#pellino

Before diving into the bit everyone has been losing their minds about, let’s briefly talk about the storyboards and camera layout in the opening scene. Despite having spent time extensively dissecting how Rachel Doda does storyboards and camera layouts in the scenes she’s assigned in the the production analysis for chapter 2, I try to be mindful not to let confirmation bias get the better of me as I’m trying to learn more about the other storyboard and camera layout artists within the show. That being said though, it wouldn’t hurt to least make a conscious presumption that the first sequence had her involvement given the cues and techniques mentioned before. A similarly-presented panning shot and blocking between characters to highlight the reveal of one of them, among other things are signs that Rachel Doda either did the boards or the camera layout for the setup of the scene and probably even the fight itself.

Okay, now to finally address the elephant in the room. Neo is back and in a redone character model no less! Of all the characters to have had a recurring appearance into the show, she has by far been given the most unconventional approach. Many fans by now are aware of the gist as to how she came to be, but for those not in the know, Neo was a character that was conceived a mere 10 days prior to the release of volume 2′s fourth episode. Her design was partially inspired by a genderbent cosplay from Sonja Carter, otherwise known as Soulfire Photography. Her semblance was the result of from is the result of Monty Oum needing an easier way to animate her and Torchwick making a quick escape according to the volume 2 blu-ray directors and animators commentary tracks respectively:

“I needed an uh, it's so backwards how like, I needed them to exit the scene like, Neo was like Torchwick's escape plan. And I was like, "oh yeah, they could get in the ship and then get away." I was like, "That's hard to animate.”  Let's just have them shatter into glass, that's simple!"

“And then we have Neo come in and do... something weird. I guess, I tried to think of it as an illusionary technique. It’s like her version of ninja smoke bomb where it’s like she gets away because she causes some sort of distraction because the umbrella is relatively fast, the ship was probably waiting.”

Her entire character was born from the kind of creative process Monty had in general. It’s something he was a bit outspoken about where he compared his own process to that of most film or animation productions, referring to the latter’s structured, step-by-step process as “baking”, while he referred to his own personal, improvisational process as “stir-frying.” Both approaches have their merits and faults, but whether or not one is seen as more favorable over the other in animation production is not the point to get across. Rather, it’s to point out how a character like Neo can come to be in the first place:

“ When I’m working on my own, I tend to run editorial and animation concurrently. I’m averse to storyboards and over-planning. I like to talk about traditional 3D pipelines as being akin to baking: everything is very deliberate and methodical. My version of 3D animation is more like stir-frying. It’s very live and in the moment. If I need a model, I make a model. If a shot or sequence isn’t working, I’ll cut it, move it, or use it later - sometimes several years later.”

-Monty Oum, interview at Creativebloq (yes, they spelled “RWBY” wrong)

So with the story of how Neo came to be out of the way, let’s talk about her in action sequences since a lot has happened in RWBY’s production between last appearance and her grand return. Up until now, only 3 people have ever had a chance to animate Neo fighting. Monty Oum during chapters 4 & 7 of volume 2 and Joel Mann and Andrea Caprotti in chapter 11 of volume 3, the latter two also animated Cinder, Emerald, & Mercury vs Amber in chapter 7 of the same volume. Without going too much into detail, my stance on Monty and how he created fight scenes have always been more conflicted compared to the general consensus. A lot of that has to do with two of the several hats he wore up until his passing, his role as the show’s initial director and as lead animator. As the director, it always felt unclear as to how much thought was considered behind the character motivations within a fight or the consequences that would logically follow after one. Something just feels off in hindsight when say, a criminal wreaks havoc on a highway by knocking away multiple cars, using a mech that’s stolen, top-secret military property and we don’t ever get a scene showing the military general’s reaction to the incident, whether or not he ultimately does anything about it. As much as I appreciate good choreography and rhythm when I see it, having the story being weaved within and around a given fight in works of fiction is what can make them engaging in the first place.

That being said, Monty’s skills as an animator were definitely made clear in the fight scenes he assigned himself to within the show. Animation in general is not an easy medium to tackle, regardless of what kind of gestures or expressions one wants to sell and creating action sequences require both the 12 principles of animation and a few other guidelines in editing and cinematography to make them engaging. In the case of the character Neo, Monty made it very evident what kind of character he wanted to portray through her body language, facial expressions and poses. She fights in a classy way, but unlike Weiss Schnee who is shown as being more consciously routine and disciplined, Neo is comparatively more sassy and provoking. She likes to push her opponent’s buttons with the way she dodges, defends and attacks. Jumping into volume 3, Joel Mann and Andrea Caprotti picked up the pieces from where Monty left off up until his passing and captured much of the same personality to how she fights. Finally, three volumes later, we have her fight with Cinder in this chapter. Not only were just about all of the same traits with Neo’s character left intact, but the list of animators involved this time around were a pleasant surprise. Matt Drury, Megan Pellino, and Joe Vick were confirmed to have animated the fight with current assistant lead animator, Melanie Stern providing some assistance by animating a couple of shots herself. I’ve gone on record in previous posts on how between volume 5 having on of the biggest waves of new recruits, the overall restructuring of animation teams between RWBY’s sixth volume and Gen:Lock on the horizon, and the staff list on the Adam Character short, it’s now more important than ever to remain aware of who will be animating any fight scene or non-fight scene. “Keep moving forward” is a golden phrase within the fan base originally uttered by one of Monty’s tweets and this mantra can be applied to acknowledging new names involved in the production rather than staying stagnant. This episode is a good example of why that’s vital.

