#shawcross

What is considered very surprising in hindsight is that despite its run time at only 15 minutes, it is the most action-packed episode since the volume premiere. That means that there is a lot to break down regarding who did what and while there has been some confirmation, it’s not all specified from sequence-to-sequence. No doubt such details will be reserved for audio commentaries in the eventual volume 6 blu-ray release, but for this analysis, much of what will be discussed is mostly educated guesswork.

That being said, one thing made clear is the list of storyboard artists and to a lesser extent, which one them were involved with the boards for which scenes. I made an observation last week how the last chapter had six artists assigned to handle the boards which is the most this volume has had since chapter 2 (though not the most in the series, that honor goes to chapters 1 & 2 of volume 5). In this episode, only Rachel Doda, Kevin Harger, and Cassidy Stone were credited. It is still unclear as to what the rhyme and reason is behind the amount of storyboard artists varying from episode to episode the way they do, though scheduling is a possibility. As for who was responsible for which scenes, it’s not totally certain which segments were done by Cassidy Stone, but thanks to the 11th episode of Crwby - Behind the Episode, it is confirmed that Rachel Doda was greatly involved with the first half while Kevin Harger largely did the latter half. There was one major thing that was the focus of how the visual direction flowed in the first fight, that being how Ruby and the others would each face Cordovin’s giant mech.

Scale was the main idea between eight characters and one giant machine. The camera needed to get the feel of how characters would dodge and defend themselves against every close-range and projectile attack and get closer towards whatever part of the mech they could get to. That represents the bulk of what needed to be considered between the director Kerry Shawcross and Rachel Doda. There was also a conscious attempt to keep things consistent in regards to which character was where on the part of the lead camera & layout artist, Kate Warner. For those unaware, camera layout artists are the ones that take the storyboards and animatics that establish the shot composition and timing of a scene and translate that into how the 3-D character and environment models will be placed through the “camera”, that being the way the viewer will see the scene. As mentioned before in one of the posts about RWBY’s cinematography, this team was established during volume 3′s production and due to sharing a few of the same members as in the storyboard department, communication between the two teams and the director would naturally be constant. For dialogue scenes, what matters between storyboards and camera layout is capturing the right mood and expression while focusing the shot on a character based on what a character is speaking about or interpreting as they listen. In action scenes, it’s about capturing the scenario of the conflict between who is fighting who, the size of the characters, the amount of characters fighting at once, etc..

In the production analysis for chapters 2 and 5 of this volume, I broke down observations of what could be the techniques Rachel Doda applies based on previous scenes she did storyboards for. Techniques such as camera rotation, having an object be placed in front the camera for blocking, having a character from the background be revealed to be in focus and long shots of characters in opposing positions are possibly Rachel Doda’s calling cards and while not a lot of them are seen in this fight due to it being different from most other ones, there is one other possible trick she applies in her boards. In instances such as the Weiss character short and Yang vs the bandits, both of which she did the boards for, they both applied a shot or two of characters that are about to perform an action in brief slow motion. This observation, like many unconfirmed things about these analyses, are of course speculative. But if this were the case, then it wouldn’t be a stretch to say the same technique was a applied in a much bigger way during the Cordovin mech fight, namely when the party split in three ways and when Ruby dodged and rode along each of missiles. It’s not quite like the flair in a missile circus as seen from Japanese animators such as the creator of the technique, animator Ichiro Itano and those inspired by the creator such as Shingo Fujii, Nozomu Abe, Seijoon Kim, and Yasushi Muraki, but I will certainly take what RWBY had to offer. Now if only we knew who animated that sequence.

Though to backtrack, there is some confirmation who at least took part in animating the fight. Among the confirmed animators were Collin McAtee, Nicole LaCroix, and Vince Cappelluti. Vince seems to have specifically animated the sequence with Weiss helping provide split-second cover, not including effects while Nicole and Collin contributed to helping animated Cordovin’s mech such as in the opening cuts, among other things. Timing the mech to even move and function as convincingly slow as they did while also having other characters move in a nimble manner must have been an interesting challenge on their part. Some other noteworthy bits of animation were the way Qrow and Ruby each descended to cut down the mech. Similar to the sequence when Qrow and Ruby took down the Sphinx Grimm, there’s a lot of character between how each of them lunge down with their scythe weapons. One displays more technique due to experience and comes off more acrobatic while the other is more wild and eccentric which aligns a bit with the behind Ruby’s character design as Monty Oum stated working on with concept artist, Ein Lee. Another instance of good character animation in the midst of all the action was the small moment when Qrow and Ren destroyed the shield generator. Qrow would naturally spin his weapon before firing whereas Ren is more comfortable following his lead and time when he fires his weapon at the same time.

One glaring misstep though would be towards the end of the first half of the episode where Cordovin catches the missile Maria fired. Putting aside whether the idea of a missile not exploding on contact the way it did would be able to suspend the viewer’s disbelief, the issue is that it’s timed too abruptly. Up until that point, the mech’s movements have been animated in a consistently sluggish manner. So to have the hand catch the missile instantaneously felt very off though a possible solution in hindsight may not have required changing the animation. What could have helped alleviate the confusion was adjusting the camera in a more three-quarter view behind the missile and having it slowly zoom out as it gets closer to the mech so that when it’s caught, it would be a bit easier to see how it got caught in the viewers mind.

Speaking of camera movement, a much more positive sequence was Jaune dashing over to soften the impact of being swatted by the mech. As stated by Rachel Doda in CRWBY - Behind the Episode, this was a deliberate choice on Kerry’s part to get the sense of power behind the swing. The sequence also helped provide an example of how much camera positioning can make a difference in an action sequence. One complaint some fans expressed about the Battle of Haven episodes in volume 5 was the usage of reaction shots as if they utterly disrupted the flow of fights. However, as certain action scenes in volume 6 show, reaction shots are not inherently a bad thing and the effectiveness of them can depend on the right angle being used. In the shot where Jaune runs covers for Nora, the latter stays in the same position and doesn’t move. If the camera say, remained at a static eye level as we see Jaune run towards Nora, a given viewer might complain that Nora isn’t running away. However, since the camera only tracks to Nora briefly, then back to the mech and then proceeds to follow Jaune til he and Nora get hit, one’s belief is more suspended. 

One aspect that definitely served a big part of what makes the first half of the episode what it is are the effects. We got a taste of this in the previous episode with Cordovin firing lightning dust, but now we get an array of various element-oriented dust effects, both in 3-D and 2-D. between the dust chargers, they each were given nuanced approaches in terms of how they built-up energy and how they were released. The ice dust blast emits energy in a more subdued manner before it interestingly releases cold, poofy-looking air and then unleashes a brief beam that recoils the cannon. When Weiss blocks the attack, the earth wall is in of itself pretty simplistic by just having the effect stretch. But the real charm is the 2-D effects of the smoke around the wall and most especially, the impact of the ice dust itself and how it forms from our direct point-of-view. By the following shot, we see the same impact from behind the characters which creates a combination of white flashes and dimmed lighting that nearly creates silhouettes. Moving on to when the earth dust is fired, small rocks appear and form and since they swirl in mass numbers, the cannon shakes around a bit. Once the dust is launched, rocks and boulders in larger chunks burst out. What helps sell the burst itself is how the light that was behind the rocks shoots out along with them to make the blast seem more fast and powerful. The smoke emitted upon impact and the white flashes from each cannon fire also help make the stalagmites being immediately formed seem more dangerous. Finally, there’s the wind dust blast which has the air swirl around before firing a burst with a couple of flashes and in the next shot, the blast resembles that of a beam accompanied with rings spreading out then dissolving.

Of course, there were more visual effects going on besides the varied dust cannon fire, one of which being the hard-light dust shield. This is apparently the official name of the type of dust seen in the form of shields and barriers as seen in Amnity Colosseum and the shape of Velvet’s weapons through her camera. This was not even the first time this type of dust was used since the CRWBY migrated to using Maya and 3DS Max as their main animation and modeling softwares, as it was technically used to power the train engine in chapter 10 of volume 4. Right now there’s not much to add other than that it dissipates in a manner similar to how each of the weapons appear. Also, since this was part of the scene, it’s pleasing to see how since this volume, the smoke from Nora’s grenades are not only officially given a cel-shaded pink color but that as they fired with enough distance, the trails start to wobble for lack of a better way of putting it. Other visual effects that have been seen and utilized before such as the waves on the bottom of the cliff side and the ice from Weiss’s dust usage have also been a part of the presentation, but probably the best moment outside of the dust cannon was the giant splash from Cordovin’s missiles. Being 2-D animated likely by Myke Chapman, this must have been tedious to animated frame-by-frame and yet the size and timing was effective at making the impact feel as powerful as it did. The most immediate comparison was to a sequence in episode 23 of One Piece animated by Hideaki Maniwa, whose tendency to liberally have effects be on 1s the way he did made his work a treat to watch in the first couple-hundred episodes of the series.

