#the ultimate fanservice for the megane fans

[turkey-sandwich]

Shuffle unit but it's just the glasses wearing idols

[aion-rsa]

How The Mandalorian Gave Fans a Different Kind of Star Wars Story

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This Star Wars: The Mandalorian article contains spoilers.

Technically, Disney+’s The Mandalorian is part of the biggest franchise on earth. But it doesn’t always feel that way.

True, it’s a Star Wars property, and it rarely lets you forget that fact. The show is rife with references to the films and animated series that have come before it and it enjoys padding out existing lore in ways that only the most hardcore of fans will care about—or possibly even notice. (Did you remember there was a krayt dragon skeleton in A New Hope? Be honest.)

The Mandalorian isn’t a story that requires a tremendous amount of Star Wars knowledge to follow or enjoy. And that’s because its central tale is one that follows rules and patterns we’ve all seen before. A mix of tropes from classic spaghetti westerns and samurai adventures, the show offers a broad look at life on the edge of the galaxy that exists well beyond the world of Jedi Knights, Sith warriors, and space princesses. And its tale of a lone bounty hunter and the supercute Force-wielding toddler he is charged with protecting is proof positive that there is space for every kind of story in this franchise. (As well as every kind of fan.)

Stream your Star Wars favorites right here!

In a universe that has become increasingly dense and self-contained, The Mandalorian still manages to feel like a breath of fresh air. Sure, its second season finale includes a surprise appearance by Luke Skywalker, because no property in this universe can apparently escape that family and their seemingly never-ending daddy issues, but the Disney+ series doesn’t seem concerned with him as anything other than a vehicle to further the story of Din Djarin, a good man who is trying to do right – by his faith, by his people, by the tiny creature whose life has suddenly become intertwined with his own.

Though the eponymous Mandalorian has run across a bevy of characters that have made longtime fans shriek with delight (Boba Fett, Bo-Katan, Ahsoka Tano, Luke himself), and the series ties in rather neatly with other franchise properties like The Clone Wars and Rebels, it still understands that its greatest strengths stem from its smaller stakes, more realistic worldbuilding, and the emotional connection between two vastly different creatures.

The Mandalorian isn’t an epic adventure, a space opera about the future of the galaxy as we understand it, or a tragedy about a single family’s apparent inability to keep from making the same mistakes from one generation to the next. It’s a story that’s deliberately limited in its scope and modest in its ambitions and, at the end of the day, the show itself is all the stronger for these choices. 

In comparison to other Star Wars properties, The Mandalorian’s story is almost painfully straightforward, if perhaps a little bit darker in places than we’re maybe used to in this universe thus far. Set in the galaxy’s Outer Rim following the fall of the Galactic Empire, it generally deals with characters – including its own lead – who are not terribly complicated people. Their lives are simpler, rougher, and more focused on the everyday challenges of living than the Jedi and characters like them that populate the films. 

Even the Mandalorian himself is simultaneously an avatar and a real person, and we get to know him as much through his struggles as his successes. He is, after all, the most reluctant of saviors. Yet, as many lone warriors before him, he is also a man with a code, and he holds tight to it, even in the lawless outskirts of the galaxy. 

Occasionally Mando will have to rescue someone or must join forces with an uneasy partner in order to kill a monster or pull off a heist. But no matter how that particular adventure goes, by the end of the hour, he’s back on his path and moving toward his next goal. The show doesn’t really have “arcs” so much as stories that occasionally take place over an episode or two—see the transport of the Frog Lady back to her partner that begins in “The Passenger” and ends in the subsequent installment—and its most dramatic set pieces generally rely on Mando fighting something, ranging from a furious mudhorn to ravenous, gross ice spiders.

In the world of genre storytelling, serialized stories with twisty plots and puzzle-box mysteries are all the rage right now. Just look at shows like Westworld, a drama that—as much as I love it—spends much of its time tying itself into complex narrative knots it doesn’t really know how to get out of. So, a show like The Mandalorian, with its linear narrative, clear-eyed storytelling, and refreshingly basic plots suddenly feels like a revelation.

And maybe it is.

