Meet the artist
We chat to Fire Without Smoke’s creative director about working on a range of exciting projects, including the trailer for Watch Dogs: Legion
Creative director at Fire Without Smoke, Sam Passmore, answers our questions
Sam Passmore is creative director at Fire Without Smoke. His team loves games so much, they built a creative studio specifically to deliver the best content possible for the industry, from trailers to in-game cinematics and beyond. Recent projects worked on include Tomb Raider Reloaded, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Rainbow Six Siege, Death Stranding, Outriders, Watch Dogs: Legion and much more. Fire Without Smoke is also part of Keywords Studios – the games tech giant that provides everything from art to audio, animation, development and other vital services, with 60+ facilities in 21 countries.
Now, Sam Passmore talks through his entry into the games industry, offers advice on how to create the perfect trailer and reveals how Fire Without Smoke pulled together stand-out content for Watch Dogs: Legion, Ubisoft’s latest addition to the hit dystopian action-adventure series.
Tell us a bit about your background.
I joined Fire Without Smoke when it was just a few passionate gamers and creatives in a tiny shared office in the heart of Soho. I was primarily bought onboard to help with capture – we had just won some exciting work with Ubisoft and the very small team needed to grow. It was a thrill to be able to work with some of the biggest names in games from the get-go and I feel very fortunate. In a small team like that, you obviously find yourself doing multiple jobs, and I soon started working more closely with the creative side of things. Writing scripts, concepting ideas, putting together pitches. I have a background in screenwriting so it felt like a perfect fit for me. Fast forward some years, I’m now creative director.
What’s your day-to-day life at Fire Without Smoke like?
My role is primarily to drive the creative vision for the studio, encourage risk-taking and develop our talented and multidisciplined team of creatives. So really I’m involved from the very birth of a project to the final delivery. Talking to clients, shaping briefs, leading creative sessions, pitching, and seeing the project through. It’s a big and wildly varied role, but one that brings a lot of satisfaction. I get to have brainstorming sessions with creatives, guide storyboard artists, talk to the cinematics department about the direction of the cinematography, chat with the mograph team about the style of graphics, sit with an editor and shape a trailer. It’s fun, rewarding and while at times it can be quite stressful, it’s wonderful to be working with so many talented people.
Life at FWS, like everywhere else, has changed significantly due to COVID-19. With the studio working primarily from home, it was initially quite difficult to adapt. Not being able to walk around the building, talking to people and be in that creative space was a big challenge for me. Months later, I’m really pleased that we have adapted, and tremendously proud of how the team has grown.
What goes into creating the perfect trailer (music, timing, action, etc)?
There are many things that go into making a good trailer. For me, it all comes down to the creative approach. What is the story we are trying to tell? Find a singular vision for
what the trailer needs to be and stick with it. Be brave, take risks. If you have a strong idea from the get-go, everything else will fall into place. Music, sound design, visuals, voiceover… it’s all informed by that singular vision, and those choices become a lot simpler once you have crystalised the idea in your mind.
What software do you use?
At FWS we are lucky enough to work on a huge array of different projects. Trailers, key art, branding, creative articulation to name a few. Each requires different tools. Capturing footage for a gameplay trailer, for example, we’d often use specialised marketing builds of the games. These could have a camera system built in, complete with depth of field control, lens sizes, exposure… Everything you might want from a virtual camera. Often they are much more rudimentary. Depending on the project, we may also get access to the game engine itself, and are able to create cinematic footage using the same tools the dev team are. Or we’d create footage in more of a CG pipeline, or even a live action shoot. Because our projects are so diverse, we really have to be able to use any kind of creative software we can to get the result we want. And that’s just for trailers!
What have been some of your favourite projects?
I’ve been fortunate enough to have worked with some of the biggest brands in gaming.
It’s impossible to pick a favourite from our growing portfolio of work, but I’m very proud of our continued relationship with Ubisoft, in particular our work on Assassin’s Creed. AC: Unity was the first game I worked on at FWS, and to see the trust and creativity develop over subsequent games is a real joy. Add to that some great work with Square Enix, Bandai Namco, EA, Deep Silver… and many others! Recently, we were heavily involved in the marketing campaign for Watch Dogs: Legion, which was a challenge we really enjoyed.
Let’s take a deep dive into Watch Dogs: Legion. How did this latest trailer come together?
Towards the end of the campaign, we talked to our friends at Ubisoft about creating a TV ad for the game. They were very clear about wanting this to feel less like a trailer and more like a commercial, with references like the Nike ‘Nothing Beats a Londoner’ ad from a few years back. It was a really exciting challenge creatively as well as technically. How do you make a video game feel like a lifestyle brand?
“WHAT IS THE STORY WE ARE TRYING TO TELL? FIND A SINGULAR VISION AND STICK WITH IT”
We really needed to nail the style, through the music, pacing and visuals.
We spent a lot of time trying to find the tone, playing with different ways of shooting it. Ultimately we landed on something that feels very unique from a visual point of view, utilising motion graphics and post effects to complement the gameplay capture.
Were any creative marketing tools implemented (toggle HUD, freemoving camera, etc)?
We kind of pulled out all the stops in terms of what can be achieved with just a marketing build. There was actually a different concept that was more of a mocapped one-shot, but due to COVID we had to reimagine it. So we took the heart of the concept (this mad race through London) and said okay, how far can we push the tools we have at our disposal? All of the game footage is captured using the marketing camera, so we have control over composition, time of day, depth of field and so on. But we have relatively little control over the characters’ movements outside of what they do in-game. The end result is a mixture of gameplay footage with a lot of comp work, some post effects and even some of my own doodles!
What has reception or reactions to the trailers you’ve created at Fire Without Smoke been like?
It’s always great to hear good feedback, wherever it comes from. I try to stay away from reading Youtube comments, for that way madness lies. But I have had a peek every now and again, and it’s nice to read the positive ones. I’m more encouraged by the reception from our clients, and hearing that they love the work we’ve done makes me feel very proud, of myself and of the team. Ultimately, it’s my team’s positive reception that I crave the most: if we can make each other excited by the work, and create something that my team is proud of, then I’m happy. They are often the hardest to please!
How much time do you set aside to work on your personal development and portfolio?
Never as much as I’d like, and probably even less in the new world. Being at the head of the creative team, my personal portfolio and the company’s portfolio are inextricably linked. I definitely feel more of a sense of ownership over a piece of work that I personally contributed to, whether that’s writing the script or capturing the footage, or doing the edit. But I am more interested in the work my team does. If I break down the different aspects of my job, by far the most important thing is the personal growth of my team. Their development is crucial to the work we do, they are the future of the studio!
What’s in store for Fire Without Smoke in the future?
Having grown at a great pace over the last few years, I can’t wait to see what the next few have in store. We already have some new clients we’re talking to about collaborations in the next year, and we’re looking forward to continuing our relationships with our current partners. The studio is growing every month, with new hires in almost every department. We’re growing our creative team with some exciting talent that will give us a different perspective, while also expanding our cinematics teams with fresh faces and expertise. We’re even building an in-house mocap studio that I’m very excited about.
Ultimately, the main goal for us is to continue to innovate, and to push ourselves to deliver the most exciting game creative we can. And to have fun doing it, too. Because if you can’t have fun making trailers for video games, then something has gone seriously wrong!