That was a lot to cover regarding the main party fighting against Cordovin and yet that was only the first-half of the episode. There is still the latter half that focuses on Blake and Yang each having their go against Adam Taurus and indeed is their a lot to unpack. As stated earlier, three storyboard artists were tasked with this episode, one of which being Rachel Doda who handled the former fight. Here, Kevin Harger takes over a great portion and this was actually somewhat confirmed since over a week the episode premiered. Back in episode 9 of season 2 CRWBY - Behind the Episode, insight was given about the motion capture process and in it, footage was accidentally shown of the storyboards for this episode that ended up being leaked on certain corners of the internet. This was of course a blunder and currently the boards have been blurred out ever since. But since the episode proper has become publicly available, now is a apt time to talk about them. The drawings within boards match that of previous storyboards confirmed to have been done by Kevin such as in the Yang character short, the Gods of Light and Darkness confronting each other, Oscar vs Leo and Ozpin vs Hazel, as well as some of his drawings outside of RWBY in general. 

With all of that confirmation in mind, this is a good opportunity to briefly study on Kevin’s techniques with doing storyboards. Of course, this is all observation and storyboard artists tend to work closely with Kerry to go over what is the best way to depict action sequences, so take what will be said with a grain of salt. Although it’s not much, there are two traits to assess from Kevin Harger’s storyboards. First is that scenes he’s involved in tend to display a shot where two characters briefly stare at one another or at least one stares at the other in a brief standoff before the fight proceeds. This can be seen in some of the previously mentioned examples. Second, any character that is seen as having the advantage will be framed in a shot or two as being above the other in height. This will naturally apply to taller characters like Hazel and the Ursa Grimm but is not limited to them as Ozpin when he took possession of Oscar’s body is framed similarly in one shot. The third and final observation is that in a given sequence, one character may be seen dodging and maneuvering either around or somewhat away from his/her opponent as seen with Yang and Ozpin.

The reason any of this matters is because for fight scenes, the storyboards help determine the choreography and shot composition just as much as the animation. In fact, depending on how much the animators want to stick closely with them, the boards can determine the choreography even more so. This is something that fan-favorite animator of RWBY, Kim Newman. expressed when talking about animating the Yang character short at the Just the Fights Panel at RTX Austin 2018. stating how important storyboards are and they have helped saved her time and stress. Going back to the Blake vs Adam fight, the observations made earlier about Kevin’s previous storyboards can be seen here such as Adam being framed as bigger than Blake and the two characters in a brief standoff. Also, every action and reaction the characters communicate through their movements and the emotions in Kevin’s boards can serve as great fuel for the team of animators assigned to the fight once they see the animatic. Another possible way of getting the animators psyched up for the fight in this episode and perhaps even Kevin when having done the storyboards would be knowing that Blake intends to dual-wield. As unusual of a source this is, on March 15th, 2018, Kerry Shawcross confirmed to a fan named Casualdoom12 via the live chat of of a stream of RWBY volume 5 in regards to whether or not Blake would dual wield in the future by simply saying, “yeah.” Many fans have accused Kerry and Miles of forgetting how certain characters fight until they suddenly remember to. But sources have strongly argued otherwise, such as with Qrow and the scythe mode of his weapon, Harbinger according to the volume 3 blu-ray directors audio commentary track with his fight against Winter:

Miles: “It was your idea by the way to have the transformation start and stop as the ultimate cock tease.”

<Kerry laughing>

Miles: “To this day, I’m still seeing comments, “WHEN ARE WE GONNA SEE THE SCYTHE?!” It was, I loved it. It was great.”

Kerry: “We just kinda wanted to mess with people.”

Miles: “Y-you and me?”

Kerry: “Nooo, naaaah.”  

And in the volume 4 blu-ray directors commentary track with his fight against Tyrian:

Kerry: “So uh, a lot of people wondered why he never went into scythe mode during the fight. We actually talked about that for a really, really good amount. And really what it comes down to is it’s just not, it doesn’t seem like it would be fast enough.”

Miles: “Yeah, it’s not gonna do stuff to fight against somebody like Tyrian.”

Kerry: “No, because Tyrian has essentially got like 3-5 points of contact depending on if he’s using his feet or not. And to just try and block them with that giant scythe just didn’t seem like a good idea. So that was why because I know people really want to see him in scythe mode, but we just felt it would feel forced and not make a lot of sense for him.”

Then there was the matter of Velvet deciding to use a hard-light dust version of Penny’s weapon, again in the volume 3 director’s audio commentary:

Miles: “What was the um... what was it like-oh, I think you were the one that had the idea to end with Penny’s swords too.”

Kerry: “Yeah, so we knew like, “okay, we’re gonna have her cycle through a bunch of characters’ weapons. Ya know, we named off the main four, we talked about some other ones and then it came down to the last one and for me, immediately it was like, “it has to be Penny.” Like, there’s no other way to do this.”

Gray: “There was the briefest debate about whether or not Penny herself should be able to show up because technically the weapons are a part of her and vice-versa.”

Kerry: “Yeah.”

Gray: “And it would’ve been a different moment.”

And then in episode 13 of season 1 of RWBY Rewind, Kerry and Miles answered the matter of how aura breaking or flickering works and cited the Ghira vs the Albain twins fight, stating that he did not forget to depict Ghira having his aura already depleted so much as he was more okay with the idea of that instance happening off-screens than viewers would’ve been. Kerry is not absent-minded. He spends a lot of time with Miles contemplating in the writing process over whether a character should a particular thing in a fight, depending on the fight itself and communicates that with the storyboard artists, animators, VFX team and whoever else. Having Blake dual wield when fighting against Adam was no exception as this was meant to be defining point in her character story.

So with the matter of the storyboard artist’s and Kerry’s input into this fight established, who animated it? The team responsible for this latter half are the assistant lead animator, Melanie Stern, Matt Drury, John Yang, Megan Pellino and Joe Vick. These same names have popped up before in the fights for chapters 5 and 7. John had also done much of the fight in chapter 10 and he also handled the first segment with Blake and Adam in the forest as I mentioned previously. Seeing the full version, his portion likely extends right up until Blake and Adam enter the ravine. After that though is where identifying who did what gets a bit tricky. My best assumption would be that what follows up at least up until Blake’s Gambol Shroud is broken is all Melanie Stern. A bit of her camera work and timing feels familiar based on previous fights she worked on. Though if she really did this segment, then this is probably one of the most fast-paced sequences she’s ever animated in a fight scene. Instances such as Blake twirling a bit so that she faces Adam’s gun before using her semblance or parrying Adam’s sword in such a way that it slides across her katana and into the sheath portion of her cleaver are so quick and seamless that one would easily miss those moments if he/she blinked.

Once Blake is down and the katana portion of her Gambol Shroud is broken, things die down briefly as we get some facial expressions and character acting. In the shot with Blake, her expressions easily read that she is aware of and understood how and why Adam got his scar and that a part of her felt sorry for him. In contrast from Blake’s more nuanced expressions though, Adam’s are more explicit and seeing him unmasked definitely brings great synergy between what he emotes and Garret Hunter’s vocal performance. Given that Blake’s expression is subtly different between the end of this cut and the start of the next one, most of this segment and Yang’s dynamic entry with having her bike crash into Adam was all animated by Megan Pellino, the latter of which was definitely confirmed by Melanie. This is actually the first time we learn which part of a fight Megan has done and although it’s not much, the moment itself was bound to satisfy viewers.

Now comes the Yang vs Adam portion and there’s a couple of big things to break down from a production standpoint first. Referring back to episode 9 of CRWBY - Behind the Episode season 2, there was more being implied about what goes on in this fight than just the storyboards. The motion capture actually previewed the standoff portion of the fight before Adam lunges at Yang. It seems that in the session, Melanie Stern was doing mo-cap for Blake, either Nicole LaCroix or Nicole “Nyx” Morciniec did mo-cap for Yang and Matt Drury did mo-cap for Adam. The last one is particularly noteworthy and yet unsurprising since Matt has gone on record to liking Adam’s character and having done mo-cap for him before. On top of that, Matt has been absent in the staff credits since after chapter 7 which is not the first time an animator has been uncredited for whole episodes in a row due to going from being involved in one big scene to being involved in another one later in the volume. This same thing happened with Dillon Gu during volume 3 who went from animating the double rounds fight in chapter 4 to the students vs the Nevermore and Ironwood vs the Alpha Beowulf in chapter 10.

