The First 10 Seconds: How Great Game Cinematics Capture Player Attention

Luke T. Coutts is a Senior Cinematic Developer with experience in Unreal Engine Sequencer, real-time lighting, camera work, 3D previsualization, and cinematic production for games.

Game cinematics are not only about storytelling or beautiful shots. They can help a player understand the tone of a game, feel its fantasy, and decide whether it is worth their attention.

In a world where players can skip almost anything instantly, the first few seconds of a cinematic can matter more than the most expensive shot later in the video.

Main topics

• Game Cinematics

• Unreal Engine Sequencer

• Cinematic Production

• Storyboarding & Previsualization

• Motion Capture

• Game Storytelling

Interview

Q: Players often decide very quickly whether they want to keep watching a trailer or cinematic. From your perspective, how important are the first 10 seconds?

The first ten seconds are very important in my experience, the audience needs a visual hook to have context of time and place, without it people will be lost.

For one project we decided to open on a nebula of stars, enforcing the idea that this project will be set in space and because its not immediately recognizable as something you see in the night sky, it subconsciously informs you that this somewhere far away from our own solar system, informing the player that this will be a sci fi adventure, all without saying a word.

The next challenge is making the player invested into what’s happening in the universe, so we implemented a text crawl of the lore of the world and who’s who within it. The key to keeping someone’s attention is informing the audience of what’s happening, where and when, while also keeping it short enough to not overwhelm and bombard people with constant exposition.

Q: What usually captures attention faster: story, camera movement, lighting, character emotion, or visual spectacle?

Its an interesting question because its all about how its presented, starting with a visual spectacle In Medius Res can be incredibly attention grabbing, consider The Witcher 3, opening with a large battle and our protagonist waking up and finding him already in a quest to find someone.

You immediately want to know more and will by exploring the world.

On the opposite side typically at the start of any new IP you should inform the audience of what the world entails and the characters within it.

So starting with a story/exposition is generally the better option because the story is king.

Q: Who actually builds a game cinematic from start to finish?

Im in a unique position because im currently working with an indie company that started with around 10 people of modellers, animators, programmers ect. I was the only person that was working on cinematics, so I can only really talk about my personal experience.

Every cinematic must start with a script, which allows me to develop a storyboard to map out character interactions or large scale events, after I would create a blockout or ‘’greybox’’ of the scene using basic shapes and mannequins, then I would create a master sequence and add the cameras so we can have a clear idea of where the actors or models are going to be shot.

I would then contact my motion capture actor and show him the scene that we blocked out to give him an idea of space and how he would move around in the environment.

When the modellers and animators are finished with their final model and mocap clean up I would import all into the sequence and fix up any cameras that may have to be edited to compensate for the new animations.

And then it’s just a case of lighting and color correcting to our preference, the final garnish to bring the cinematic to life.

It was overwhelming at the start but today we have a much larger team who can help with lighting and master sequence development.

I will say I’m thankful for the experience as it gave me control of the entire workflow pipeline, giving me perspective on what works and what doesn’t, as well as having experience in many fields of game cinematic development from previs to final.

Q: When you're building a cinematic in Unreal Engine, how early do you start thinking about where the player's eye should go?

Immediately after reading the script I visualize the scene in my mind of where the cameras are, how to shoot it, and where to cut, then I create a greybox of the scene.

I have always had an interest in the film and animation industry since I was ten years old, so I would say that it comes naturally to me. I implement what I’ve learned from various behind the scenes videos on certain movies into my work.

One of my favorites to use is Walter Murch’s technique of cutting whenever a character’s eye blinks, creating a natural feeling edit to progress the scene.

Q: Why has Unreal Engine become such a strong tool for game cinematics compared to more traditional cinematic workflows?

Unreal Engine is an incredibly liberating software for filmmakers and animators.

Never before was I able to explore a scene that I developed on paper and have it in front of me in a matter of hours as opposed to getting a team and equipment together and try to shoot it, while also be able to edit certain environment design or camera positions without having to wait for shaders to compile or for the engine to catch up to my changes.

Unreal Engine shaves off hours of work and has a very tangible return investment in the time you put into it.

Q: If a team wants a cinematic but has a limited budget, how should they choose the right format?

I will say in the beginning of the current project, we didn’t have a very large budget, we were looking for publishers and funding for about a year and a half, so we didnt have the funds to produce a fully directed highly detailed cinematic a-la Blizzard Entertainment which takes millions to produce.

We did however manage to direct a lot of in-game cinematics and gameplay moments, and because we invested more into those formats I believe we presented a genuine product,  this is what the game will look like and how it will play.

So I think if you’re producing and developing a project, depending on what it is, you don’t need the high budget cinematic cgi trailer to draw people in anymore.

I think people have grown used to those kinds of trailers that the audience is looking for more authenticity.  You can do well by showcasing what the game looks like and how it plays and people will pay attention.

Q: If an indie team wants to add cinematics to their game, where should they start?

The defining goal of a cinematic is to tell a story. And every story starts with a script, find a writer to bounce ideas off of.

Have a producer that can reign you in if things get too out of hand in terms of what you can achieve with your resources. Have someone previsualize the script with greyboxed scenes and have someone produce the models and materials and the animations to see how far you can go producing a cinematic.

In my experience with real time cinematic production in unreal engine things can take a lot of time to finalize, and even then it’s always subject to iteration. Its always dependent on the team you’re working with in terms of how smoothly the production workflow goes.

I would say outsourcing should always be on the table, sometimes you need completely fresh eyes on the project to see what needs to be improved. Theres always an issue with in group bias, and you really want to avoid a sunken cost fallacy where you continue to spend development time iterating on one scene.

Q: Looking back, what's one thing you wish every game team understood before starting cinematic production?

From my experience, find a good writer. I think we may have gone through three of four different writers until we found someone that worked well.

A huge issue we did have that I mentioned before is the sunken cost fallacy.

We had a script written out for a prologue that the director wrote, then we had a writer join the team, re-wrote and re contextualized scenes, he left and another writer joined and did the same thing. All the while the cinematic team was re developing cinematics for the prologue for over a year.

This crushes morale on the project and makes the team think that there is no direction.

So I would say a good writer is key, and have someone who can read through what is written and decide what should be a cinematic and what could be used as a gameplay scenario, this will be a very efficient path and will give the team a good sense of direction in what they are producing.