# Polden Workshop — How we make trailers for games

> How the Polden workshop makes indie game trailers: the good-trailer formula, three stages and 17 steps. A 55-minute episode and a written guide with examples.

The workshop is the trailer studio of the indie games publisher Polden Publishing (https://polden.gg, https://polden.gg/llms.txt). This site is its guide to making game trailers: the formula of a good trailer, three stages from research to the final cut, a pipeline of 41 cards on one board, and a 55:16 episode. The full text of the guide, the worked examples and the pipeline in one file: https://workshop.polden.gg/en/llms-full.txt.

The site is written in Russian and every page has a Russian original, starting at https://workshop.polden.gg/; its index for agents is https://workshop.polden.gg/llms.txt.

Stages: Research — First look · Finding hooks · Hook categories · Genre experience; Narrative — Story logic · Structure · Drama · Concept · Script · Producer check; Production — Breakdown · Textomatic · Capturing footage · Draft 2 · Draft 3 · Voice-over · Finishing.

## Pages

- [How we make trailers for games](https://workshop.polden.gg/en/): How the Polden workshop makes indie game trailers: the good-trailer formula, three stages and 17 steps. A 55-minute episode and a written guide with examples.
- [Written guide: how we make trailers](https://workshop.polden.gg/en/guide.md): The written version of the Polden workshop's video guide: the 17-step route from first look to final cut, written out as 22 steps with examples and checklists.
- [The trailer production pipeline](https://workshop.polden.gg/en/pipeline.md): The trailer production pipeline of the Polden workshop: the 17-step route laid out on one board as 41 cards — what runs in parallel and who owns what.
- [Game Brief · Iron Frontier](https://workshop.polden.gg/en/game-card.md): A game brief from the real project Iron Frontier: positioning, audience and communication — the foundation of the future trailer at the research stage.
- [Trailer script · Salty Dogs](https://workshop.polden.gg/en/script.md): A trailer script from the real project Salty Dogs (Announce + Closed Playtest): the brief, player archetypes, the outline and the script — the narrative stage.
- [Textomatic](https://workshop.polden.gg/en/textomatic.md): The Textomatic is a stripped-down animatic made of text blocks: the fastest and cheapest way to assemble a first trailer draft and see the story in time.

## Video

- [The episode: How we make trailers, 55:16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nXYMKNyf2o)

## Optional

- [Editor levels](https://workshop.polden.gg/en/levels.md): The four levels of Polden workshop editors — material, narrative, form and experiments: what an editor does at each level and how they think.
- [Feedback](https://workshop.polden.gg/en/feedback.md): A question about the Polden workshop's guide, an idea or a note — write to us directly, we read everything and we do reply.