US Forces
Company of Heroes 2: The Western Front Armies
Directing . Cinematography . Choreography . Set Dressing . Editing . Colour Correction . Production .Script
Other Credits:
Sound Mix and Design: Bryan Rennie
In-Game FX design and placement: Rob Heartley
All other assets produced by Relic Entertainment
 
Out of all the trailers I've worked on, this one still holds a special place in my heart. It was the first time that Relic allowed me to have creative freedom and do "whatever I wanted" - an exhilarating yet daunting prospect. I recall spending nearly a month and a half living in the office, trying to complete this trailer and the OKW trailer in time. I wanted to prove my quality to the team and myself.
Interestingly, the trailer used only canned animations from the game - there was nothing custom about it. I employed a mix of scripted scenes and game-play shots, with handheld camera shots being scripted and anything with a flying camera looking down (RTS Camera) being the game. I didn't have much pre-production time for this one - I was told we needed two trailers for the new armies, and I started creating the first things that came to mind.
I remember getting stuck after finishing the second scene with the plane crash, wondering where to go from there. A chance moment of noticing the star beside a tank in COH2 sparked the transition that led to the "tank push" scene. This trailer was also my first attempt at animating handheld cameras, which was a challenge as I didn't have an animation background. However, I received guidance from both the lead animator Brent Breedveld and the art director Ian Cummin.
In hindsight, I could have edited the trailer more tightly. It was hard to cut some of the shots because I had put so much effort into them, but I managed to "kill the baby" effectively. There were only three or four shots between both trailers that didn't make the final cut.
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