Soulcatcher Trailer
Soulcatcher Trailer
This entry presents the narrative design for the Soulcatcher web series trailer.
The objective for this trailer was to reveal part of the overarching narrative of the story in under three minutes.
I chose to base the trailer around Eradin Autumnwind when he accepts a bounty on the Beast of Blackwood, a creature that has been hindering logging operations near the small village of Greenhaven.
The trailer shifts between the "present", as Eradin navigates through Blackwood Forest, and the past as he remembers the events at the Lost Arrow Lodge a few days prior.
The trailer also alludes to the events of the prologue where Melantha had a run-in with the creature.
I drafted an initial script that described the shots and dialogue. Next, I put together a rough storyboard (emphasis on rough), to determine the shots and their focus.
In the trailer, I wanted the characters' personalities to shine through. Below are the profiles of the character in the trailer.
Eradin is a half-elf ranger with a tragic and troubled past. He usually tries to do the right thing, but things generally turn out for the worse. I selected a character voice that sounded soft and sad. I used his comments to indicate that he has a history of making poor decisions that he later regrets.
For the trailer, I wanted to hint that Eradin had a prior experience near Greenhaven, but I purposefully did not reveal any details that will be revealed in the larger story. I cut to the beast's POV and changed the music to indicate that he had angered the creature in some way.
Jasper is the halfling owner of the Lost Arrow Lodge. Typically bright and cheerful, he enjoys tending to his guests, as well as acting as a mission broker for the rangers who frequent the lodge. In this story, his positive, optimistic nature is revealed in how he encourages Eradin to accept the bounty. Being optimistic and idealistic, he doesn’t really appreciate the danger that some of these bounties may present.
Melantha is a half-elf logger who was the sole survivor of the Beast of Blackwood's first attack. The Beast slew her three companions and left her alive, albeit with a grievous wound. After she recovered, she made her way south and stopped at the Lost Arrow Lodge, where Jasper Grubb offered her a job as a server. This is discretely hinted at in the trailer by her barmaid outfit. While she was traumatized by her experience in Blackwood Forest, it still holds a strange fascination for her.
In the trailer, we see her staring at the forest that lays across the lake, lost in thought until Eradin approaches, snapping her out of her thoughts. She blinks and smiles at his approach, indicating that she and Eradin are friends.
While not explicitly named as such in the trailer, the Beast of Blackwood is definitely not an ordinary predator. It is indeed intelligent and cunning, and had allowed Melantha to escape with her life, along with a deep wound, as a deliberate strategy of intimidation and a part of its overall plan.
To communicate this, I made its movements deliberate, and lingered on its eyes as it sized up its quarry, Eradin.
Ravens play a subtle, yet important role in the overall story: they serve as observers and messengers between this world of the living and the Realm of Shadows & Echoes. To represent this, some of the shots are from a raven's perspective.