This fight sequence was not only an opportunity to show off the return of a fan-favorite character, but it also needed to formally establish the narrative reason as to why Neo is here now. Keyword being “formally”. Yes, fans have spent weeks speculating the possibility of her character through the opening theme and the second chapter. But that doesn’t change the fact that the CRWBY have been spent several months on the production of this part of the volume and still need to make it clear what this character’s motives are for appearing again after a few years without the scene coming off as pointless fanservice. That can be especially challenging for a mute character, but Melanie, Matt, Megan & Joe made that all clear through the choreography and more importantly, the emotional action and reaction. Despite the supposed intentions to why she’s combating against Cinder, Neo is all about taunting her opponent. So it’s only natural that she would ride the line between fighting aggressively and playfully, going as far as momentarily taking out her blade via a split-second smear, all while displaying an appropriate grin on her face. This constant assault in turn escalates the intensity from Cinder’s perspective by shifting her emotions from confusion to frustration. She drops being defensive and starts swinging fists and kicks so aggressively, that her actions come off a little animalistic and she eventually gets more acrobatic and starts breaking furniture.

Though none of Cinder’s actions and reactions are displayed senselessly, despite her facial expressions and vocal cries on Jessica Nigri’s part suggesting otherwise. In the fifth episode of season 2 of CRWBY: Behind the Episode. In it, Matt Drury. who seems to have animated the bit with Neo and Cinder going at it on the bar stand, talked about applying the notion of “see, think, do”, in which a character stays keen on his/her opponent’s movements based on what the latter is going to strike with and then responds accordingly. It’s essentially something learned in Martial arts in general, even competitive fighting games apply this concept. The same use of “see, think, do” can also be seen in Matt’s previous animated sequences in the Adam Character Short. Despite wearing a mask, there are various alternative ways he goes about handling each opponent such as the gunshots in the forest sequence and the framing of shots in the Schnee Dust Company facility to help see what Adam sees and thinks. 

I could go on about how great the physical aspects of the fight turned out adding the great use of staging in certain shots and even the brief instance of Neo attacking with her hidden blade through the different colored smears and sound effects that would’ve been easy to miss otherwise. But there’s still a bit more to talk about Neo and Cinder’s conflict outside of the fighting animation. Being a mute character, facial expressions are important to get right in both fighting and dialogue scenes and when Neo’s worn-&-torn character model is shown, heartache, surprise, fear and reluctance are all emotions made very clear. Finally, there’s some 2-D visual effects, likely from Myke Chapman again, this time in the form of wind. I can only imagine the overall design of the wind column surrounding Cinder is fairly elaborate to animate, despite it being looped. But it’s pulled off really well. The wind seems to be divided in three layers: there’s the swirling wind in front of Cinder, the wind swirling behind her and the base on the bottom which seems to be animated on 2s while the former two are animated on 1s. There’s also the additional wind bursting out at the bottom when Cinder levitates up or back down to the ground. Even though I have praised the 2-D effects in chapter 3, a bit of concern was felt as to whether the timing would be played around enough by utilizing what is called “frame modulation”. To put simply, the phrase has to do with an animator fluctuating between animating a sequence on 1s, 2s and 3s, depending on what exactly is meant to be conveyed. This was what I was slightly worried about with the 2-D effects going forward, but thankfully, this one effect soundly put the concern itself to rest.

Despite the harsh criticisms being common knowledge at this point (some of which are certainly valid), I have contrarily been willing to defend the general presentation of fights in volumes 4 & 5 for at least tapping into the idea of more consciously displaying the motivation and consequences between characters engaged in conflict. That being said, both the emotional narrative and physical choreography can both coexist and this Neo vs Cinder conflict served as a great, concise example of just that. I would not necessarily call the scene a “return to form” like many fans have been quick to state. But that should not take away from the level of effort being paid off in the first half of this episode serves as a effective reminder of moving forward to acknowledge both new and recurring talent. With that said, the topic of Cinder vs Neo has been greatly exhausted so let’s move on to a different change of pace in the latter half of the episode. It’s almost night and day in terms of what to break down with the Brunswick Farms scenes. Though there is just as much to talk about, just for mostly different reasons. The latter half of the episode has more emphasis on character acting through a mixture between motion capture and hand-keyed animations, timing of staging of moments through camera layout and editing, 3-D effects for the snow, and even the sound effects taking the spotlight to capture the eerie feeling of the setting.

