Forensic Friday 81: The Announcement Trailer
Hey Readers! #
The title to this blog probably gives this away - we have an announcement trailer! With the first Steam Next Fest just around the corner, the deadline was approaching earlier this week. So let’s go through the series of events that led to our trailer’s creation…
Why we’re releasing a trailer #
We knew months in advance that the deadline for entering Next Fest was earlier this week, but what we failed to see was that a trailer was highly recommended for any game signing up with a chance of featuring in the Next Fest trailer, so over a panicked weekend and spilling into this week, we got to work on making a trailer (for which we didn’t even make the deadline anyway… but it worked as a good incentive nonetheless!). Blood, sweat and tears were spilt, and David now has a lasting injury due to overdoing it, but at least we now have a trailer!
In David’s own words #
Hello, I am actually writing this by voice so hopefully there’s not going to be mistakes! Dillan can resolve them. I’m sure it’s going be very annoying. The good news is that we have finished the trailer for the game, which you should be able to see below! The bad news, which is why I am orally dictating the Blog post, is because I have injured my hands from all the video editing that I was doing. It will likely take me a few days to recover - maybe even more if I am unlucky - so we will see what happens, I guess. That’s the sacrifice you have to make for progress haha!
Ironically, working too hard actually stumped my progress, but that’s life. I would like to say more, but it’s a lot of effort trying to fight this automatic dictation system, so I’m just going to leave it at that. However, I have purchased some ergonomic keyboards, mice and also a standing desk. So when I’m able to return to work, though it will be quite hard to adjust to the new typing methods overall, it should improve my health with regard to repetitive strain injuries and also prevent any future injuries from arising.
The original message in David's native tongue (incase anything is lost in translation)
Hello , i'm looking to forensic friday x x x x so I am actua Delete writing this by voice. So there's gonna be mistakes hopefully. Dylan can resolve them. I'm sure it's gonna be very annoying. The good news is that we have finished the trailer for the game which you should be able to see below the bad news. Which is why I am Orally dictated The Blog post is because I have injured my hands from all the video edited that I was doing It will likely take me a few days to recover Maybe even more if I am unlucky So we will see what happens I guess that's the sacrifice you have to make for progress But But?
Ironically Working too hard actually stumped my progress, but that's life. I would like to say more, but it's a lot of effort. Trying to fight this automatic dictation system. So I'm just gonna leave it at that. However, I have purchase some ergonomic keyboards, mice and also a standing desk. So when I'm able to return to work though. It will be quite hard to adjust. Do you be new typing methods Overall? It should improve my health In regards to repetitive strain injuries and He prevents any future is's from Arising.
The original concept #
I personally think I did a great job translating from English to English, but that’s the David cameo for this week. It would be a slight lie to say we only started the trailer on the weekend. A few months back, David and I came up with a rough idea for what we wanted the trailer to contain. Centred around a Category C individual (who has evolved to become known as Steven or Stephen depending on where you look), it shows their perspective from being on site during a containment breach, before being “cycled” and mind wiped, but with previous visions of the past containment breach slowly seeping into their consciousness.
This paired with another containment breach, due to an oversight by the facility director, leads to the repeated destruction of site albeit from a different anomaly.
The original concept
SHOT: Disclaimer, "This is pre-alpha footage. Some art is temporary. Many features unfinished."
COLD OPEN:
SHOT: Series of quick cuts—containment breach, alarms blaring, personnel scrambling. Facility engulfed in flames.
SHOT: Steven goes into bunker.
SHOT: Zoom out. Nuke detonation. Ruins.
LOGO:
SHOT: CONTAINCORP LOGO ON BLACK, blurred nuke aftermath.
INTRODUCTION:
SHOT: FADE FROM BLACK. Steven in lobotomy region, confused bubble above head, many doctors around.
SHOT: People cleaning up. Steven is helping; he gets a flashback of the buildings around him on fire, then cuts back to the same buildings rebuilt perfectly.
SHOT: Steven (a cat C) attacks a janitor and gets reprimanded by security.