Read more

TV

The Mandalorian Season 3 Predictions: What to Expect

By John Saavedra

Books

What Star Wars: The High Republic Reveals About the Galaxy Before the Movies

By Megan Crouse

The fact is, there’s still real value in a simple story about a man doing his best, no matter what circumstances he finds himself in. Maybe we’ve forgotten that fact in a television landscape that’s conditioned us to always be looking for a trick or a surprise reveal, but The Mandalorian’s largely straightforward narrative proves that it doesn’t have to be that way. And the show is as satisfying as any series that requires complex fan theories to enjoy or in-depth explainers to fully understand. 

The explainers are nice, don’t get me wrong, but in all honesty, the show is doing just fine introducing existing canon characters like Ahsoka to new audiences on its own. You don’t need to have watched Rebels to enjoy her presence here, but if you have, the satisfaction is all the greater. Truly, we don’t give The Mandalorian enough credit for the delicate balance it strikes in the age old struggle between storytelling and fanservice. It’s a difficult thing, and the show walks a fine line both carefully and well.

Even the appearance of Luke, probably the ultimate moment in Star Wars pandering, exists not for its own sake so much as it does to advance the series’ main relationship – that between Din and young Grogu. (If you didn’t get a little emotional watching them say goodbye to one another, then you have no heart, I’m sorry.)  

There’s little of the narrative baggage that usually comes along with a Skywalker arriving on the scene here – it doesn’t appear that anyone else even knows who he is beyond the fact that he is a Jedi – and though he’s meant to teach Grogu the ways of the Force, there’s no real indication we’ll see Luke again. After all, he has to start off down the path that leads him to The Last Jedi, and Grogu will  undoubtedly return to his Mandalorian’s side at some point in the not too distant future. Disney knows where its money is, after all. And it’s not in Pedro Pascal merch, much as we all love him. 

The Mandalorian’s  first season occasionally drew criticism for what naysayers deemed a “flimsy” or “barely there” plot, but this underestimates the power inherent in the series’ simple framework. Not only is it an emotional balm for those of us who are, quite frankly, tired of hour-long installments that require a significant amount of work to understand, it actually serves an important narrative purpose. The slower pace and simpler story allow us to get to know Mando and his culture, and gives the Star Wars universe a chance to take a minute and breathe.

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The Skywalker films are so full of big, potentially galaxy ending stakes and consequences that we as viewers get little time to simply take the universe in on its own terms – let alone get to know the people that inhabit it. We’re usually too busy worrying about how it all ties back to the family at the story’s center or the Jedi they serve. 

The Mandalorian has shown us what the Star Wars world outside of all the Skywalker drama looks like – even though it briefly includes one of them – and it lets us take our time to gawk at its sketchy bars, enjoy its colorful characters, and travel through run-down desolate towns at a slower pace. It’s allowed us to invest in the emotional connection between a lonely man and a lost creature who may be the last of its kind. And quaint though all that might seem, it’s certainly turned out to be a journey worth taking.

The post How The Mandalorian Gave Fans a Different Kind of Star Wars Story appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[amillioninprizes]

Some thoughts on Veronica Mars, fan service, and noir

I’ve been on winter break and at home with a nasty combo cold-ear infection-stomach virus the past couple of weeks, and as so often happens when I don’t have much going on, my thoughts have turned to ruminating over the steaming pile of excrement that was season 4 of Veronica Mars. Why yes, almost six months and one cancellation notice later and I’m still complaining about it--as I told someone on Twitter, it was so stupid that it’s going to take years to unpack.

This particular rant is brought to you by a common refrain seen in both professional critics’ and S4 supporters’ reviews of S4: the movie was schlocky fan service, while S4 is TRUE NOIR. I’m here to argue that neither of those things are true, and that in the grand scheme of things trying to definitively call Veronica Mars noir or not isn’t the best qualitative judgement of the series.

A note on “fanservice”

Something that’s been very strange to me in the critical discussion around S4 is that the fan-funded movie has been retconned as a fanservicey failure. This is weird because it did get a positive Rotten Tomatoes score, actually turned a profit despite the unorthodox distribution model, and was overall well-received by fans except for maybe the 5 Piz lovers out there (he absolutely did not deserve better you guys; he works at This American Life and lives in Brooklyn, he’ll be fine).

