Binary Domain: E3 2011 Story Trailer

Music: Two Steps From Hell – ‘Dark Resolution’

Following on from the previous ‘Machine Age’ trailer, also produced with Maverick Media, this was designed to flesh out the back-story of Binary Domain rather than as a ‘balls out’ gameplay trailer. I directed, captured and edited both video and music, the latter was chopped to tiny pieces and haphazardly glued back together to make it fit the treatment.

The challenge was to convey the right message about the game in 90 seconds without giving away any plot spoilers and also to deliver something that felt fresh after having used the same sections of the game on the Machine Age trailer.

Binary Domain: The Machine Age Trailer

Music: 65daysofstatic – ‘Aren’t We All Running’ (The Fall of Math, 2004)

I directed/edited this trailer for Maverick Media in March/April 2011 for SEGA’s upcoming sci-fi third-person squad based shooter Binary Domain, due for release February 2012. It was designed to build interest in the game and bridge the gap between the Christmas 2010 announcement trailer and future promos.

After developing the treatment, I captured a huge amount of footage from the engine, initially mostly from work in progress gameplay and cutscene animatics and slowly worked out how to fulfill the client brief and convey the right message.

After trying out several music options, I cut down 65daysofstatic’s ‘Aren’t We All Running’ to fit the treatment. I’m very music driven and it’s always been a natural starting point for game trailers, picking and editing the music myself for more recent work makes it seem more like drawing a map to get to the end result than something to decide along the way. This track fitted the futile mood of the treatment perfectly before dropping into the epic gameplay segment.