Mill+ director David Lawson gives Stash fans exclusive insights into the creative and technical challenges of his latest 3D game trailer and considers how the genre has evolved over the last five years.

Stash: “This project will be the fourth of your game trailers Stash has covered going back to 2019. How have the briefs for the gaming genre and your own goals for the films changed over that time?

David Lawson: “That’s a great question. I am seeing a bigger variation in briefs for game trailers than we did in 2019. Slower paced, dramatic trailers that build to epic visuals contrasting with briefs for fast cutting, high intensity action films that pack in content.

“It’s also great to see there is now an understanding that stories formed from a traditional narrative structure are also possible in short run times and can hit the heart. It’s a challenging format, every moment has to be tapped for meaning and crafted in a way that the audience can process.”
 
Stash: What were the biggest creative challenges of this trailer?

“Finding a creative way to squeeze all this content into three minutes without it feeling like it’s a hundred miles an hour all the time is certainly a challenge. the game is fast and intense so it feels right to bring that energy to the trailer, but at the same time I wanted to slow things down enough to give fans a moment to enjoy parts of the VALORANT world they haven’t seen.

“Knowing I wanted the camera choreography to feel blended perfectly with the edit and the action, we invested heavily in layout/previs. For me, the trailer really is born in layout and so myself and my team put a lot of our energy there.
 
Stash: What were the major technical challenges of this trailer and how did you and the team solve them?

“The VALORANT game and the trailers for it have an incredible look. It is a hand painted, concept art style which makes beautiful images. The challenge is to make that look work with moving cameras, changing lighting and fast-paced action.

“Traditionally you might have a still painted background and a 2D character in this style, but that wouldn’t give you the energy you get from playing the game. So we had to build systems and use a really broad range of artists to make the painted world and its characters come to life in 3D. This allowed us to retain the hand painted look, but not have to lock down the camera or restrict the action choreography.”
 
 

 
Client: Riot Games

Agency: Riot Games Global Marketing
Creative Director: Drew Stauffer
Producers: Matt Salkin, Kat Nimmervol
Video Director: Mike Berry
Consulting Director: Christopher Eaton
Screenplay: Shannon Denton
Art Direction: Brandon Meier, Ke Su
Storyboards: Jon Lam

Production: Mill+
Director: David Lawson
Executive Producer: Moira Mahoney
Senior Producer: Esther Montgomery
VFX Production Coordinator: Isaias Yetemegn