SHOT (LONG): Dolly shot through hallway. Steven is being taken through hallway, escorted by guards, through time and space, into mountain, into sentence.
ESCALATION:
SHOT: Experiments fail. Anomalies harder to contain. Facility malfunctions. Scientists in hazmat suits struggle.
SHOT: Vehicle shows up; anomaly comes onto site. OSTF arrive with anomaly.
SHOT (CUT IN PLACE): Anomaly is in cell, breaks from A.T.D.
SHOT (PAN RIGHT-LEFT LONG): Category C cells—Category C are walking left. Researchers and cat C converge; researchers walk into observation.
SHOT: Category C walk in one by one and get killed. Camera crops out the cell to leave S-0033 a mystery. Steven is third in line out of six. He gets another flashback to a non-descript anomaly killing people during a breach, red lights.
SHOT: He gets another flashback of a brick flying around, killing people during breach, red lights.
SHOT: Steven decides to run. Brick smashes through observation glass, and he dodges it, then starts looking at it. Brick is momentarily on fire, quickly extinguished. Thought bubble with fire above head. Guards with medusa helmets come behind him and walk towards brick to apprehend it.
SHOT: A lab. Researchers creating reverse-engineered concrete thing. Bunch of desks and science objects.
SHOT (Pan): REC being constructed throughout facility, walls and floors.
CLIMAX:
SHOT: Apocalyptic scenarios unfold—portals, eldritch horrors. Scientists race against time.
SHOT: Facility director in his office puts REC on his wall. REC starts to corrupt and spread.
SHOT: REC spreads through facility, turning all walls and floors into itself.
SHOT: Raiders by the outer gate, shooting a guard and throwing a grenade, which explodes on REC and sets it on fire.
SHOT: REC reaches Steven, breaks cell door. He walks out and sees a blaze approaching, gunshots in the distance. Only the REC is on fire.
SHOT (HARD CUT): Propulsive brick flying around, killing OSTF, researchers, lots of gunshots.
SHOT: Raiders coming through, killing everyone. Brick appears, everyone runs away. Steven is in a doorway, grabbed by raider.
SHOT: They both run to the bunker, huddle together.
SHOT: Bird's-eye view shot. OSTF running into site, on fire. Category C running out on road. Slowly zoom out. CUT.
BUTTON:
SHOT: CONTAINCORP.
TEXT: "SLOGAN???"
TEXT: ACTION: WISHLIST THE GAME ON STEAM.
TEXT: SECONDARY: FOLLOW IN KICKSTARTER.
TEASER:
SHOT: Steven and raider in "bunker" but not actual bunker. Camera pans out, reveals room is larger, and unknown anomaly (spider-like or tentacles) lurks in the dark and lunges at them.
The storyboard #
So with that rough concept, we got to work with translating this to a rough storyboard with our background music for reference, which you can see below. There are some notable changes, such as the lack of a facility director causing the containment breach. We also had more time than we thought, so added some extra shots to the introduction section as well. We also took some inspiration from Fight Club for the flashback moments (which neither of us had actually seen, but this video gave us some good ideas).
“Storyboard is so mid compared to tge acc trailer” - David 2025
The final product #
So after the rough storyboard phase, it got to filming which definitely took the longest to do. David made some filming tools for us to use, allowing us to spawn NPCs and items, direct entities moving and control the camera, among a lot of other necessary controls. With each scene having a lot of moving parts, some shots took literal hours to plan and get filmed. Finally came the editing stage, of syncing the clips with our music, adding audio sfx etc. And as mentioned, after this rapid process of cramming everything, we unfortunately still missed the deadline but we can now show off a trailer for Containcorp!
Case Closed #
So that was the long, and slightly convoluted, story of how our trailer came to be, and how David’s fatal injury came to pass. There will be an expected lull in activity while David takes some needed time off to recover, but we’ll hopefully be raring to go come Next Fest! You can find the link to the trailer on our website in case you ever want to watch it again and again since it’s absolute cinema! Otherwise, we’ll catch you in the next one, so thanks for reading, and checking out the trailer - we hope you liked it!
Case Closed.
The Team
Plasmarc Studios