Dunno if I'm late but Yang for the character ask?

Alrighty, my (kind of former) girl Yang!

My top three ships for the character

Yang/Weiss is my favorite Yang ship. They look freaking awesome together, they fit well together, they could be healthy as heck, but they could also challenge each other, and the Weiss/Yang moments in volume five were everything. Yang/Mercury, @why-i-hate-rwby-now and I wrote a fic where Mercury was on the road to redemption and these two just had a lot of chemistry and we rolled with it and now I ship these two pretty hard core. Yang/Pyrrha is my third favorite ship for her. This ship doesn’t have very much juice, I just think that if Pyrrha had lived and Yang had gone through her maturing V4 and V5 arc, they could compliment each other pretty well, and they would look just super great together.

My three least favorite ships for the character

Yang/Adam is one big ‘no thanks’ from me. Yang/Ren is also pretty bad to me, because they had no real dynamic for eight seasons, and then Yang pushed him to talk about his feelings and then yelled at him for those feelings and accused him of just trying to push everyone away. And they have so few interactions that it really felt like Yang was yelling at and judging someone she didn’t really know when she had no business pushing him to begin with. And then, Yang/Neon. I thought their fight was annoying, I thought their interactions were annoying, I think if they were together, they’d do nothing but fight. (Honorable mention to Blake/Yang, which I don’t like for a number of reasons and put on my ‘three least favorite ships for Blake,’ but honestly, the relationship isn’t as bad for Yang as it is for Blake, I feel like. I don’t know.)

My biggest criticism for the character

Sometimes the writers literally write her like she isn’t a part of her family. This doesn’t really come into play until season six (mostly,) but honestly, it was so annoying. Referring to Raven continuously as ‘Mom,’ pointing her weapon at Qrow for saying ‘hey,’ running out of a room with a bunch of Apathy ready to pour through a cellar while ignoring the fact that Ruby was still in the room and Qrow was depressed and drinking at the bar, not being involved in Qrow and Ruby talking about Summer, spending most of her screen time with Blake to the point where it feels like she doesn’t really know her other teammates well, her ‘yeah, Ruby,’ line, her apparent lack of care towards Qrow... At least she’s had a bit more with Ruby and has acknowledged Summer as her mom in V8, and even though Neo one hitting her into the void was such a bad moment, at least it proves that she cares a lot about her sister and knows who her mom is. They use Yang’s family connections sparingly, it feels like. Like they want us to forget she’s related to Ruby and Qrow until they want to tug at our heartstrings.

My favorite thing about the character

Not surprising, maybe, but her family connections in the first five seasons is my favorite thing about Yang. I always saw a lot of myself in Yang through her sisterly dynamic with Ruby, how much Yang clearly loved her and how she pushed her to grow and saw her as strong, but was still always trying to help her and protect her when the need arose. Her dynamic with Qrow and with Tai was also great, with one of the best moments in V3 being Qrow assuring her and Ruby they’d go far - if they never stopped growing. I loved watching Yang prioritize Ruby over Raven, I loved watching her tell Raven ‘I’m not here for you’ and ‘don’t talk about my family like that.’ She’s a lot like Qrow and a lot like Tai, while being her own person too. When she meets back up with Ruby, and Ruby starts apologizing for having left her, and Yang just pulls her into a hug and tells her little sister she loves her, that was the best Yang’s been. It was impactful, because Ruby and Yang’s family were always the most important thing to her. As someone who’s family is the most important thing to her, who has struggled with being in a relationship with a partner who didn’t like that fact, as someone with a beloved little sister two years younger than me who I always felt protective of despite knowing she’s capable and strong just like Yang knew that about Ruby... I really missed that. I’m glad we’re seeing more of it in Yang’s relationship with Ruby again, now I just hope they keep that energy and extend it to Qrow.

