Most CGI trailer production projects lose their first two weeks before production even starts. Not because the studio is slow. Because nobody on the client side gathered five things that were sitting in a shared drive the whole time.
The gap between "let's do this" and day one
A trailer studio can move fast once a project starts. What decides whether it starts in one week or five is how ready the client side is. We can go from first email to kickoff in one week, but only when you show up with a complete set of inputs. Missing pieces don't kill the project. They just push every following week back by the same amount.
What actually slows a kickoff down
Two things account for almost every delay we see. First, no single decision maker. A committee of five people, each with a slightly different opinion on the hero shot, turns a two-day review into a two-week one. Second, slow feedback. A studio can wait three days for a note on a shot; it cannot wait three weeks. Every stalled review pushes the whole schedule, because production slots are booked, not elastic.
The five things we ask for
1. NDA and one decision maker. Sign the NDA first, before any asset changes hands. Then name one person who approves cuts and signs off on milestones. Not a committee, one person. This alone is the single biggest lever on schedule: a clear approver turns a review into a same-day decision instead of a week of internal back and forth.
2. The brief. What is the trailer for. What we communicate. Who is it for. What date does it need to hit. And, most important, what should happen after someone watches it: add to wishlist, pre-order, remember the announce. A trailer aimed at wishlists is cut differently than one aimed at a reveal moment. Without this, we guess, and guessing means revisions later.
3. Game material. Lore bible or pitch deck, key art, screenshots, and either a playable build or gameplay capture. This is what lets us write a story treatment that actually fits your world instead of a generic one we adjust twice. The more of your world we can see on day one, the fewer surprises show up in week six.
4. Production assets, if they exist. Character models (May, Blender rigs, Zbrush HQ models), environment assets, and any music or audio brand you already have. If these exist and are shareable, they save weeks of building placeholders and matching a look from scratch. If they don't exist yet, that's fine too, we just plan around it from the start instead of finding out in week four.
5. References: three you love, one you hate. Send three trailers you admire and one you don't, with a reason for each. Not "make it look like this" copied wholesale. The reason matters more than the trailer: is it the pacing, the sound design, the way it withholds the reveal. That reason becomes a shared language for the whole production, so notes later say "more like reference two" instead of three paragraphs of description.
One thing to do today
Before the first call, gather these five things into one folder: signed NDA and named approver, one-page brief with goal and date, world material (lore, key art, build or capture), any existing production assets, and three-plus-one reference trailers with reasons. A studio can start trailer production kickoff the day this folder is complete. Every day it isn't, is a day added to the schedule.
Have a project coming up?
Send us what you've got, and we'll tell you exactly what's missing.
