Trailer editing case study
I was commissioned as a promotional trailer editor to edit this animated trailer for Riotous Company. In this article, I give a brief overview of the editing details.
Timing the edit
All the original footage filmed by the company was shot in colour. I thought it would help the animations stand out by adding a black and white colour effect onto the animating box shot. To bring the animation down to a shorter time I added a speed-up effect in between each of the box moves. The timings of both the box move and the letter animations were made the same to bring visual consistency to the pace of the edit.
Adding 3D effects
As the box had not been filmed square on I had to crop the logo placement on the opening shot across two vision layers so that I could adjust the 3D perspective of the top strap and Riotous text separately to help them look visually correct. For each rested box position I exported a still frame and then opened it in Photoshop. Using the selection tools I made a matte key of the box face with an alpha channel which I then imported back into Avid. This enabled me to edit the fill layer with the letter animation shots. I adjusted the foreground key to 90% opacity to help the animation blend into the box. A few frames of freeze-frame were added onto the out-going letter animations to help create a smooth transition into the next box move. Other effects such as stabilise and 3D warp were added to help improve the original letter animation footage. Several different versions of the edit were created before I was happy with the look and pace of each animated sequence.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack to this trailer was composed by Riotous Company artist Nikola Kodjabashia and Foltin & Goce Stevkovski and is called Na Na (Sirens).
Promotional trailer editor
During my editing career, I previously spent many years editing 10 to 60-second promotional trailers for both the BBC and Red Bee Media. If you would like any help with your video editing please get in touch.
