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This was the first Album Trailer i made, and that Victory released. and i had to make it as kick ass as possible to justify the decision to let me do it.

I had to pull out all the bells and whistles, decided i am not going to account for slower bandwidth users as much as i normally do, and pretty much not say "no" to any idea that popped in my head. To be honest, i was not very familiar with Silverstein or their music until i started at Victory. Which for me, meant that i had no emotional connection or preference to their music, which means I wouldn't have any bias or hindrance in how i approached their Trailer.

The artwork for the band's albums is rather eccentric, kinda cutesy, but very well done. My problem was that because they were all paintings, i did not have layered PSD files, so i had to get creative with how i used everything.

Of course, it was obvious to go with a train theme. We beat the train image into everyone else's head everywhere else in our marketing, and i thought it would be kind of fun anyway, as i am used to (or should i say, prefer to) making things dark and gritty, whereas Silverstein's art was bright, if not cheerful.

So here's the 'script' for the trailer:
Two guys are waiting at a train station. The train takes a little while to show up (it can be seen way in the distance approaching), but eventually settles into the station, and the guys walk up to board. The conductor is a robot (by the same artist, from a previous Silverstein album cover) who pops out the window, and tips his hat with salutations. As he does, he ends up dropping all of his personal belongings that he keeps in his hat, as well as his heart (in the album cover i took him from, he had pulled it out of his chest). He asks the user to help him gather his belongings.

Each little trinket represents in some way the content it ends up revealing (for example, the robot's ID card reveals the band's bio). He speaks to the user as he/she touches each item, giving a verbal clue as to what it will reveal.

At this point, it ends up resembling an e-card. I know i said my original intent was to not include stuff like bios, but hey, you have to give to get. But, i decided if i had to still present normal band content, i would present it in my own way. I had to convince others that it was not necessary for everything to be spelled out explicitly for the user. There is value in discovering things on one's own, and a user's curiosity as to what the hell the robot is talking about when they mouse over his trinkets would be enough to make them actually click it.

But then of course, i added two things that were not easily discernible right away. The first, which is for pure fun, at anytime that you hold your mouse over one of the two people waiting for the train, that start to shake a little. The longer you hold your mouse over them, the faster they shake, until they finally explode. There was a dude with his head on fire in the album art, and i was trying to think of how i could make the passengers in the trailer more interesting. the answer was obvious. anything that explodes equals fun.

I had to fight a little about why there did not need to be any clue anywhere to alert the user that they could keep blowing up the guys by the train. to me, that was the whole point, like an easter egg on DVDs. also, it has no actual relevance to what we are trying to sell the user, so it's not necessary that they even know about it. it's there for someone to find, get excited, and then tell a friend, and so on. even if they thought it was stupid, they'd comment on it somewhere.

the other thing, was the heart. unlike the other trinkets, nothing happens when you click on the heart. there are two clues: that the robot says he always misplaces his heart and that anyone familiar with the band's previous albums knows the robot is usually holding the heart in his hand.

while clicking the heart does nothing, dragging it does. if a user brings the heart back to the robot, the gets overjoyed, and the train races out of the station. it eventually comes back, and the robot drops his belongings again (they disappeared when the train leaves). except the second time around, instead of dropping his heart, he drops a CD player and says he has a gift to reward your kindness. if you click the CD player, it reveals a teaser of three songs (aside from the singles) from the album.

to me, that's the kind of shit kids go crazy for when they figure it out. it has a mild puzzle/game feel to it, complete with a reward.

the other little bonus incentive i added was in the send to a friend feature (the tickets the robot drops). i always wondered how many people really send anything of these kinds to a friend, so i decided to give it a little mystery. it states that if a user sends the site to a friend via the Trailer's email form, both of them will receive a little surprise. What happens is that both sender and friend receive a "ticket" in their email, with a little code on it. the day before the album would be released, there would be a "listening party", where they could stream the entire album for free, and you could only access it with one of the codes sent in that email. my hope was that at least one person would do it, and find that nice surprise, tell his friend, then so on, till everybody tried it.

the listening parties we do are usually open to anyone, but i decided this time to give it a sense of elitism and secret clubhouse mystique to get people excited for it. it worked, according to the tracker i made for the listening party. 2,000 + kids streamed the album that day. or at the least, 2,000 plus passwords were activated that day.

the other notable feature, is that the page is set to display a different background at different times of the day. from 8AM to 8PM, it shows the album cover as a background, and the Trailer itself has a daytime sky. from 8PM to 8AM, the page has the back cover of a night time train as its background, and the Trailer has a night sky, and the streetlights come on.

another gimmicky feature that people get surprised with. i had quite the time trying to figure out how to get a user's local time instead of server time, and i found a method, but it's a little buggy because it uses a user's IP, and doesn't always work correctly. so it may change at different times of the day for a few people, but in general, it has worked from everyone i asked about it.

so that's the gist of the Silverstein trailer. the rest of the stuff is normal band info and media. i didn't mind it so much because i was allowed the freedom to present it however i wanted, and while not an engrossing experience, there is still more to this Trailer than simply clicking through a menu to hear some songs.

it showcases so far my best masking, actionscripting, use of actionscript classes (notably the Tween class to animate the train), clever cut and pasting from flat art files in photoshop, use of exaggerated perspective, and more or less creative thinking on what i can keep adding to the pile of little things i wanted this trailer to do.

the band loved it, the boss and everyone at work loved it, it generated a press release, 17,300+ people have seen it (as of this post) since it was launched June 22nd (i don't know if that's a huge amount, but what the hell, it makes me feel good), and i can really say i did the best i could on it. there are of course, a few areas i would have liked to improve on, but nonetheless, i am satisfied with it, and don't feel the need to make such corrections.

http://www.victoryrecords.com/albumtrailers/arrivalsanddepartures/

next up is the Darkest Hour Album Trailer, which was actually a bit of a disappointment for me, because i did not have the time, nor the content i wanted to make my original idea work. i still like it though, because the ideas are still solid, i think, and it was another bit of an experiment with testing the user's patience.

but that will come later. it's time for a pint.