A headcanon I have about them

I honestly don’t really like the implication that Yang ‘raised Ruby’ by herself while Tai was shut down. That implies that Yang (aged anywhere from four to six) was given all the parental responsibilities for a few years after Summer died at least, which is pretty blatant neglect. I personally headcanon that Tai’s shut down was more temporary, and that Summer had only been dead for at most a month before Yang (six, in my headcanon) went to find Raven with Ruby and almost died, and that when Qrow saved them and brough them home he moved in for a bit and took over as the primary care giver while Tai recovered. Then after Tai had been recovering for a year and a half to two years and he didn’t need Qrow as much anymore, Qrow started doing his ‘flitting in and out of the picture on the regular’ thing. And Yang was given more responsibilities than she arguably should’ve and did take a bit more of a maternal role with Ruby, but didn’t raise her and didn’t grow up neglected herself. Idk, I just like that so much better.

What I would change about them if I was making a re-write

Hmm... I think I’d have Yang’s PTSD and growth get a bit more focus in V4, and then keep it around longer after V6. I’d also have Summer more clearly important to her, being an inspiration for Yang joining the Huntsman academy and being at the forefront of her mind when she learns about all the magic stuff - asking Qrow if she was involved, what she thought of it all, etc. Past that, I’d just put more focus on her relationships with her family in V6 - V8. That’s not to say that Yang starting a romantic relationship is wrong in any way and I’d still keep that (though I’d have her and Weiss start a confirmed romance rather than her and Blake hinting at having a romance,) I’d just make sure it doesn’t take over Yang’s other relationships and make it clear that the most important person to Yang is and always will be her beloved little sister.

What I I think of their character allusion and what (if anything) I would change about it

Yang’s references to Goldilocks are pretty ‘in name only,’ with the gimmicks being her having blonde hair, her fighting some guy in a bear suit in her first yellow trailer, and her ‘just right’ line in V5 when that creep was hitting on her. There’s not usually a lot of character to give to the ‘Goldilocks’ character (who originally was a silver haired old woman,) so I’m not sure exactly how to fix Yang’s allusion. Maybe extending her stay in Raven’s camp, having Raven present it as a home, but Yang doesn’t want it and knows it’s not where she belongs. Kind of like a swapped three bears story where the bears are trying to pressure Goldilocks to stay in their house and she knows none of it is ‘just right.’ Idk, maybe that’s stupid.

RWBY - Volume 6, Chapter 2 Production Analysis

Vol 6, Ch 1 Production Analysis

It’s very safe to say that between the last production analysis post and every other response and feedback from the fan base in every corner of the internet, the volume 6 RWBY premiere started on an overwhelmingly high note. A lot of notes and criticisms (some more helpful than others) were taken to heart by Kerry Shawcross, Miles Luna and the rest of the production staff and to great effect through a combination of action scenes and comedic character acting. For the chapter that follows, aspects of the production have been applied to arguably just as great of a effect but for different reasons due to the admittedly heavy story beats provided. Let’s dive into all of that.

We can start with one part of Cinder’s scene in the beginning: effects related to water and rain. The first thing to note is the sheen on Cinder’s hair. It’s very fascinating because of how unclear it is as to whether this has anything to do with a new simulation in some plug-in tool or if it’s a small effect done in post-production or something else done together. Could it be something similar to how the process for this bit in episode 7 of season 1 of RWBY Chibi was done or something different is honestly hard to say.

The other effect to touch on is rain. Whether or not this is due to technical limitations or creative choices (or lack thereof), rainy weather started to occasionally be in the show since volume 4 when CRWBY primarily used the Autodesk Maya software as their animation tool. Since then, interactions between the character and environment models and rain have varied slightly such as ripples being faintly seen on raindrops and footsteps. However, this chapter made rain felt more “defined” so-to-speak. Water ripples are more visible and small splashes have appeared for the first time. Unlike the sheen on Cinder’s hair, these instances can more safely be presumed as having been done by the VFX team or Compositing department. What pops-to-mind about all of this is something mentioned in the previous production analysis post, that being the new 2-D FX artist position. When using the term “defined” to describe the rain effects, what this is referring to is how flat they look. This is similar to the smoke and wind effects already seen in the show in latter volumes which were presented specifically to help RWBY further resemble various anime, the medium RWBY is heavily-inspired by:

“The hardest parts were figuring out what kind of effect we wanted. We had a wind effect which drawing air can be a little hard to figure out. I spent a lot of time watching anime and looking at different ways in which people had drawn air and trying to come up with something that would resemble 2-D but have a very 3-D feel to it. We also had some fireballs that had to be developed from scratch that required not only coming up with the base of it, but also with some anime-esque flares so that was kind of neat to explore.”

