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Docs / skills/showtime/references/workflows/trailer.md

Workflow: trailer or teaser

Read this when the user wants anticipation rather than explanation: a teaser before a launch, a trailer for a product, event, game, course or film, a "coming soon" ("a 15 s teaser for next week's launch", "a cinematic trailer for our conference"). A trailer withholds; the name lands last.

Inputs#

  • What is being teased and when it arrives (a date only if the user gives one).
  • Material: captures, footage, a logo, key art, one or two lines of copy.
  • Helpful: the platform, the mood, whether there is a voice (trailer voices are optional; titles work).

Defaults#

6-30 s (15 s social teaser, 30 s trailer); 16:9 (9:16 for social teasers); cinematic tone: dark ground, big type, slow camera, film grain; epic-trailer or cinematic-build composed score, or dark-tension for mystery; braams, risers and impacts on the cuts; the title and date on the final hit. Canvas film template for abstract or typographic trailers, dom when real UI or footage is shown, an EDL when it is cut from real footage. No voice unless asked (say so in the opening line). Ask at most: the reveal (name and date) when the request does not give it.

Steps#

  1. Job. showtime job init <name>-trailer --goal "...". The printed folder is <job>. A trailer with an open direction is a good studio candidate: offer it in the opening line (modes.md). In studio, showtime studio init <job> attaches to this job; the picked concept, storyboard and bed replace steps 2 and 4 below, and you continue at step 3 with them.
  2. Structure. Mood, escalating fragments, the title, one sting (story.md section 4, trailer). Decide what is withheld (the product shot, the name, the feature) and where it finally appears. Map it onto music sections: intro (mood), build (fragments, faster cuts), drop (title), outro (date, URL). Done when: a section map with times is in SHOWTIME.md.
  3. Project. showtime new film <job>/project --duration <len> (typographic or abstract) or showtime new dom <job>/project --duration <len> (UI and footage); later length changes: showtime retime <job>/project -d <len>. Use the cinematic look (film looks in film-api.md section 10; the grain component for DOM).
  4. Music, then picture on it. A produced trailer track sounds real: showtime audio music pick --for trailer --dur 30 and cut the picture to its downbeats (music.md section 0). When every section change must land on a set time, compose to the map instead, so every section change is a downbeat: showtime audio compose --style epic-trailer --dur 30 --sections 0:intro,10:build,20:drop,27:outro -o <job>/project/audio/score.wav. Read score.beats.json: downbeats for cuts, events for riser ends and impacts, end_hit for the title. Effects: showtime audio sfx braam --key Cm -o ..., riser --dur 4, impact, boom, reverse-hit, placed with "align": "hit" in audio/mix.json. Scene starts = the downbeats you chose; the title reveal = end_hit.
  5. First look. showtime check <job>/project, showtime snap <job>/project --every 1; for the feel, showtime preview <job>/project (the user can scrub with sound). Look at the fragments: each must be striking alone as a still.
  6. Final, verify, deliver. Poster on the title frame or the most striking fragment (not black); showtime render <job>/project --job <job>; showtime qa <job> (the latest final; trailers love black gaps: qa flags black stretches over 0.25 s and a black frame 0); exports; the delivery card.

Pitfalls#

  • A feature list with dramatic music is not a trailer. Show the world, withhold the thing.
  • Fading from black at the start: frame 0 must already be a picture (poster baked).
  • Dips to black between every fragment: use one or two, deliberately; they read as dead air otherwise.
  • A new look per fragment, punch-in zooms, shake: premium trailers hold one world and move the camera through it (through, match, pan, the camera component); launch-video.md has the measured bar.
  • A produced track placed by hand: showtime audio cuts --for trailer --dur <len> --scenes <n> finds the excerpt whose swell lands on the title and the phrase starts for the cuts.
  • The title landing off the hit: put it exactly on end_hit (or the downbeat before).
  • Invented dates, prices or quotes ("the most anticipated launch of the year"): only what the user said.

references/story.md, references/tones.md (cinematic), references/studio.md, references/music.md, references/sound-design.md, references/film-api.md, references/transitions.md.

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