With the sixth instalment of The Fast and the Furious franchise racking up a dizzying $788K+ worldwide gross earlier this year and an epidemic of sick days befalling the globe upon the release of Grand Theft Auto V, it's clear that fast cars (and Vin Diesel) have somewhat of a large, content hungry fan base. Not being a gearhead myself, it's a part of entertainment culture that's largely passed me by -- that is until The Andys and Unit Image's adrenaline pumping trailer for Ubisoft's The Crew slammed into my eyeballs at full speed and had me itching to jump behind the wheel. Strap in and ride shotgun after the jump.
As discussed in their interview with Matt Guetta, Unit Image employed their preferred nimble production practice, having a relatively small team work on the project. Not only does this allow their artists to feel a sense of ownership over the projects but also enables a consistent artistic direction to be maintained throughout. That team is then supported by one or two key individuals who manage schedules and the flow of the pipeline between the various departments. For The Crew specifically, they worked with "Mudbox for textures, 3ds Max for modeling and animation, VRay for rendering and After Effects for compositing." The entire project from pre-production to delivery took 5 months to complete.
You can see how the trailer came together in this making of, which cycles through various render states for some a selection the shots:
You'll have to wait until Q1 2014 to see if the actual game can live up to the action packed promises of the trailer, which leaves plenty of time for you to take in the stunning work The Andys and Unit Image did together for earlier Ubisoft game ZombiU:
And here's the making of:
Whereas a traditional film trailer must concern itself with the presentation of a condensed (and preferably spoiler free) version of the story, the game trailer is mostly free to concentrate on building anticipation through visual style and a distillation of the game world's atmosphere. Something which both of the above trailers manage with aplomb.
What do you think of the trailers? Did they have you racing to click that pre-order button?
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