Over ten years ago, space.games.film was officially launched. The idea of making a film about the video game industry had been brewing in my head for a few years before that. By sending the first email, the project finally became real.
Fast forward ten years, and the release of space.games.film is now a distant memory. A lot has changed since then. games.film no longer exists, the website is now just a sub-page on my personal site, and the elaborately built online shop, which had to withstand a massive rush of buyers during its existence (7 – that’s seven in words (yes, really)), couldn’t be integrated into my new homepage and remains inaccessible to potential nostalgics.
Throughout this decade, I’ve worked on numerous other projects. During that time, I also took on editing projects. I’ve refined my editing style and picked up some cool new tricks and techniques from numerous tutorials to make my cuts more dynamic. For a while now, I’ve had the urge to go back and rework the space.games.film trailer to make it more compelling. Back then, we had to get a trailer done in a ridiculously short amount of time, and with everything else life was throwing at us, the official trailer that resulted obviously wasn’t going to get anyone hyped for an action movie.
Looking back today, I would, of course, shoot and edit space.games.film completely differently. Armed with newfound knowledge and more advanced skills, I wanted to take another crack at the trailer. So, I pulled the project from my archives, reinstalled Edius, and tried to export the old edit to import it into DaVinci Resolve. That turned out to be a tricky business, as large parts of the project simply wouldn’t export correctly. After a lot of trial and error, I managed to import the raw footage and some of the game sequences into Resolve, so at least the core edits of the film and trailer were there. However, a lot of the B-roll and all the original color and sound work were missing.
The goal this time was to make the new edit feel more alive. I just wanted to create a kickass trailer and see if my current skills were up to the challenge—and I think they were. This new trailer is the result, and it includes a few effects that simply weren’t possible for me when space.games.film was first made, either because I didn’t know how to do them or because the software at the time was too limited.
The new cut was a fun challenge, and for a brief moment, I actually considered re-editing the entire film. But the amount of effort would just be too huge. The trailer cut alone took a lot of time, balancing it between work and family life. A complete re-edit of the whole film would mean several months of (unpaid) work, and when I look at the viewership numbers, it raises the question: Who would it be for?
Even though I cut this trailer mostly for myself, I hope others enjoy it and that it might bring a little more attention to space.games.film.
The original trailer, once more:
And here’s the new one. Be sure to turn up the sound to really feel it. Compared to the old one, I think this trailer makes you more excited to see the film, right?