Speaking of sound effects, let’s talk about that. Despite, talking this series of posts being about breaking down and speculating the production of RWBY, I’ve admittedly been very negligent on the audio and mixing up until now. But the audio department’s effort definitely deserve their due this episode with Chris Kokkinos taking the helm as lead of said-department since volume... Immediately, the sounds of the winds picking up in the storm are the first things made clear to the viewer. Even though there are dissolve transitions to shots of just the snowy setting for a few seconds, with the visibility being deliberately kept at a minimum, one can’t help but be drawn to the audio of the harsh winds. Once they barge inside, the music actually drops entirely for a moment and the sounds within the household immediately come to play. The creaking and footsteps of the wooden floors increase the tense feeling that something is amiss and though the music starts again once Ruby spots the family portraits, it doesn’t fight against the sound effects for attention. Next is Kara Eberle’s well-done screaming and panicky breathing as Weiss which is probably the only moment where the vocal delivery plays a punchy part of the uncomfortable setting. That, combined with the zoom-out from Ruby and Blake entering the room to seeing the rotted, sleeping corpses serves a great reminder of why I don’t care for horror movies in general, regardless of how laughably bad they can be. Congratulations CRWBY.

Next is the scene with the gang at the living room, starting with a shot of the fireplace. It’s more 2-D effects work on the fire which is simple and serviceable, though I’m not the most fond of the... “rendering” of the soot, for lack of a better way to explain it? It’s slightly jarring to look at in that it’s made too obvious that the elements of 2-D and 3-D don’t mesh as well as they could. But it’s really just a nitpick when all is said and done. The fluctuating shadow or lack thereof is interesting however since this extends to the characters. As much as the Pencil plug-in in 3DS Max has served as beneficial to the overall shading effect in RWBY’s character models for the past few volumes, making shadow flicker in front of a stable fire does not seem to be that doable. Whether this is due to lack of a simulation feature or it being possible to do manually but too time consuming, what very likely the lighting or compositing department have done before and did again in this chapter is use a subtle flickering effect that doesn’t change the shading on the characters so much as it slightly dims the light source, being the fireplace. It’s an interesting trick and it works fine, though I’m curious whether there is at all a way to manipulate the shading itself or rim lighting if added via the Pencil plug-in. Though the rim lighting is definitely seen a bit later in a couple of shots with Weiss.

Moving on, the living room scene itself seems to have been at least partially animated by Asha Bishi since much of her tells in character acting are there. Very expressive gestures and a combination of Blake’s cat ear shifts and eyes widening with the pupils being a tad more dilated, the last of which is something that been made more obvious after the last CRWBY episode. With that said, it’s a little hard to pin down when her sequence of cuts end. Next is the cut with Blake and Yang traversing in the snow which is actually the first shot and only shot newcomer, Nyle Pierson has animated in the show as of this episode. It’s a small bit but it totally nails how Blake and Yang would go about dealing with harsh snowy winds differently with one covering herself while the other tries to tough it out. Plus the follow-through on their clothing and hair are very well handled by avoiding feeling too similar, almost distinguishing which character’s clothes are sturdier. Now would also be a good time to briefly talk about the snow effects in this chapter and in this volume in general thus far. It’s all possibly a simulation done via Adobe After Effects from the compositing team since it doesn’t really interact with the main cast themselves. One exception though may be the moment Qrow stepped inside to dry off, though it’s honestly hard to say. The snow being brushed off seem to be done by the visual effects artists, but the wet spots formed on the floor may have been composited since they fade into the ground.

Moving into the shed scene, the quiet atmosphere is consistently well-set where only the sound effects and voice acting are heard. The choice of boards and camera layout also help ease into the sense of intimacy being brought between Blake and Yang’s conversation, going from wider and more distant shots that show the entire interior to having more medium and close-up shots and then back to a wider shot to take things back to square one. The last shot of this scene especially couldn’t be any more obvious as the visual equivalent of being given the cold shoulder. The animations through the facial expressions and gestures also serve to compliment the intention of the scene. I want to say Hannah Novotny animated this, but It’s still a little tricky to say for certain since she and Asha have similar approaches to animating the same characters. Jumping into the last scene of the episode and we get a couple of neat lighting choices, particularly with the small flames from Weiss and the flashlight on Ruby’s scroll. The show is no stranger to artificial lighting via vehicles and objects, but there hasn’t exactly been a light source done as small and bright before. There’s also an interesting detail by having the shape of the light be a couple of rings. Aside from that, nothing else to add beyond the cute, comedic character acting between Ruby and Weiss at the end of the episode. Not sure who the animator was that worked on it, but it served as an appropriately small, light-heard break in an otherwise very atmospheric set of scenes.