Hullo, this is Katy133, the person who edited the trailer for A Pinch of Magic. Here, I’ve written a devlog of the process I used for making the trailer.
First, Arimia was kind enough to provide easy access to the VN’s art assets through Google Drive, organised into folders. I downloaded these assents, using some of them in the trailer.
Arimia also gave me a list of points to include in the trailer, summing up the visual novel:
As a primer, I had a look at several VNs (both recently made ones and classic VN trailers I remember enjoying) to remind myself about how VN trailers are edited and presented. I noted length (less than 1 minute 30 seconds tops), and how the creator(s), game’s title, plot, and characters are introduced.
I drew some thumbnail sketches of ideas, storyboarding the trailer out.
Then I opened Kdenlive, the video editor I used for making the trailer.
I edited some of the assets in an art program (combining layers of the character sprite expressions).
Kdenlive includes effects that allow you to add more motion to your video. I mainly used the following effects: Transform (changing an image’s size, moving images, and changing their opacity), fade in/out, blur, and colourise.
Kdenlive also allows you to create text images, which was how I created the animated text in the trailer. I made sure to use the same font typeface that the visual novel uses.
I tried to establish the key points that Arimia listed for me, giving the viewer time to read all the text that appears in the trailer, while also keeping things visually interesting enough so that the viewer also doesn’t lose interest.
This was how the trailer looked in Kdenlive:
Then I rendered and sent the video to Arimia, asking for any notes on editing the trailer.
And that was how I made the trailer. I hope this devlog was useful to anyone interested in making their own VN trailer, or were interested in how the trailer for A Drop of Magic was made.
Turrah!
