Viewfinder Announce Trailer

Viewfinder is a mind-bending first person puzzle game where you use photographs to reshape reality. I got the opportunity to make the announce trailer from Gwen Foster of Sad Owl Studios (I'd previously made a connection to Gwen when she worked at Robot Teddy, a consultancy I worked with on Among Us) It's not often I play a game nearly beginning to end before I agree to work on the project, but this is one of them.

The idea behind Viewfinder went viral in January 2020 when developer Matt Stark tweeted this tech demo video. In June 2021 he posted this video of more clips from the game with unfinished art. Technically, the game had already been announced, just not with a formal trailer. I'd forgotten the tech demo video, but quickly remembered it as soon as I got my hands on the game.

The goal for this trailer was to:

Show the mechanic of using photos to shape reality
Indicate this is used to solve puzzles
Show potential for experimental, sandboxy play

I first played through as much of the game as possible to get a thorough inventory of all the puzzles and game mechanics. I only had 60 seconds for the trailer so I really had to pare it down to the essentials for the announcement. The trick was:

Show enough so people understand the core game mechanic
Don't repeat ideas too much
Show a lot of variety
Minimize spoilers!

This was a delicate balance because a goal like showing variety is at odds with spoilers. My first opening was picking a photograph off an easel and using it to create a path forward. Gwen's idea was to take the original tweet and use it in the game. This was to remind people about the tech demo and show how far the game has come (and indicate this game is by the same people). I was initially skeptical because despite how widespread the tweet was, I felt it would still only appeal to a fraction of who was watching The Game Awards. I kept two versions of the intro during production, and ultimately it was decided to keep the tweet in. I was okay with it because it still showed how the game mechanic worked so it was functionally the same as my original intro, but with the added context.

This shot served no gameplay purpose at all, it just looks super cool :P

Because a bunch of footage was previously released I was concerned I couldn't/shouldn't repeat anything because I always want trailers to build upon previously released material and repeat as little as possible. Repeating footage in videos across long stretches of time can make development look stagnant or limited in scope. The main concession I made was to not use the bridge scene from the 2021 clip, but I couldn't pass up the building photo used as an incline.

The first 20 seconds use this progression of game ideas:

Photos shapes reality
Photos can be rotated before placement
Stationary cameras can be used to take photos
Photos can be photocopied
You can use batteries from photos to power things

The following shot shows how some photos are located in the world geometry, but you need to find the exact spot to align the elements so they reshape reality. I put this here to break the pattern of using handheld photos; I wanted to intercept any thoughts the audience might start having of: "I think I have this game all figured out."

In this shot and a few others you can also see these pads with glowing outlines of feet on them. This is also another common object in the game, but I didn’t think it was important enough to highlight at this time.

After that shot, I moved onto the three photos with different stylized graphics. This was mostly motivated by the great music. I knew I needed to put something very eye grabbing to justify the sudden flourish.

Here you can clearly see my rule of threes philosophy:

The first photo shows the photo being held up, then walking into it
The second shows the mechanic, but starts JUST after the photo is placed
The third skips the photo placement entirely, and adds a twist of being able to turn corners in the worlds created by the photo.

I'm always trying to stay one step ahead of the audience by repeating as little as possible (even when I'm literally repeating an idea). It's like how in this trailer for Super Mario Odyssey, there's an entire cutscene depicting Mario jumping into a koopa troopa the first time he throws his hat, the second time he throws his hat there's no cutscene, and the third time we don't even see his hat get thrown, we just see a rocket with a mustache.

After this I have the shot of the triangle just because it looks cool, and then a shot showing the cat which appears in different part of the game! I didn't see the cat much during my first play through so I didn't know to include it. After I sent my first version, the team said: "This looks great Derek, but WHERE IS THE CAT!?" I'm not one to argue with the inclusion of cats in anything, so I quickly chose a good spot to capture it for the trailer.

After the cat, came the final montage where I look down, place a photo and fall downward through the floor. This is followed by a couple freecam shots where I used one photo multiple times to create a sort of infinite looking stretch of rooms.

Then came the final shot of stumbling upon a camera and taking a photo. This level was chosen for this moment because of the table’s props and also the interesting looking building I took a photo of. I didn't want the player to be taking a photo of something nearby which looked very bland.

Based on the variety of puzzles and mechanics in the game I always knew I wanted to save the camera for the very end of the trailer. I first wanted the audience to really understand the photo mechanic (and some degree of far that can go on its own) before introducing the handheld camera which can be used to take a photo of anything you'd like in the game. My hope was for people's minds to be exploding with possibilities at the prospect of a freely movable camera in this game.

This is the only freecam shot where I “flew” around the level just because this particular photo doesn’t have floors on all sides I could walk on.

Lastly, the final button with the painting The Scream duplicated multiple times was also Gwen’s idea. We wanted to end on a light-hearted note and show a sample of how far the photo taking mechanic could go to hint at the sandboxy/experimental play.

With a game mechanic this cool I felt like it was my job for the editing to stay out of the way as much as possible so people could just drink it all in. It's been immensely gratifying to watch "react" videos where peoples' minds get blown in realtime. This isn't a time for fast cuts or aggressive editing to jazz things up. This was all about finding the right shows to show an interesting progression of ideas which are always fresh and has lots of variety (while still leaving a lot of the game to explore in future trailers).

Appearing in The Game Awards (even if it was just the pre-show) was a great opportunity to get a LOT of eyeballs on the game. Some people recognized it from previously released videos, but it's likely most saw it for the first time. This was soooooo much fun to work on and I can't wait to play the game again when it finally ships.

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