A lot of the things pointed to in the movie as fan service actually weren’t. In every interview about the movie and S4, RT and KB always talk about how they started with the image of Veronica punching Madison at the high school reunion and worked from there. The problem is that almost no one had been asking for that. If they had bothered to read any online discourse about the show (and we know RT definitely does), they would know that fans are actually somewhat sympathetic to Madison--after all, she was the intended recipient of the drugged drink Veronica received at Shelly Pomeroy’s party, plus growing up in a family that she wasn’t meant to be a member of must have negatively impacted her. When the preview scene of Veronica encountering Madison at the reunion welcome table was released, Veronica didn’t come off sympathetically. In a similar vein, as much as I liked Corny as a side character in the original series, I didn’t need him to come back for that random scene at the reunion. Nor was anyone asking for an out-of-nowhere James Franco cameo (which given what we know about him now is super gross in hindsight).

So why was the movie well-received by fans? Veronica was in character after an unevenly written and performed S3, and she was back in Neptune, doing what (and who; Ay-yo!) she was meant to do. So while the mystery was subpar (and what Rob Thomas mystery isn’t?), the character side of the story made sense and was satisfying. I wouldn’t call that fan service so much as good writing. Plus, what is even the point of wasting time, money, and effort on making a tv show or movie if it’s going to actively alienate the audience?

S4: more trauma porn than true noir

Admittedly, I’m not exactly the world’s foremost scholar on film noir (in my opinion, the height of cinema is teen romcoms c. 1995-2005), but I do feel I have enough pop cultural knowledge to have a working understanding of what film noir is, and as internet folk would say, S4 ain’t it chief. Sure, S4 was bleak subject matter wise, but that does not automatically equal noir. HappilyShanghaied, who does have a film studies background, wrote a pretty excellent post about why that is shortly after S4 dropped that I could not improve upon, so I will just leave it here. 

In addition to this analysis, I would also point out that S4 was lacking in a unique visual style common to noir films, especially compared to the original television series and the movie. The original series made use of green, blue, and yellow filters to fulfill a high school version of the noir aesthetic (quick shoutout to Cheshirecatstrut’s color theory posts for more on what we thought this meant before it turned out that Rob Thomas did not actually intend to imbue meaning into any of this), while the movie adopted a more mature muted blue-grey palette. S4, however, was more or less shot like a conventional drama and was brightly lit, perhaps signifying Rob Thomas’s apparent plans to turn the show into a conventional procedural.

The movie: more than fan service 

If anything, the movie was more noir than S4. Take Gia’s storyline for instance. While Veronica was off obtaining elite degrees, Gia spent 9 years in a virtual cage being forced into a sexual relationship without her total consent (because that’s the only storyline women can have on this show), and then set herself up to be murdered at the very moment she could potentially break free. That’s pretty fucking grim.

Then there is the whole police corruption storyline, which is a hallmark of noir fiction. The glimpses we get of the Neptune sheriff’s department point to a larger conspiracy at play than just crooked cops; Sachs lost his life trying to expose it and Keith was gravely injured. This was the story I was excited for future installments of Veronica Mars to address, especially given its relevance to today’s politics. Unfortunately, this thread was entirely dropped in S4, where the police department (because, as Rob Thomas revealed in interviews but not onscreen, Neptune has incorporated) is merely overwhelmed by the scope of the bombing case rather than outright corrupt. (Side note but Marcia Langdon was also a more complex and morally grey character when introduced in the second book than she was on screen in S4. Another wasted opportunity).

Noir is also marked by a sense of inevitability or doom as a result of greater forces at play. An example of this in the movie is Weevil’s storyline. After building a life and family for himself, he ultimately ends up rejoining the PCHer gang he left as a teenager due to a misunderstanding based on his race and appearance and the assumptions authority figures make about him because of those things. No matter what he does, he is still limited by an unjust and racist society. Contrast this with the final explosion in S4; it’s not inevitable, just based on Veronica’s incompetence. Rob Thomas claims that he tried to create a sense of doom to LoVe’s relationship between the OOC Leo storyline and the last minute barriers before the wedding, but those aspects just served to make the story unnecessarily convoluted.

What is noir anyway? Was Veronica Mars ever noir? Does it matter?

