, it could be easy to make it look like it's just a series of levels you play one after another like in a mobile game. But the world is interconnected and traversed like in a game like The Legend of Zelda. This shot is intended to make the game look more expansive than a game where you play levels in order from 1-1, to 1-2, to 1-3, etc.
8-9. Jemma Uses a Sword
These shots are to show that Jemma's ability allows her to use objects to affect the world. The sword being used to clear away monsters is one of the most basic mechanics in the game, but I show it twice to make sure it's clearly understood.
10. For the First Time Ever...
This shot is to show how the story "cutscenes" are depicted in the game. This is another way I intended to show this is a puzzle game which is more than just a bunch of puzzles you play one after another.
11. Jemma and the glowing bugs
This shot is to show some environment and NPC variety. Here you see Jemma use this glowing bug to light her way through this area. It's also captured to match the voiceover about "not knowing what's around the corner" because in this case the darkness prevents her from knowing what's around the corner.
12. Jemma Trims a Wooly Creature
This shot where Jemma uses scissors to trim a creature's fur to reveal a humanoid character is to show some of the game's weirdness. Arranger I think will easily fall into the "cozy" genre, but this shot is to show just a bit of edge and the unexpected.
13. Dungeon puzzle with feet
Until this shot there haven't been any examples of how the game is at all difficult, so this shot is to show some puzzly bits which will require more thought to get through. For expediency I set up the pieces so Jemma gets through very quickly, but hopefully this shows people the game is not a cakewalk.
14. Jemma Fishes
I think it's a rule that cozy games have fishing. This is to show some variety to the things Jemma does in the game via this fishing mini-game which is played via the game's unique mechanics.
15. The Way Forward
Up to this point we've already seen Jemma's "wrap-around" ability where when she goes off the side of the world, she re-emerges on the opposite wall (like in Pac-Man) but this shot is here to make that mechanic abundantly clear by setting up a situation where it's the only way she can move forward. The character dialogue gives us time to acknowledge what we've seen.
16-17. Exploring the Unknown & Lasers
This cutscene is to show some of Jemma's adventures. This is quickly followed by another part of the game which is more puzzly, this time in a dungeon involving lasers.
18. Boss Battle
In an ideal world this shot would've been longer to show how the battle works, but this is just to show that there are boss battles which are fought using Jemma's movement abilities.
19-20. May be the Key
This first shot with the eyes is very quick so I wouldn't blame anyone for not understanding what is happening, but this is to show some additional puzzle mechanics from the game. The shot of Jemma finding a key is to show more item interactions Jemma can do by affecting the world around her. It's also there to match to the voiceover in a very on-the-nose way (no one ever accused trailer editing of being subtle)
21-22. Who She is + Cave
This is another story cutscene to make the audience curious about Jemma's character. The following shot is intended as a visual a palate cleanser. Jemma in a massive swarm of NPCs looks like nothing that came before and hopefully piques the curiosity of the audience.
23-28. Ape Cave, Fireflies, Raft, Hook-shot, Spikes, Vista
These last several shots are captured to match cut into each other so the eyetrace matches and everything flows nicely. Most people will probably miss the details in each shot, but hopefully they showcase some variety to quell the audience's assumption they've seen everything the game has to offer. The shots here were chosen for unique art, NPC interaction, and their puzzle mechanics.
29-30. Arranger Title
I knew as soon as I played the game that the mechanic HAD to be used for the title card treatment. David and Nico worked together to make the composition, timing, and animation to look just right. By now the audience should have a very good understanding of how the game plays, but it's so unique I didn't think it would be overkill to show it from beginning to end in as many ways as possible.
So there you have it! That's my shot-by-shot breakdown for the Arranger trailer. I hope you found it interesting and can see how even a trailer which is simple in presentation can have a lot of thought going on behind the scenes. Hopefully it was all worth it, and my intentions for each shot were communicated successfully!
Thanks again to the Furniture & Mattress crew for being such great collaborators. Shout out to Tomás Batista for the great music and Michael Cardillo for the sound mix.