One could argue that he had to dedicate time working on Gen:Lock but given the timing, Matt probably anticipated this moment too much to not want to dedicate as much time for this sequence. Having said that, here’s where where the other piece of behind-the-scenes information comes in. Back in 2016, former co-lead animator Shane Newville publicly posted an open letter about various things regarding RWBY’s production, including during volume 3. I’ll spare the details and the source since his perspective and frustration on things regarding Monty Oum’s vision, while understandable given how dear Monty was to him, is also distasteful when taking insight about volume 3′s production from Kerry, Miles, Gray Haddock, then lead producer, Koen Wooten, and every other staff member’s perspective into account. Rather, I’ll refer to a small quote from his letter about a fight Monty Oum was working on prior to his passing:

“Next up was another scene that I had been looking forward to for a very long time. Blake was meant to fight Adam, and then Yang was suppose to come in and take over the fight, protecting Blake from death. Once I was done with Yang vs Mercury, I asked about this long-anticipated, ultra-badass scene.

But guess what-- they didn’t even write it in the script because they didn’t look at what Monty created for the scene before they began! It was all available to them before Monty passed away and after he was gone I made sure all of those scenes were available to them-- that they had them in their hands. It was even more of a surprise to me since I had rendered out Monty’s timelines for them, at the producer’s request, before production even started. they didn’t even look at what Monty, the creator of the show, made for this show.

Let me add that the Yang vs Adam fight was looking beyond badass. Monty was using a Linkin Park song as the soundtrack to animate it to. I was told that they would just find some other place for it down the road. But I know that when they eventually make the switch to Maya, everything Monty and I worked so hard to build up will become unusable and therefore thrown into the garbage.” 

Tonal choice aside, much of what Shane stated is very likely the case when examining the unfinished footage that suddenly surfaced around the same time as RTX Austin back in August 2018 according to reddit user JauneBlackSmudge. Even the temp music for the sequence is from the Linkin Park song, “Session”. It is unclear whether Shane himself uploaded the footage or someone else anonymously did and it’s currently unconfirmed whether Kerry Shawcross himself had possession of the footage and wanted to reserve it. Regardless, it’s clear that snippets of it were directly referenced and adapted into the Yang vs Adam fight seen in volume 6. Even Shane’s claim about Kerry finding another place for this fight somewhere down the road would support past cases where Kerry has talked about usually pushing ideas out of the script or production of one volume and reserving them for another one. Rarely ever does an idea get scrapped altogether and never use it with a couple of exceptions such as dust-powered cars according to art director, Patrick Rodriguez and the double-rounds fight between Pyrrha, Nora, Sun and Neptune which had to be cut or else there would be too much of a strain on volume 3′s production scheduling.

But enough of the behind-the-scenes and on to analyzing the fight itself which is nothing short of exhilarating. As stated, the fight matches snippets of the unfinished clip but has been adapted with more nuance depending on the camera angles and gestures. Case in point, Adam in the unfinished clip throws a slicing boomerang-like wave while the official scene has Adam using his sword like a buzz-saw. It’s also worth noting that when Adam is in the air, his form is very similar to that of when he kicked his sword at the Atlessian Knight in the Adam Character short which was a sequence Matt Drury animated. I previously compared that moment to Ken’Ichi Fujisawa’s sequence on episode 385 of Naruto Shippuden in the Adam Character Short Analysis, it was more likely a direct homage to a sequence done by animator Spencer Wan in the Netflix animated series, Castlevania. Once Yang is done blocking, she briefly dashes in with an upper-body boxer stance and starts a series of counterattacks. Like the Cordovin mech fight, the visual effects greatly compliment the motion by having certain strikes and blows be in the form of arcs. One of my favorite moments in this sequence is how the rapid-fire punches against Adam’s sword have duplicates of Yang’s arms to implement a blinding speed to them. This may possibly be due to having a copy of the same model blend in to give off that multi-arm illusion. Animator Harley Dwortz was actually the first in the animation team to use this technique way back in chapters 4 and 7 of volume 2 when Neptune was on Yang’s bike and Ruby was given pulled in by Yang. Next is another moment adapted from the unused Yang vs Adam footage where Adam runs around with afterimages and then sends a wave of energy at her. Though like previously, certain nuances are added like Yang’s close-up reaction shot to Adam’s direction and the same effects used in the last chapter against Blake where black and red accented lighting is utilized around him. Also, it seems like the wave itself was drawn in 2-D by Myke Chapman.

After a quick pause in-between, we get to the next sequence where Yang lunges right back and then dodges Adam’s strike to the side in mid-air and then spins herself to get a stronger kick at him. The mid-air dodge actually resembles a sequence from My Hero Academia and it wouldn’t be a stretch if what Yang did was inspired by that either since Kevin Harger mentioned using Bakugo as inspiration for having Yang maneuver mid-air in his storyboards for the Yang Character Short. At any rate, what happens next is that when Adam swings his sword again, Yang shoots to propel herself back but because of how instantaneous it is, it’s easy for the viewer eyes and brain to not register that in normal speed. Then comes another one of my favorite parts about this fight where Yang runs forward but she’s still sliding back a bit due to not immediately having the momentum. Then comes a few punches and some kicks interestingly similar to when Mercury attacked Pyrrha in their sparring match in volume 2. Finally, Adam knocks Yang back with his sword and I love how there are a couple of bounces on her fall before lying on the ground. I suspect that Joe Vick did this sequence who has not been explicit about which cuts he did in any of the sequences he has been involved in this volume. The reason it might him though is due to comparing the timing of the animation here to that of one of Joe’s demo reels where a martial artist character strikes at a sandbag in various ways. The animation in both the reel and this portion of the fight share the similar timing, especially compared to the previous sequence which feels a tad harsher and faster though the overall kinetic energy is not lost in what is presumed to be Joe’s portion.

Then comes the moment that caps off the action segment of the latter-half of the episode. Again, having Adam unmasked does wonders for his more explicit expressions as his pupils are shrunken and expresses ferocity. This is followed by Blake’s cat ears reacting to the sound of Adam’s weapon and his growl, which have been a key component in the action as shown earlier. Then we get the best effects in the fight where Adam is once again shrouded completely in black along with the entire screen this time, minus the red accents on him glowing. I just love how the more powerful his attacks seem to be the darker the screen gets, whether or not that was intentional on the compositing team’s part. Complimented with more black and red sparks, what follows is the icing of the cake with the blast shaped in such an extremely monstrous form. These are the kind of effects that anime fans within the Sakuga community become very fond over between individual animators and although this case is more likely from the visual effects, that does not make the spectacle any less pleasing to see. Then comes a few shots of Yang withstanding the attack and I would be remiss to not mention the fact that yes, the shot composition matches that of the climax in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. Given that Blake and Adam and somewhat Yang are inspired by the fairy tale of the same name, it would not be absurd to presume that either Kevin Harger or Kerry Shawcross used such shots as a purposeful homage. In the last several shots, we get more of Adam’s expressions that sell his manipulative nature as well as some nice shot composition in the midst of the standoff. Since Adam is focused on Yang, they are both framed in front of the cliffs while Blake is in front of the waterfall. But when Blake’s reaches to hold Yang’s hand, the latter is framed having crossed from the waterfall to the cliffs behind her, thus marking the end of the episode.

Before RTX, things were dead-silent as to what the future of RWBY’s main story would entail. So when RTX Austin 2018’s first RWBY panel showed the premiere of the Adam Character Short, word had naturally spread about the implied quality. This extended to a handful of fans learning of a snippet of the short without the post-production polish via a stream of the RT Animation Audio panel (oops). But aside from this, there was only so much to interpret. That is until Friday, August 17th, when the piece had officially been released to the general public. With the Adam short being the longest of any of the previous character shorts yet at a whopping 7 minutes, there is a lot to cover regarding both the animation and the visual presentation.

