My name is Gage Allen and I make game trailers. I'm the Creative Director at Player One Trailers, and we're a full-service game trailer agency that works with indie and AAA studios and publishers all over the world. I've worked on a number of games in my role, such as Baldur's Gate 3, Divinity: Original Sin 2, Stellaris, The Long Dark, and many others. I've been in the game industry for about 8 years, and I've been telling stories and making films and whatnot for over a decade.

My love of storytelling is what led me to becoming a video person and making trailers. I started making films and whatnot since I was about 8 years old. I was fascinated by this feeling I would get whenever I would make a story- focused video, and to this day I can't quite describe what that is, except it was equally the most confusing and most certain thing I'd ever felt. Eventually this led to me being determined to learn more advanced programs and work my way up the technical ladder, allowing me to do more robust and complicated methods of VFX and video editing.

I'm the Creative Director here, so essentially my job is directing all creative aspects of a project. This generally involves me as a director of a trailer, as well as a writer, motion graphics artist, gameplay capture artist, animator, VFX artist, sound designer, and whatnot. My roles will shift depending on the project, as some projects we'll have a lot of people on board who take care of several of those aspects, other projects I take care of the majority of them.

Player One Trailers is am award winning full-service game trailer agency that specializes in video game trailers, cinematics, live-action commercials, screenshots, and more. We work with a lot of different companies and have worked on a variety of games in numerous different roles. We are very fortunate to have won over 40 different prestigious awards through a number of award shows, as well as created work that has been seen over tens of millions of times across the world.

I believe great videography can be subjective, but in my eyes it's when a project ends up having an effect on the viewer in some form. Inciting emotion is not easy when it comes to filmmaking, and it's one of those things that can really stay with someone long after they've seen the video. When it comes to game trailers, I think it's when it can properly and effectively show the audience the game as well as gauge interest in it. There's a lot of artistry in trailers, more so than the general populace may realize, so when you can properly tune that artistry and create an emotional reaction that also gauges interest in the product? That's an awesome accomplishment.

For us, it's a very collaborative process when it comes to figuring out what the right approach is when making a game trailer or a cinematic. The main thing for us is working with the game developer/publisher and understanding what they want and how we can accomplish that. This essentially creates guidelines for us to follow when we start to develop concepts and ideas. There's a lot of variety and freedom when it comes to how you can create a game trailer or marketing asset, as you can very easily modify and tune a trailer to simultaneously fit a number of different roles within the larger marketing plan.

It's an incredible honor to receive 29 NYX Awards for our work. Everyone works so hard on these trailers, from motion graphics to writing to original art and cinematics and whatnot. So for the team to get that recognition for their hard work is fantastic and very humbling.

I think it has helped us in validating the work even more. A lot of our projects get recognition from the general public, but getting this sort of recognition from our peers I believe has expanded the bubble of familiarity with our work.

In terms of resources to improve your skills, there are an endless amount of tutorials that are free online, many from numerous sites like Video Copilot, as well as millions of videos on Youtube. There are also courses you can pay for that'll teach you the skills you are looking to acquire. I'd suggest any combination of these methods, as well as constantly experimenting within the programs and styles you are looking to improve on.

The biggest thing that I think had an affect in shaping my success would be the understanding that the greatest calamity of all is not to have failed, but to have failed to try. If you don't take that first step, you'll never know what the result would have been. If you failed while trying, at least you gave it a shot, and you owe it to yourself to at least give things a try.