But this is all assuming there is a set template for noir anyway. This New Yorker essay points out that trying to definitively establish a set of rules for noir is difficult and that the classic noir films were more a product of midcentury artistic and political movements than a defined genre. The noir filmmakers working at the time would not have described their work as such. The kicker of this essay is the final sentence: “But the film noir is historically determined by particular circumstances; that’s why latter-day attempts at film noir, or so-called neo-noirs, almost all feel like exercises in nostalgia.” I found this particularly amusing because as Rob Thomas infamously proclaimed in his S4 era interviews, he wanted to completely dispense with nostalgia going forward. Rob Thomas and S4 supporters have said that Logan needed to die because noir protagonists can’t have stable relationships; but, if there isn’t a defined set of rules other than “an element of crime”, then was it strictly necessary? Hell, writing a hardboiled detective who does have a stable relationship and maybe even a family could have been an interesting subversion of genre expectations. Unfortunately, Rob Thomas isn’t that imaginative.

There’s also the issue that noir and hardboiled detective fiction aren’t interchangeable genres. This article lays out that idea that they aren’t the same because noir is ultimately about doomed losers; in contrast, detective fiction, while dark, contains a moral center and has an ending where a sense of justice is achieved. An interview with author Megan Abbott makes a similar argument; she states that in hardboiled detective fiction, “At the end, everything is a mess, people have died, but the hero has done the right thing or close to it, and order has, to a certain extent, been restored.” Based on the descriptions laid out here, I would argue that in its original format Veronica Mars far better fit the detective fiction model; while she wasn’t always right, she was never a loser, and she solved the mystery. S1-3 all had relatively hopeful, if not totally happy, endings, but you never see anyone complaining that they weren’t noir enough; if anything, they were more emotionally complex than the ending of S4, where Logan’s death is essentially meaningless. One could make the argument that S4 did push Veronica towards a more noir characterization by the definition of these articles by making her more incompetent and meaner than she was in previous installments, but that is a fundamental change in character, which is not coherent writing.

And that is ultimately why S4 was so poorly received by longtime fans and why there will be no more installments of Veronica Mars anytime soon (at least on Hulu). Even if S4 had been noir (or at least shot like one), the serious issues with plotting, characterization, and lack of adherence to prior canon that this season exhibited would still exist. Defending the poor writing choices made in S4 with “it’s noir!” does not mask them or automatically heighten the quality of the product. Perhaps ironically, in ineptly trying to be noir in S4, Rob Thomas likely prematurely ended Veronica Mars by failing his creation and fans with lazy storytelling.

[hypeathon]

RWBY - Volume 6, Chapter 5 Production Analysis

Vol 6, Ch 1 Production Analysis 

Vol 6, Ch 2 Production Analysis 

Vol 6, Ch 3 Production Analysis 

Vol 6, Ch 4 Production Analysis 

It can be a bit scary when I’m right on the money about something. The previous production analysis for volume 6 ended on a note pointing out how there were less names in the animation department section of of ending credits of chapter 4 compared to prior episodes. This led me to wonder if either the animators more heavily involved with RWBY would either be working on Gen:Lock at around this point in the volume 6′s production or their time and attention would be spent on a later episode. I am happy to find that it was the latter but also admittedly shocked to find that the “later episode” would be this one.

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.

With that, this marks the end of another production analysis for volume 6 thus far. Despite the length being only slightly longer than the previous episode, chapter 5 had more going on overall with a more varied change of pace between the two-halves of the episode. With the return of a character who has been overdue for another appearance and a setting that invites visual and audio techniques from the horror film genre, it’s a bit hard to imagine how much more absurd things will go. But based on tweets Miles Luna and Melanie Stern have been teasing, things are expected to get even more nuts. This has made me especially curious as to what the next chapter or so is going to offer. One more thing to add: I want to give a special thanks and shout-out to Changyuraptor from the RWBY sub-reddit and his Source McGourse document on practically every confirmed scene each animator has done over the course of RWBY’s production. As much as I do my best to keep track of who has done what, Changyuraptor is arguably more on top of things than I am when it comes to searching high and low for any up-to-date information of confirmed sequences in volume 6 and a couple of the animators I found out from him.