Speaking personally, this is by far the strongest of all the character shorts by far based on one factor: its visual direction. And there’s a strongly implied reason as to why this is. Back on February 12th, RWBY’s director & writer, Kerry Shawcross and Miles Luna respectively, as well as RWBY Chibi director, Paula Decanini, took part in an “Ask Me Anything” Session over at the RWBY sub-reddit. It was there when Kerry particularly responded to a question about the matter of “show, don’t tell” by stating that was what stuck with him the most. Love it or hate it, volume 5 left many fans with various mixed emotions, including concern for how the show would visually convey its story in future installments. However, between this character short and the announcement at RTX that Connor Pickens, the lead editor for volumes 3-5 of RWBY being promoted to co-director, these were signs how much Kerry took such particular feedback to heart.

Although it’s one thing to state the short itself applied “show, don’t tell”. It’s a whole other thing to elaborate on all the different ways it was utilized and why it matters. Sadly, there’s no confirmation as to who provided the storyboards, another important role in visual direction. In fairness though, who provides boards for the characters shorts are rarely ever stated to the public with one exception being that Kevin Harger did the ones for the Yang short at the “Just the Fights” RTX panel. What can be confirmed though are the animators confirmed to have been involved with the Adam short, as stated by volume 6 animation director, Joel Mann:

Melanie Stern 

Matt Drury

Joe Vick

Asha Bishi

Hannah Novotny

Michelle Yi

Erika Soosar

Vince Cappelluti

Just like with the matter of “show, don’t tell”, equal concern has been expressed regarding Gen:Lock’s production have more of an influence at Rooster Teeth Animation, leading to certain fan-favorite animators in RWBY’s production being permanently taken away. However, I have gone on record on how vital it is to acknowledge the merits of both newer and veteran talent since like it or not, the former will have more of a presence in RWBY. The Adam character short is especially noteworthy due to not just the number of animators being double that of past shorts, but five of the eight animators were recruited during volume 5′s production while two were recruited during volume 4′s and Melanie Stern, the assistant lead animator for volume 6, was first brought on during volume 3. This makes things both interesting and complicated, the latter of which has to due with how for some animators, there are little-to-no sources confirming who did what in RWBY thus far. Though certain animators have confirmed or at least implied what sequences they did, making for a good opportunity to examine their skills.

With that said, now is the time to decipher how the Adam short stand outs shot-by-shot and scene-by-scene. 

Scene #1: Outside of the Schnee Dust Company Plant

The biggest thing worth talking about in this scene is how the cinematography is in great effect. When Adam is introduced, we don’t just see his model in plain view first thing. We see a shot of his shadow, then his feet, then his mask, and finally a slow pan up to his face as we are teased with not seeing how he actually looks. With reaction shots of the other faunus characters sandwiched in-between, this captures not just importance in Adam’s character for the short itself, but also to his own kind that look up to him. When fans of RWBY think of cinematography, it’s generally believed to not be capable of more then making things prettier. This completely mis-represents the purpose it serves. Cinematography is more about using elements of camera direction, lighting, staging and timing of each shot to help tell the story within a scene. Camera direction as one element, has played a role into helping convey different characters in RWBY since volume 3, as confirmed by certain people in the show’s storyboard and camera layout departments. Ozpin’s level-headed mindset by having the camera point straightforwardly at him, Ironwood’s display of authority from low-angles, Qrow’s drunk nature through the camera tilting, and Nora’s bundle of energy by having the camera dramatically pan and zoom along with her. Their characters have been further utilized by the camera in varied ways and Adam is no different.

Beyond that, one other aspect of visual direction in both this scene and the short in general is the use of transitions, namely the invisible cut. It’s a fairly common trick used in film-making but it has never used in RWBY outside of chapter 9 of volume 2, nor has it been used as consistently until now. More will be talked about this technique, but the gist as to what it greatly presents is the passage of time for Adam’s story.

Scene #2: The forest skirmish between the White Fang and the Humans

Before going over the next scene, it’s worth quickly addressing the setting. Some fans have speculated that too much time and resources may have been spent on the Adam short which could affect the production of volume 6. However, in terms of the models of the environments, specifically the forest set, it seems similar to the set in chapter 4 of volume 5, albeit with more varied placements of trees and open space and different lighting. The same goes for the set in the next scene with Blake and Adam which may have been from the Blake Character short. Although it’s all speculative, these observations can imply that at least on the modeling team’s end, not too much time was spent on the short.

Moving on to the beginning of the sequence itself, one bit that stands out is Sienna’s ears and the way they move. This is actually something seen a little earlier with the one faunus girl when she sees Adam and it’s noteworthy for three reasons. First, while there’s not a lot of information as to how real life tigers communicate through their ears, it’s possibly similar to how house cats use their ears to express various emotions. This in turn leads to the second noteworthy reason, how it adds depth to what certain faunus characters express at a given moment. It can even be seen with Sienna’s character which, assuming such similarities between tigers and cats are there, indicate that Sienna was feeling defensive and alert in the first shot next to Adam. There will be more moments where the animal ears add to a character’s emotion both from Sienna and Blake later on.

The third and final reason this is all worth bringing up is the matter of who animated the beginning of this scene. One animator in RWBY’s production that has made consciously applied movement to animal ears and tails is Asha Bishi. I’ve mentioned before how her way of moving characters, faunus, human, or Grimm, usually feel snappy and lively which makes character acting her greatest strength. And while the character acting is also strong between Ghira, Adam, Sienna and other minior characters here, I’m not positive it’s her. If I were to take a guess, Hannah Novotny may have animated this sequence. Hannah and Asha were both recruited during volume 4′s production and while both are great at providing expression through the characters they animate, the former is slightly less snappy with her movements based on the confirmed shots she did and thus feel a tad slower. That said, she does provide little touches herself when animating scenes like shrinking and shaking of pupils within the eyes and even movement of animal ears, hence my guess.

In the midst of the skirmish, there’s a brief as a bullet hits the window next to Ghira, it leaves off an neat electricity effect. Jumping ahead to when Ghira gets shot with more electricity and aura effects, we get to the first big action sequence in the short and right as he lands on the ground, I love the look of the small dust that forms. The VFX team have expressed in the past taking inspiration from visual effects seen in anime to help compliment RWBY’s aesthetic. They were already accomplishing that by volume 5 in the Anime Skies Fight and I think they almost perfected it here. We’ve definitely come a long way from the days how smoke and dust use to look like in the show.

We then get a quick rotation shot to show where Adam’s target is and according to Matt Drury, this moment is what he animated. He has gone on record as to how much of a fan he is of Adam’s character to the point where he did motion capture for him in volume 5 and even dyed his hair red, and boy, does it show in how he made Adam fight. Between him dashing, parrying, doing jump-inside kicks, and turning around as he crouches to jump for the tree and use it to spring himself across in rapid succession, Adam rides this balance between being using martial arts and being animalistic. The part where he jumps off the tree is an especially good use of squash and stretch and not an example of bad animation, in case anyone considered that. To get a clearer idea of what does and doesn’t make bad animation, Youtube Anime Ajay provided a very insightful video explaining what is and is not bad animation to respond to a practice commonly made by fans in the anime community.

Going back to the short, the camera steadily follows Adam barrel-rolling to the far right, leaving some more good-looking anime dust and then sets some nice staging between him and his enemies in front of him as he blocks their attacks. One quick thing to note is how Adam twirls his weapon with the smear effects. The spinning smears throughout this short have invoked some big groans within the fan base and I would be lying if I didn’t have my minor gripes with it. However, the smear effects themselves are not inherently a problem and there are two instances where I believe it works for different reasons. This is one of them. The reason why it works here is through a combination of where the camera moves and zooms and how Adam’s hand moves is seen twirling the weapon. It’s very subtle when playing in normal speed, but it is there. Really, if there’s anything off about the animation is how the spinning just starts without a slow-in and thus feels a little too instantaneous. Though more will be elaborated on this later.

That tangent aside, what I love is how the camera zooms to angle Adam as being seemingly bigger in perspective compared to both characters he’s blocking bullets from. As icing of the cake, you see the shift in facial expressions from the girl on the right with the hoodie as she expresses being intimidated by Adam and ends up anxious for the girl next to her as she looks to her right. After pinning the one girl in the yellow outfit unconscious, we see a brief yet clean combination of smears and sparks as he blocks another bullet and then he dashes to trip the gray-hoodie girl and hit her in mid-air. As nice as it is to see action scenes done at a break-neck pace, having a moment where a character winds-up before performing a certain action can add more impact. What Adam did as he swung his weapon back before gutting the girl was a classic example of anticipatory action, one of the 12 principles. My only criticism regarding this moment was that I wish the moment where the girl was hit lasted a few frames more. Though it helps that in the next shot, we see the facial expressions of the girl who deeply regrets having faced Adam before being knocked back down to the ground. I can’t help but feel sorry for her in particular.

