Risen - Making of the Trailer

Over at World of Risen, they have a 2-part interview with "the art director of Piranha Bytes, Ralf Marczinczik, in cooperation with producer Michael Paeck and director Ettore Pizzetti made a very detailed Making-of article in which he explains how the RISEN game trailer was born".  An excerpt from Part 1:

1) Michael, you are co-writer of the story. What was your personal highlight in the trailer creation and how did you divide the work between the different people?

The work started in April this year. At that time Ettore Pizzetti – the incredible director of the trailer – and I were thinking what the goal of the trailer should be.
We came to the result that we should concentrate primarily on the story and not on the features. We wanted to make people watching the trailer long for more. And we wanted some open questions from the trailer left unanswered to provoke discussions in the forum.
After that design goal was set, we from the story department of Piranha Bytes started to assemble the pieces that were interesting and important enough to be included in that one short minute we had as time allowance. Well, that are the scenes you can currently see in the trailer. We agreed upon a certain structure for the trailer: First, there was supposed to be some action and frightening events to gain the viewers attention (flight over the ocean and the monster in the woods). Then, we wanted to show you that the story of the game will be profound and deep and not some fantasy trash (curfew on the island, Inquisition oppresses the people). And finally we intended to show you that there will be some action and the player will be a part of that (arrow in the woods, traps in the dungeon, etc.). This layed down the course of events for the trailer and we started working.

Ettore created the so-called “director's script”. That's a screenplay that not only includes the dialogues but also all instructions for the camera. His experience influenced that a lot. How could we present a certain point in the story in the most effective and most interesting way? Where must the camera be? How to cut the scene? All these questions were answered by that script.

Some storyboard concept arts and the original script are included.  You can find Part 2 here.