Summoner: Conceptual Trailer, 2025

 

Summoner is an animatic trailer of a hero who stumbles upon a demonic book that possesses his body and mind, forcing him to do horrible things for the good of humanity. The visual style is reminiscent of a still rotoscoping, meant to reflect real life yet remain within the scope of fictional storytelling. The trailer alludes to much of the story yet to be revealed but includes key moments from early chapters to attract audience intrigue. After the death of his grandmother, Spyder Crowley stumbles across a book that conjures the demon Achraazra, granting Spyder superpowers but at a terrible cost: Achraazra tells Spyder that he needs his flesh in order to fight a much worse demon than himself, Octrynthar. In order to fight a greater evil, people sometimes need to do bad things to get the job done. The trailer provides a brief montage of the humour, violence, and turmoil the hero faces as he is confronted with the moral conflict of doing bad in order to do good. 

Through the use of more realistic illustrations the animatic’s opening strikes at the heartstrings of the audience,  posing as a very real setting at a funeral. Through body language and expressions the audience connects to Spyder more, recognizing that he is just a kid who lost someone incredibly important. Cutting back to the funeral, we see him leave flowers before stepping out for air. As he walks deeper into the forest the lighting and mood of the shots get more and more dark, creating a tension, exposing that something awful is about to take place. As Achraazra forms the audience watches as Spyder stumbles back in horror and confusion. The demon continues to speak and Spyder is shown having an internal conflict with himself, afraid of what any of this will mean for him, his friends, his life. At the climax of the song the audience is met with a montage of scenes depicting the humour, violence, and turmoil the hero faces. The audience will be left empathetic of Spyder’s situation, understanding why a sudden change would be morally conflicting, and why he knows that he will have no choice in the end but to listen to Achraazra. 

At a technical level for this piece I spent many hours researching the work that goes into promotional animatics for animated shows on Prime. The one I focused on was Critical Role’s animatic for The Mighty Nein animated series proposal. While this animatic focused more on the movement within each shot, which allowed for less detail in backgrounds and figures, I used it as a starting ground for my storyboards. For an additional focus in animation technique I looked into Primes animation called ‘Undone’ by Hisko Hulsing which uses a technique called rotoscoping. The significance of this animation and its style to me was the blend between real life and digital drawing. In terms of formatting the movie trailer and the key factors that draw in an audience I turned to countless video essays from film students and editors alike, using Alex Zarfati’s video on ‘How to Make a Film Trailer’ the most as it focused on current film. For the actual overall story and the comic the trailer is promoting itself, I turned to Marvel’s Spider-Man, Deadpool, and Moon Knight comics and films as a guide for plot structure and style of humour.  Overall I wanted to use this research and my previous work to create a piece that someone could find fun in, something that leaves a positive impact through dark themes and dark humour.

Works Cited

Spider-Man 2. Directed by Sam Raimi, Columbia Pictures, 2004.

Miller, Tim. Deadpool. Twentieth Century Fox, 2016.

Moon Knight: The Macabre Moon Knight. Vol.1, Marvel, 19 Aug 1980.

Prime Video. “Mighty Nein - Animation First Look | Prime Video.” YouTube, 26 Jul. 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itiiRoQy0U4 

Prime Video. “Behind the Scenes with Director Hisko Hulsing | Undone | Prime Video.” YouTube, 25 Oct. 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9sYE9tIwTE 

Alex Zarfati “How to Make a Film Trailer: Concept, Editing & Sound Design.” YouTube, 30 Jun. 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vkWB-yoW1M