We then cut to Adam going towards another gunman while swiftly dodging bullets and once again using the tree to his advantage before kicking the latter unconscious. With the bright gunshot effects, because they are so close enough to the center of the camera, it helps makes the speed of Adam’s sidesteps feel somewhat blinding. The only slight problem is the smear effect of Adam’s kicks. Similar to the moment where he kicked the gray-hooded human, both use just red for the smears when they could benefit more from using a combination of red and black to consistently follow with the color of his shoes. But in the grand scheme of everything in motion at normal speed, this is all relatively minor. Then we cut to what is either the end of Matt’s sequence or the start of another animator’s. Either way, the faraway wide shot is really great at showing how unstoppable he is while appropriately charging like a bull. The next set of shots that follow a clever way to make the launch of Adam’s sword show how much force it had to make the girl emit such a reaction when being hit in the gut. Then follows the sword twirling in mid-air and here is where I started having issues with the use of smear animations. Though as I said before, more on that later.

Then there’s the human hiding who gives an anxious facial expression before deciding to fire, effectively displaying the fact he is making a split-second choice. Between what came a couple of shots before and what comes next, Hannah Novotny might have animated these parts. Though it’s somewhat of a shot in the dark based on her tweet of doing some action shots. Speaking of darkness, we then see Adam’s signature slash, which the compositing itself is presented slightly differently from the Black trailer. There, it’s timed so that the darkness fades after he absorbs the laser attack. In this character short though, it’s timed so that it disappears after he strikes. It’s different, but it works well here due to how it blackens his body, making him appear as a silhouette while the background fades to near-black and that all disappears once he draws his swords and strikes, making for great impact. It also helps that the way he’s posing with his back facing the camera and his should in front of him makes him more menacing in a manner akin to that one shot of Neferpitou from Hunter x Hunter.

As the human is struck in the next shot, there’s an interesting effect where the pupils in his eyes disappear that feels like something out of the One Piece anime. Just as an aside to talk about the music, I love how it suddenly stops to add to the shocking effect of Adam having brutally killed someone. Next, in the shot where Ghira and Adam look down at the human, we get really clever staging. Not only are they both framed so that only they follow the rule-of-thirds, but your eyes are easily drawn to the remaining humans that appear behind the tree in the far right and then flee. As the scene follows with Sienna defending Adam and calling him a “hero”, Adam makes a surprised reaction that tells a fair bit considering we can’t register his emotions through his eyes. To close the scene, we get the White Fang members cheering as they walk towards Adam, creating another great invisible cut while Sienna and Ghira stare down.

3) Adam and Blake at the rooftops

I mentioned before that there was another scene I believe Asha Bishi animated and Blake and Adam’s scene is it. At first I was only 70-80 percent sure it was her. But this was before Joel Mann confirmed who animated the short. Since then, I’m now 80-90 percent sure. Much of her tells can be identified here, especially with Blake. The various pupil shifts, the slight expanding and wincing of the eyes, and the abundant character acting with their body language and even Blake’s cat ears.

What I especially liked was the end where her hair is flowing in the wind for two reasons. First, it created an opportunity to show that the strands of.. hair, fur maybe, were flowing from her cat ears, something I’ve admittedly never seen before. It’s a small thing, but it showed a neat attention to detail in the modeling. Second, the way her hair flowed and how her fingers seamlessly dug into them is another sign of how we’ve come a long way from the days where hair when being touched or pull around felt more like large clumps than individual strands that could be felt between the fingers.

We are then shown another invisible cut and by far my favorite one of the fall leaves flowing after the wind gets stronger and harsher, indicating that Blake feels a hidden bit of uncertainty by trusting Adam’s words. These invisible cuts have really excelled at presenting the passage of time in Adam’s story and they reminded me a lot of how the anime Haikyuu used a combination of match cuts and invisible cuts to help visually enhance the story of certain characters. Again, I’m very unsure who provided the storyboards for this short and thus the transitions. Though the invisible cuts may be applied by the editing team. Either way, this is how cinematography is displayed in great effect.

4) Adam, Sienna & Ilia at the White Fang facility

As the short transitions to the second set of action sequences, we are treated to a several-second rotation shot where Sienna flails her chain weapon at her enemies wildly but precisely. Melanie Stern confirmed she animated Sienna fighting and honestly, I had initially thought animator Austin Hardwicke may have done her scenes. So I was pleasantly surprised to be wrong this time. As camera stops to face her, we get more of her cat ears shift, this time to help her confidently stay one step ahead of the Atlesian Knight about to attack her from behind. Next, Sienna uses the mech as a spring board to launch across the hall. Although the camera as she leaps over the Adam and Sienna is zoomed a bit too much and makes the shot feel slightly more claustrophobic than warranted. That being said, moments that follow with Sienna kicking her chain weapon against one mech and then shooting the snapped off arrow-end to the other mech opposite of her are examples of the sequence riding this balance between being chaotic and readable. Sienna delivering her smirk right after also adds a lot to her personality in the limited time we see her fight. 

Now would be a good time to quickly talk about the Atlesian knights themselves. First, while seemingly trivial, it’s an interesting attention to detail to have the electricity around them be red as oppose to a more generic yellow or blue to better match their color scheme. Whether that was the VFX or compositing team’s idea is unclear, but it was neat to see regardless. Second, the way we see one of their feet into the camera after the one prior fell is a brief yet smart way to draw focus to the remaining androids. It also helps that between the White Fang being blurred from afar helps stage the distance between them and their opponents. One thing the camera does consistently well in this entire second fight sequence is stage the distance between characters, as we’ll done again shortly. Moving on, Adam blocks more bullets with with some sword spinning smears, though we do get a bit of slow-in and slow-out smears as he as he draws his sword and again before sheathing it. Then get the staging of the previous shot mentioned in effect as Ilia runs ahead with the camera making a nice low-angle shot with some slight rumbling as it trails her.

Once she finishes her attack, it’s Adam’s turn to run ahead and we see a classic case of slicing a few mechs which cuts pause as he sheathes is sword for dramatic effect. This is where Matt’s other animated sequence in the short is presented and a few things are worth highlighting: First, the slash effects quickly fading one-by-one. Second, the way the ends of Adam’s coat flaps down as a follow-through after he pauses. Third, the way the mechs slightly shifted from where they were cut. And fourth, The way the camera tilts to indicate how much damage was in effect. All of these aspects demonstrated how swift and overwhelming Adam’s attacks were. It also helps to given that quick moment of pause. As I said before in the forest skirmish scene, having a time and place to slow down can make for greater impact on a certain action. The same can go for having a character pause before a certain action is performed as demonstrated here.

The scene then proceeds with a sequence of Adam destroying two Atlesian Knights in quick succession. Right away does this moment one-up the previous one in terms of both direction and animation. With the direction, as Adam shoots his sword, we cut to the hilt hitting the first android and with another example of the camera, perfectly staging the set-up and distance of where Adam’s targets are, The sword being shot and bouncing up also easily draws the viewers eyes to where Adam will go next. We then cut to another shot of the sword twirling in mid-air and here is where the smear animation is best presented in the short. In previous cases, the spinning sword lacks the slow-in and slow-in frames. Here, it properly displays the momentum of the sword as it slows down which leads to the next thing Adam does. Hopefully, this settles the matter that the smear being used at all isn’t the problem, nor is it what it’s referencing to. Rather, it’s about how it’s animated which if you look at various anime, there are a myriad of ways to present smears. Back to the sequence, as Adam jumps to the android and off it by shooting its head, he then kicks the sword in mid-air to the other android in a manner similar to animator Ken’ichi Fujisawa did in a fight scene in Naruto Shippuden.