VFX: The Mill
Creative Director: David Lawson
Executive Producer: Moira Mahoney
Senior Producer: Esther Montgomery
VFX Production Coordinator: Isaias Yetemegn
CG Supervisor: Chase Webb
2D Supervisor: Toya Drechsler
Asset Supervisor: Dustin Leon, Alek Vacura
Rigging Lead: Peter Christensen
Previs Lead: Matt Connolly
Animation Supervisor: Jacob Bergman
Matte Painting Supervisor: Itai Muller
Lighting Lead: Nitesh Nagda
FX Lead: Daniel Soo
Rigging: Navin Pinto, Olesya Gurezova, Daishi Takishima
CG Previs Animation: Gustavo Gonzalez, Tommy Taylor, Iva Carrasquillo
CG Generalist: Gabrielle Harder, Raul Brossy, Niko Larsson, Joel Durham, Isaias Yetemegn
Matte Painting: Henrik Holmberg, Bill Lu, Nathan McKenna, Gary Inloes
CG Lighting: Nick Carvalho
CG FX: Sparsh Kumar, Aryan Sachdeva
2D Compositors: Abigail Riegel, Dylan Streiff, Patrick Reilly, Pujan Chheda, Piotr Bednarczyk
Technical Director: Nicholas Love, Ken Mohammed
Animation Vendor: Little Zoo
DFX Supervisor: Mahesh M S
BLR Producer: Diiwakar Selvamani
BLR Production Coordinator: Manish Kumar Tripathi
2D Lead Artist: Srilakshmi Narasimha Hanumath Prasad Kondep (Comp)
3D Lead Artist: Sunil Manohar Mohapatra (Assets); Sandipan Majumder (DMP); Garlapati Yeswanth (Rigging); Rakesh Herurkar (FX); Vishwajeet Sideshwar Nandagawle & Chokkarapu Sai Pradeep (Lighting)
Asset Lead: Sunil Manohar Mohapatra
Assets Artist: Dayanandh Varatharaj, Debdutta Gayen, Jagdish Singh Yadav, Karthikeyan M, Kulkarni Aditya, Manukuru Manikanteswara, Piyush Sharma, Sandeep Kumar Yadav, Sandeep Pannalal Vishwakarma, Sandip Dhole, Sanju Sankar, Shahid Hussain, Sudalai Muthu Ramesh Pillai, Sunil Manohar Mohapatra, Tushar Sethi, Venkatesan R, Vishal Vijay Patil, Jigna Chandulal Saparia, Madhusudan Patel, Mohit Kattar
RIG Lead: Garlapati Yeswanth
RIG Artists: Manthena Sainitesh Reddy, Ravirala Ram Mohan, Sandeepkumar Madival, Sunkari Praveen, Vaibhav Vijay Patil, Vivekkumar Shobhnath Pal
Lighting Supervisor: Aritra Sarkar
Lighting Lead: Vishwajeet Sideshwar Nandagawle, chokkarapu Sai Pradeep
Lighting Artists: Manjunatha Chandrashekar, Rajesh Sudhanshu Patra, Ravikanth Raju, Stacie Fina Dsouza, Surya Chetan
Comp Supervisor: Mayank Shekhar Tiwari
Comp Lead: Hanuma Narasimha Hanumath Prasad Kondepi
Comp Artists: Akhil A S, Anuj Bhandari, Ashique T, Bhaskar Reddy Kappeta, Chilka Souji, Gangadharam Raja, Haris V K, Jeril C Joseph, Karthikkeyan M D, Rushabh Ramesh Madalkar, Sravanam Gnaneswar
DMP Supervisor: Gowri Velusamy D
DMP Lead: Sandipan Majumder
DMP Artists: Abhimanyu Singh Tanwar, Amrut Somashekhar Agasi, Chandan Mandal, Jibin Baby P, Mohan Rao, Sitaram Nilkanth Wankhede, Srivarman D
Fx Supervisor: Biswajit Tarafder
Fx Lead: Rakesh Herurkar
Fx Artists: Ashutosh Shivdas Maurya, Himanshu Solanki, Mahadev Ganpat Sawant, Neeraj Kumar Patel, Rajesh Prakashrao Mahakalkar
Animation Supervisor: Sukanta Chakraborti
Animation Lead: Santosh Thippeswamy
Animation Artists: Subharanjan Jena, Vishesh Kashmira, Binu Das, Dhruba Sinha, Gokul G S, Manu Raj, Mithun Narayanan, Ravi Panwar,

Design: The Mill
Lead Concept Artist: Gary Inloes
Art Director, Graphics: Geoffrey Skrajewski
Art Director, Cel Animation: Hana Yean
Animators: Greg Rubner, Mikhail Pakhomov, Aly Tain, Jahmad Rollins

Editorial: The Mill
Editor: Natalie Wozniak

Color: The Mill
Colorist: Yerlan Tanayev
Executive Producer, Colour and Finishing: Krista Staudt
Head of Color Production: Brandee Probasco
Color Producer: Jackson Winkler
Color Assist: Alexandra Makarenko

Music/sound design: Riot Audio Post Production
VO: Riot Voices
Music Supervision: Riot Music Group
Finishing Editor: Chris Miller
Track: RUN!
Artist: VALORANT x ODETARI x LAY BANKZ
Remix: Cubby at The Crystal Creative