- Jeff Yohn, VFX Artist, CRWBY Behind the Episode Season 1 - Anima Skies Fight.

It’s possible that Myke Chapman, as the 2-D FX Artist may have had something to do with this in particular. The push to make RWBY feel like an anime but in 3-D in as many appropriate ways as possible is definitely an admirable goal. There was a small concern regarding the possibility of the same visual effects, 2-D or 3-D, becoming reused a bit too frequently since not all effects in anime look the same and that’s largely to do with the animator in charge of cuts. However, this concern has been covered but more on that later.

Next is the setting everyone loves, the Mistral house. In all seriousness, It’s no secret that most of the fandom have expressed frustrations with this setting to some degree, even Nora made a tongue-in-cheek comment about it. But this scene is at least worth comparing to previous ones in the same setting throughout volume 5. The reason has to do with the character models. One big change made to volume 6′s overall aesthetic was the choice of overall lighting, being brighter compared to volume 5′s softer, warmer look. But a smaller change made were the inclusion of more line art and shading on certain physical features of most characters. When comparing between the same characters in the same setting, certain characters like Jaune and Qrow will have lines to form the collarbone unlike the last couple of volumes while other characters like Yang and Oscar/Ozpin have shading the present the folds in parts on their tops not previously seen. Even Weiss when looking back at the previous chapter will have a bit of shading on the rib cage area of her clothing to hell sell how tight they are.

This is not the first time this sort of thing has been done in RWBY as this was done to more of a much greater degree in volumes 2 & 3 when Poser was the primary animation software. The differences being that now there’s likely more of a simulation applied for the shading as oppose to being directly painted on to the models in earlier volumes. As a result, the line art for the physical features are applied more subtly. That’s the key word here, “subtly”. They are used just enough to define physical traits but not so much so that they risk coming off as distracting. When line work on characters were more heavily applied in volumes 2 & 3, the results varied. Sometimes they worked out okay while other times the line work were weird and confusing regarding how the bone and muscle structure even worked. To get a good idea of how much line work, shading, and overall form can make a difference in character design, 2-D or 3-D, Anime Ajay made a comparison of the character designs of Broly for the Dragon Ball Super film and in various Dragon Ball projects in latter years. I can only imagine how much of a broken record I am being for using Anime Ajay’s videos as go-to means of illustrating some points, but his insight on anime production and design and animation principles are worth paying mind to whether one cares for the Dragon Ball franchise or not.

Next are a couple of other things within the house scene, first being the relic. Many fans questioned and speculated why the artifact changed size from scene-to-scene and it’s through the shot of Ozpin how this happens. The seamless size adjustment is not at all bad, but the way handle grew bigger on Ozpin’s hand made it a bit too seamless. Perhaps if one close-up shot of the handle was shown first to indicate how Ozpin needed to adjust the way he held on to the relic and then followed with the original medium shot of the relic as a whole would have helped the size change would’ve been a bit better. But this is all just a nitpick. The other thing to touch on in the scene is Nora’s brief manic moment. There’s not a whole lot to say on it since such scenes have been done before with Nora’s character to great effect, but this probably most crazed version seen yet. The timing on this one is much more rapid than in previous instances with split-second cutting between characters, spontaneous reactions, smears in the animation, the one extreme close-up shot of Nora’s eyes and the tea kettle sound effect just cranks up the comedic nature. What probably sells it though is how Ren and Ozpin’s calm and easy-going personalities serve as the perfect juxtaposition to help immediately bring down high energy. I have no idea who animated the scene and I can’t say much about the editing besides the fact that Connor Pickens is still the lead editor despite also being a co-director. But whatever the case behind-the-scenes, the humor was perfect here.