We end Matt’s animated sequence to move on to the next one where the Schnee Dust Company personnel fire across the hall and we get a nice change to red lighting to signify how treacherous things will get for both sides. As Adam, Sienna and Ilia dodge the bullets, we see some good character acting maintained in how they each take cover. Adam using his sword skills to defend himself, Sienna acrobatically staying out of fire and Ilia clumsily back-stepping which makes her inexperience compared to the former two self-evident. Next is more of Sienna’s tiger ear shifts as she and Adam notice the canister creating some anime smoke screen effects, through they’ve been visually filtered a bit. As Adam and Sienna counterattack, the latter climbs up the wall and jumps off which gives a glimpse of how much her weapon resembles a tail. And following that, we get more of her using her chain weapon to flail the gun she lassoed to knock all three of her enemies around her with slightly chaotic but steady camera shifts,

Next is Adam getting more action through a brief shot of him charging towards the camera which reminded me of how Winter first struck against Qrow in chapter 3 of volume 3. The latter cut was part of animator, Ian Kedward’s sequence in that fight, but I’m unsure of who animated Adam’s portion of this sequence from here-on. Jumping slightly ahead, we get an interesting transition from Adam slicing to Sienna throwing her chain around. Only it’s not completely a transition, but because it’s a split-second and their actions flow well, it feels like one at normal speed. With more of Sienna’s agile moves, she snaps off her arrow again which starts with her facing towards the camera to then cleverly rotate around the arrow to highlight what it’s going to do. Moving ahead, we get one more action moment with Adam, this time with some additional funny character acting from the SDC guard as he tries to dodge the former’s strikes and attempts a right hook only to get schooled by Adam’s hilt again. Though it doesn’t end right there as we see a couple of shots of Adam framed dominantly, about to stab the guard while he’s down and he pleads for his life. Though there’s an excellent delayed reaction where Adam responds to Sienna’s call as if he got caught up in the blood lust. This short has been a good opportunity in general to add character to Adam and Sienna through just their facial expressions alone.

5) Adam and Sienna in the Throne Room

After all is said an done, we get another invisible cut to the throne room with another White Fang member running across the SDC facility hall. It would’ve been funny if it’s the same member that did the invisible cut after the forest scene, but they have different skin tones so that’s sadly not the case. In all seriousness, we don’t get any visual direction that’s too daring aside from the establishing overhead shot starting the sequence. An interesting observation is how in comparison, the seen that first introduced Sienna in volume 5 had he and Adam’s positions mirrored only she’s on her throne and Adam’s kneeling. This may visually support the fact Sienna was considering treating Adam as her equal in the future, so long as he did overstep his boundaries.

Not much else to add before moving on to the next short sequence through a transition that’s not an invisible cut but is something more like a jump cut? It’s honestly hard to describe, but it does go along with the motif of passage of time. One other thing to mention is the flame and how it’s animated. it doesn’t feel at all like a 3-D visual effect and is instead more like it was animated in 2-D with some filtering effects. Beyond that, not much else to add for the remainder of the short, though that’s not a bad thing since a moment of rest is needed to close off after two extensive action scenes. The only two things worth stating have to do with Adam. First is how when Adam is on the throne, there’s one shot where he is of distance from the White Fang members and another where we don’t see his full body from behind the throne. Both indicate the relationship between him and his followers. At this point in his story, he is less concerned about looking out for his fellow kind as he is about stroking his ego. To conclude, we get the most ironically-funny shot in the short where Adam gets exactly what he deserves and walks off leaving his mask behind feeling defeated. Some would find the choice to have him animated walking awkwardly to be strange when connecting to his last scene in volume 5. But in the context of the story of his character short, it works thematically.

Final Note

This was quite a short to cover, but there was so much packed in that both reinforced some things spoken by Blake before about Adam’s character while still peppering in insight into his psyche through a combination of facial expressions, adjustments to his line of dialogue and the in-genius transitioning techniques used. And there were still a couple more small details that weren’t fully covered like the red markings in Adam’s design added after the first scene or Ghira’s slightly younger character model. The visual direction demonstrated in just 7 minutes how in-spite of his hostile streak, Adam’s shift from the White Fang hero looked up to by his people to the tyrant whose thirst for power and dominance made his own followers turn on him.

While the short not totally perfect, its storyboards outmatch even the Weiss character short, which is saying a lot considering it was one of my favorites. It’s still a shame we don’t know who did the boards, but between them, Kerry and Connor, the ideas definitely payed off. The animators themselves also cannot be commended enough for the effort they poured into the short. There have been a few newer recruits being recognized by other more veteran animators, including Erika Soosar, John Yang, Michelle Yi and Jason Dickol. With Matt Drury added as another name, I do hope more fans will keep an eye out for them. Though none of this is to leave out the other animators involved with this short whose shots were unconfirmed, as they deserve to be kept an eye on in the future.

As stated previously, RWBY has always been inspired by and even aimed to emulate anime. As a cultural medium of entertainment, anime has been the pigeon-holed for its various tropes. The tsundere archetype, beach and hot spring scenes, shonen training arcs, transfer student character introductions, etc. And while the dismissal of seeing some the same tropes in many titles every season, every year is understandable, anime as a visual-storytelling medium has been cultivating itself for the past 60 years. With that much time, many names who have taken the positions of directors and storyboard artists in their careers alone have developed recognizable cinematic techniques. One example is Osamu Dezaki. Most may not have even heard of him due to his passing in 2011 or his works due to how old they are. But one may faintly recognize his techniques he pioneered that are casually sprinkled in many anime. Take the “postcard memories” technique for instance, a way of freeze-framing a shot into a hyper-detailed, sketchy still. It’s something meant to make the subject of such shots feel especially tense, mesmerizing or impactful and it can be seen in various works that some fans today have been exposed to like Sailor Moon, Kill la Kill, & One Piece.

And Dezaki is just one name that uses certain techniques to create a vision in anime titles. There are many others who have gone to either provide storyboards for or direct some shows and films well-known within anime fandom to this day. With Takuya Igarashi, the director of Ouran High School Host Club, Soul Eater, Star Driver, Captain Earth and Bungo Stray Dogs, his works commonly have vivid colors and lighting through windows and characters on symmetrically-opposed sides to convey the contextual mood. Then there’s Shigeru Yamauchi, the director of Casshern Sins, Dream Eater Merry, A Town Where You Live, the 8th, 10th, & 12th Dragon Ball Z films, Digimon: The Golden Digimentals, and a storyboard artist of episodes of many, many anime. Yamauchi is especially known for having whole scenes depict close-up shots of a character’s face or showing half of their bodies and having settings be done in a specific, sometimes monochromatic color schemes that feels like something out of a painting. There’s also Naoko Yamada, a name from studio Kyoto Animation who has developed a resume of directing shows and films like K-ON, Tamako Market & A Silent Voice that, despite them mostly having a moe vibe through the character designs, are deceptively-enriched in scenes shifting from bright, pastel colors to more dull colors to provide atmospheric moods and having characters express themselves not through their faces but other ways such as their legs.

There are far too many names to point to, but even ones who have yet to direct a whole anime, manage to apply their cinematic ideas into episodes of anime. Even something like Dragon Ball Super, a recent installment of a popular shonen franchise that’s often dismissed for having characters mindlessly flying and throwing beam blasts and fists, can be known for having episodes with competent stage direction depending on who is working on it.    

With all of that said, it’s worth bearing in mind that RWBY, like the many anime it takes inspiration from, could also be credible for having and applying cinematic techniques. But this wasn’t always the case. Back in volumes 1 & 2, the process for storyboards would be led by Patrick Rodriguez, who is known for designing various characters in the show like Ironwood, Amber, & Tyrian, with the rest of the team consisting on Miles Luna & Kerry Shawcross, the writer and director of the show respectively and the animators. The problem however was that even with the storyboard team set up this way, scheduling was very tight, to the point where there was either little time or no time to make the boards for the show. Although the first two volumes were not entirely void of enticing shots, this led to needing to resort to basic camera shots and on few occasions, incomprehensible ones. By volume 3 however, this process changed. Among the many changes in the production pipeline, one of them was the overhaul of the storyboard team to be led by Joe MacDonald, an animator during volume 2 who had nearly 30 years of experience in the creative entertainment industry, with a newly established team consisting specifically of storyboard artist. The second was introducing a complimentary camera & layout team, also led by Joe MacDonald with some of the storyboard artists overlapping. Finally, the third was creating a camera bible. To quote from one of the storyboard and layout artist, Rachel Doda, in the volume 3 audio commentary:

“It was mentioned earlier too in some other commentary, but we originally created like a camera bible or at least tried to create like, stage direction in terms of just… hey! Ya know, If it’s a shot of Ozpin, it has to be kind of stagnant because he’s the most level-headed. And if it’s a shot of Ironwood, usually, they just, ya know, it has to be like he’s in power. So the camera has to be low to the ground. Then, ya know, just like all the characters themselves. Qrow has a little hitch to stuff.”  

Since volume 3, the camera served as was a big way to help express the position or mindset of various characters. Take the character, James Ironwood as referred to earlier. Compare most of his shots in volume 2 to his shots in volume 3 & 4, and the differences in his scenes will feel more apparent. Camera manages to communicate when he feels it’s important to be authoritative and when to be more reasonably submissive. And that’s the key word: “communicate.” If Rachel Doda’s words as quoted are of any indication, then multiple elements in cinematography such as lighting, color, transitions, framing, staging, & character posture could be at play to sell and help deeply interpret meaning behind character’s thoughts and intentions.

In the case of volume 3 where this major shift in the show’s direction began, there are several scenes that became very striking to this day. One of the biggest examples is this shot of Pyrrha witnessing the Fall Maiden, Amber in a comatose state in chapter 6. When watching it the first time, one may think that match-cutting from Pyrrha turning away to showing Cinder at the stadium is simply meant to indicate that Cinder is Amber’s assailant. But there’s also a matter of Pyrrha feeling bound to take a risk of having her destiny be Amber’s and not hers compared to Cinder who wants nothing more than to become the very thing the former hesitates to be. Pyrrha feels she can’t avoid any of this and is thus overwhelmed as shown in chapter 8 when she can no longer even attain peace of mind from a simple leaf falling towards her in a burning sunset, all of which from that point on referred to the Fall Maiden in her mind.  

Though as much as volume 3 had its strong sense of visual direction, RWBY’s fourth volume arguably pushed the direction further through a variety of ways. While it has been criticized for spreading its story too thin by jumping between multiple plot points, some scenes in plot points tied to certain characters can contain some strong cinematography. Take for instance Cinder’s training scene in chapter 11, which by itself doesn’t seem to say much. But think about the Grimm she fought. They were a bunch of Beowulves and a Beringel, which are the same creatures of Grimm that Ruby Rose fought in the character short. Although Ruby takes longer to defeat her foes than Cinder, the former is shot to end her fight triumphantly while the latter is shown exhausted and has to catch her breath after her bout. All of this can be interpreted as an inadvertent way of presenting how even more salt is poured to Cinder’s wounds.

Another example in volume 4 are scenes of Weiss in the Schnee mansion in chapters 2 & 11. When comparing side-by-side, the shots themselves are practically the same but with three key differences. The first is the lighting, the second is Weiss’s facial expressions and body language, and the third is the fact Klein is accompanying her in the same shots in chapter 11. These shots show very effectively-opposite meanings with Weiss’s character who is first seen feeling lonely and submissive despite being in a fancy, spacious, brightly-lit home only to be feeling more defiant and at-ease when she has Klein to help her escape the home we learn she hates.

It’s this use to linking shots in different episodes that also sheds light to the context of the song “Mirror, Mirror”, which frankly never made much contextual sense up until this point. How can someone who carries pride in her family name be the loneliest of them all as the lyrics go? Well, this visual direction sums up why. Her father and his business-oriented ambitions created a growing rift in her family and she needs someone she can trust to be empathetic towards what she’s feeling. This is also why she felt hurt when she found out Whitley never really intended to look out for her. Combine these moments with shots of her witnessing the Atlas ships passing by her window in chapters 1 & 7, only to finally manage to leave in one by chapter 12, and you have a phase of Weiss’s character story packed with meaning.

There’s also quite a few cinematic techniques regarding Qrow in volume 4. One of the biggest cases is the use of a low light by his side with whoever he talks to about Salem. In times where connection to other Kingdoms in the World of Remnant are cut-off, Qrow welcomes or advises cooperation with other characters out of necessity. Warm lights such as lamps and campfires help illustrate this. With Qrow and Raven in chapter 4, the lamp on the table is closer to the former than the latter who only wants specific information and will otherwise walk away (or make a portal in her case) towards the darker side of the Tavern. And then there’s chapter 8, where Qrow informs team RNJR with as much information about everything to do with Salem and the fall of Beacon as possible, leading to well-presented shots of Jaune stepping briefly outside of the campfire due to his anger and wavering trust. Even this shot where he bluntly referred to Qrow’s motives as using his teammates as bait is framed to show his stance on who he was looking out for and who he wasn’t. Most interestingly though, is this shot here of Qrow framed to be surrounded by the campfire as he describes his semblance. While the cinematic techniques in some scenes can be admittedly up for debate, this shot was actually confirmed by Kerry Shawcross in the volume 4 director’s audio commentary to have been drawn by Rachel Doda and was highly approved after going through every department in the production.

“We uh, the shot inside the fire, was definitely one of the shots that we had uh, Rachel had the idea to do while we were boarding, Rachel Doda. And uh, I told her, “absolutely draw that! I make no promises that’s going to make it all the way through. But every next department after that I explained the shot and it was like, “no, we should do that!” Um, so yeah, it was one of those things where it was like, it was just such a beautiful shot that everyone wanted to make it happen and everyone went out of their way to make it happen.”

One of strongest cases of visual techniques applied though was in the forest scene in chapter 2. Here, we see Jaune, an often talkative character in previous volumes, be unusually silent and uttering only shouts and out-of-breath exhales as he trains through Pyrrha’s recording. He is mostly alone in the dark forest with shades of dark blue and green and bright, blueish lights illuminating his armor. Most fans who see this scene are struck by the music and Pyrrha’s words and Jaune’s determined, yet saddened facial expressions. Alone, those aspects are effective at the scene being a tearjerker. But there’s one other element, a visual one that can add a whole level of meaning: the fireflies.

In Japan, fireflies are theoretically that of Hitodama or “human souls” drifting in the night when away from their bodies. If we were to apply this motion to the forest scene in chapter 2, then the fireflies could be visually representative of the lives lost in Shion village. Thus what Jaune could’ve felt was not sadness for not being able to stop Pyrrha, but for being unable to do anything about tragedy of the villagers. Now to some, such an interpretation may be considered reading a little too much. While that response is fair, bear in mind that the villages seen in volume 4, Shion, Higanbana, Oniyuri and Kuroyuri are all named after flowers with specific meanings in Japanese, the matter of fireflies being that of human souls may not be that unlikely.

“I’m just tired of losing everything.” - Jaune Arc

If there’s any set of scenes that are arguably as striking in visual direction as in chapter 2, if not more-so, it would be in scenes of Ren and Nora in chapters 10 & 12. There’s the matter of how the reveal of Ren’s semblance after cutting from the shot of the lotus flower is representative of how a real lotus flower can bloom after being submerged in mud. There’s also the shots of Nora desperately holding on to Ren’s hand, one of which is out of fear of being left alone when they were kids while the other is to prevent Ren from risking being killed due to anger and reckless abandon. But probably the most powerful moment of stage direction is of this moment here.

That there concisely explains what Nora means to Ren. Bear in mind, Ren is a very quiet, calm & collected character. He’s the opposite of Nora in that regard, who wears her enthusiasm on her sleeve and openly express how much she enjoys Ren’s company. But up until this point, we hardly seen Ren’s perspective about Nora other than the occasional subtle smile at her antics. It’s not until the scene underneath the house in chapter 12 that we see what Ren sees when Nora is deeply saddened to the point of being in tears, something viewers have never seen her current express before. In his mind, Ren briefly sees the same frightened girl who he first met and swore that they would keep each other safe. He is all Nora has and if he realizes that if he gets himself recklessly killed, then she’ll be alone all over again. And that’s the last thing Ren wants to happen.  

With that said, in what ways did volume 5 apply cinematic techniques? The answer to that actually depends on the character. To start, let’s refer to the chameleon-based faunus character, Ilia Amitola and her scenes with Blake. Ilia has a strong, yet misguided sense of justice where she believes in needing to be as aggressive as possible. In shots with her and Blake in volume 5, she positions herself at a greater height which makes sense considering she’s actually shorter than Blake. Even the volume 5 opening theme featuring their bout illustrates this. While opening themes in anime are generally known to excite viewers into a title they’re about to watch, they can also tease a story and its layers through snappy camera shots and imagery. To see how true this usually is, I highly suggest watching Geoff Thew, a.k.a, Mother’s Basement’s “What’s in an OP” video series on Youtube, who has provided thorough analysis on openings to anime like Death Note, both Fullmetal Alchemist series, Re:Zero, Spice & Wolf, Your Name, and the seasons of My Hero Academia to name a few.

Switching gears back to Blake and Ilia’s scenes in RWBY, the latter believed that fear is the only way to gain results and by standing taller than the former, Ilia’s ideals are seemingly stronger. But when Blake manages to finally pin Ilia down in their fight in chapter 10, Blake hammers as much sense into Ilia as she could and gets her to admit that she doesn’t know any other alternative. 

With all that said, there’s another trait at play between Blake and Ilia’s scenes that needs to be mentioned. To do that, we need to first talk about a department in RWBY’s production that, like camera & layout, was also established since volume 3: the lighting team. In volumes 1 & 2, every scene with some attempt at lighting and shadow was actually faked, as there were no lighting artists yet. Even the scene between Roman Torchiwck and James Ironwood in chapter 12 of volume 2 had animator, Austin Hardwicke, use a trick in Poser to fake the shadow in Torchwick’s prison cell. But by volume 3, a lighting artist named Erica Burroughs was recruited to provide the rays of sunlight the lighting of green flames from the torches in the Beacon Academy vault, among other moments of lighting effects. By volume 4, a single lighting artist evolved to a whole team with Mark Osborne credited as the lead lighting artist. This helped contribute to making scenes more enticing to look at with each passing volume. Even volume 5 introduced a rim shot lighting on characters, which depending on the setting, such an accent can add to giving RWBY a more enticing aesthetic.

Lighting doesn’t just help make the show prettier-looking though. Depending on the context, it can also help better communicate the story visually-speaking. And Blake and Ilia’s scenes are the biggest examples of this. It goes without saying that the color black is Blake’s motif. But it can also extend to how the color represents her story arc when associated with lighting or rather lack thereof. Every scene where Blake confronts against the White Fang in previous volumes have been in settings with lack of light, be it in the middle of the night or underground at Mountain Glenn. In volume 4 though, lighting as a visual story element provides an interesting twist to scenes with her parents, being either in broad daylight or in a bright, warmly-lit room. With Blake, there’s this awkwardness when communicating with her parents, as welcoming and forgiving as Ghira and Kali are. In chapter 8, she hesitantly stays stares the outside of her father’s office in the dark, only to hesitantly step in and eventually pour out her deep guilt towards her father. She wants to be more open in the light, but is far too scared to.

The motif of light and darkness can also apply in relation to Sun Wukong. In chapter 3 of volume 4, Blake refused to explain why she kept distance from everyone including her teammates at a scene at night. But in chapter 11, not only is she forced to admit her reason after Sun got injured in the daytime, but the latter in response criticizes her way of going about her problems. This is complimented by some framing between the two and the large Menagerie painting in the background. What all of this has to do with Blake and Ilia is that the former in volume 5 is framed to be associated with bright and natural lights while the latter is associated with darkness and shadows. One of the major exceptions to this is in both character’s speeches in chapters 3 & 10, providing an interesting contrast. Ilia in chapter 3 is vocally fighting in Blake’s domain in broad daylight whereas Blake in chapter 10 argues back with her own speech in Ilia’s domain at night.

Though Blake and Ilia’s scenes were greatly emphasized by certain cinematic techniques, their characters weren’t the only ones with scenes affected in that sense. Other characters throughout the volume had techniques applied to their scenes to varying degrees and Ruby Rose was one of them. It’s not a secret that the inconsistent focus of the main protagonist of this web series has fueled the fandom’s frustrations this volume. And while the following can’t alleviate it, her scene with Oscar in chapter 5 is worth mentioning. It’s minor, but when Ruby is given the time to explain her optimistic demeanor to Oscar, there’s an interesting framing with her and the interior. In certain shots, she’s seen surrounded by the entrance to the training room where the outside is nothing but forests at night. The forest setting, especially at night, is a recurring setting with Ruby’s character as made evident in both her character short and in the volume 5 opening. But it’s also a setting with meaning regarding the story of the character she’s inspired by. One interpretation of a few variations of the Little Red Riding Hood story is that the forest serves as part of the character of the same name’s transition from childhood to adulthood, partly due to the forest being unknown and potentially dangerous territory.

What Ruby expresses to Oscar about what she’s afraid of can also be a callback to Oscar expressing to Ozpin how scary it is venturing out on his own in the forest for a cause beyond his comprehension. But where he has struggled to overcome his anxiety, Ruby has a firm-enough grip of it to stay motivated on her objective. The framing between her and the open entrance with the forest in the background, while just one simple cinematic technique, is also arguably effective at helping present Ruby’s mindset. The training room scene is also a good opportunity to talk about cinematography applied to Oscar’s scenes. In volume 4, chapter 7, his scene made him treat Ozpin as an invader of his mind and livelihood. The shades of brown and red and dim lighting makes Oscar feel utterly disturbed, overwhelmed, and unwilling to accept Ozpin’s words. But their scene in chapter 5 changes that. The interior in comparison is much brighter, bigger, and even with more shades of green, which is representative of Ozpin’s color motif. As a result, he no longer feels mentally tense by Ozpin’s presence and even trusts him for a little insight.

There’s also another small scene with Oscar in chapter 11 of volume 5, where he faces Leonardo Lionheart. Although brief, there’s an instance where as he steps up, the camera is framing him at a low angle, indicating that he’s more resolute. The motivation itself could be due to either slowly accepting his role in the story or to follow Ruby’s example. Speaking of Oscar and Lionheart’s face-off, now is where the latter’s scenes can be visually deciphered. The Haven academy headmaster has certain scenes that support the Cowardly Lion theme that he alludes to. In earlier-mentioned scene, Lionheart expresses his intentions after realizing that Ozpin had already been reincarnated. Note the long, overhead shot followed by a closer overhead shot of Lionheart looking up. The camera is utilized the same, exact way as with Tyrian’s Callows’s shots in volume 4 of chapter 7 . This is not necessarily coincidental when you consider who both of them refer to: Salem. Despite not much yet being known about her, the camera communicates how both Tyrian and Lionheart see Salem, albeit for nuanced reasons. To them, Salem is omnipotent and even omnipresent, and her will and desires are absolute, which leads to them expressing how they share the need to please her.

Next is the matter of Yang and Weiss’s scene in chapter 8. What makes this scene fascinating is how it combines two other scenes in past volumes. The first is Blake and Yang’s scene in chapter 6 of volume 2 and the other is Team RWBY’s dorm room scene in chapter 8 of volume 3. One applies a similar daylight lighting while the other frames the beds and initially, the two characters the same way. This helps indicate the shifting of roles with Yang and Weiss’s characters. Yang goes from being the one needing to get through to Blake by explaining a piece of her backstory to being the one who needs to be emotionally connected through by Weiss about Blake through her own backstory. Meanwhile, Weiss went from being negatively knee-jerk reactive to Blake’s hesitantly believing Yang in the dorm room scene to be more comforting and concerning in response to Yang’s prior overreaction. 

The last character to highlight who has been associated with her own set of cinematic techniques in volume 5 is Raven Branwen, specifically in scenes she shares with Yang. In their scenes, a few techniques come to mind. The first is of shots where Raven faces the camera when she talks about Qrow, Ozpin, and Salem in chapters four, six, & fourteen. She puts on a very serious expression to the viewer, but doesn’t face her own daughter in these instances. By itself, these shots may not mean much. But if they were to be complimented by another technique, the medium shots of Raven and Yang facing each other in two of the same chapters, then there’s more depth behind her character.

In chapter 6, Raven faces Yang eye-to-eye and then stoically turns her back towards her. But in chapter 14, Raven submissively let’s Yang walk past her while being shoved aside. Between these shots and the previous sets mentioned, this suggests that Raven has been too unwilling to admit her fears to herself and to her daughter. In turn, Yang expresses the willingness to confront her mother’s arguments and be strong the way she could not. But there’s also a layer of frustration underneath with Yang. While the phrase, “mother of the year” is appropriate to sarcastically describe Raven, bear in mind that she’s a character whose mystery has lingered in Yang’s mind since she was a child. She had very vague ideas of why her blood mother would leave her family. As much as she hardly respects someone like that, she can’t help but want to better comprehend such a character. When Raven does finally accept that she’s too scared to face the Salem’s overwhelming presence, she let’s Yang shove past her and weeps a tear, apologizing over how flawed she has been before continuing to do so as she flees.

Viewers may respond with, “good riddance”, but the above shot depicts a different response. When Yang turns around after hearing her Mom flee, all she sees is a feather drifting down. With the opened door to Spring Maiden vault framed to be behind her the way it is, it shows that Yang is immediately feeling isolated. The anger and frustration she harbored has been converted to depression. Yang by this point now knows everything she needs to know about her mom. Raven admits she’s a coward, but she’s also too much of one to properly stay by her daughter’s side, which makes Yang feel isolated and thus saddened that this is the reality.