With all of that said, here comes one of the biggest highlights of the episode in terms of breaking down the presentation and speculating the production. What most fans talked about this episode were the animation and Jinn’s design more than anything else. Both cases are very much worth paying mind to. The snowy scene where everyone’s hair and clothes flowed strongly in response to the wind and much of the character acting was top-notch, especially since Asha Bishi was confirmed to have animated it (her knack for creating expression through animal ears and other traits I’ve mentioned before here). And Jinn’s design is definitely otherworldly in terms of how she’s animated and the particle effects done on her model. However, what made this episode were the storyboards.

There are many resources about the production of RWBY throughout the volumes. In terms of learning about the various animators, the ending credits in each volume are a great starting point and from there, blu-ray audio commentary tracks, animator demo reels, tweets, convention panels and production diary videos are all constructive ways to familiarize oneself with the animation styles. It’s the main reason I managed to make the Animators Spotlight series of post in the first place. However, finding the same quantity information from other departments is scarce in comparison and thus a more challenging task. It’s one thing to at least learn the general process behind how a stage in the show’s production is approached in a given volume. But it’s a whole other thing entirely to pinpoint who exactly is responsible for a certain trick in the visual effects or an intricate-looking prop in an environment design. The same problem can especially apply to the storyboards and camera layouts since both departments share some of the same people but one person working on the boards in a scene may not necessarily also be doing the layouts in that same scene. It’s also hard to indicate when one the task of boards change from one person to another in a given chapter. Unlike storyboard artists in anime which are usually assigned to one person per episode, making it easier to indicate the choices in visual direction and cinematography, the number of artists assigned to board an episode of RWBY have varied between 2-6 people. Without much evidence to indicate who exactly did which parts of the storyboards, it can be near impossible to tell the visual languages different artists have brought into the show.

There is one exception however. One storyboard and camera layout artist that has been around in RWBY’s production since volume 3 contributed a great quantity to the show and there’s much evidence out there to suggest it. That person is Rachel Doda, whose name has been referred to in previous posts. Through most of the same sources mentioned earlier to learn about which cuts different animators have done, there is quite a bit of confirmation as to which scenes she provided storyboards or camera layouts for. The aftermath of Shion village, Qrow and Raven’s talk at the tavern at Higanbana, Weiss in her father’s office, Yang confronting the bandits, the entire Weiss character short, the volume 4 opening, Tyrian’s breakdown moment and Oscar vs Leo, all to name a few have been confirmed to be handled by her through either storyboards or camera layouts. Between these scenes and the patterns seen in them, it’s possible that she did the boards and/or layout for the snow scene in this chapter of volume 6.

Certain visual techniques can be seen between these examples alone, one of which were actually confirmed from Rachel’s mouth herself via episode 11 of RWBY Rewind for volume 5:

“I work as a story and layout artist and in particular for this episode, I was a final camera artist. So what you’re seeing right now is the animatic with storyboards done by Kevin Harger of this little moment that happens in the episode where Oscar goes up against Leo. Then after it goes into animatic, it goes into pre-layout and animation and what was cool about this moment was this was a moment where we had to be collaborative with the animator and with camera.

I got the animator stuff (animator was John Yang) and I looked at it and compared it to the boards and I thought, “this is the first time I believe that we get to see Oscar use Ozpin’s cane in combat!” So for me, I was like, “let’s show off the cane as much as we can.” I’m a sucker for stuff that comes up into the foreground a lot and that shot where he raises it (the cane) right into the foreground, I like really resonated with that because to me that was like, “oh, it’s like fencing!” Or in particular, like epee. I want that to be a huge focus so, depending on where the camera goes, it’s like “hey, I want to lead your eye from one point to the other.”

I grew up with anime a lot when I was a kid, so seeing that stuff come to life is amazing.”

Having the viewer’s eye be drawn to a certain object closer to the camera can be seen in various shots she did boards or layouts for. Sometimes it’s to make the shot dynamic while other times is to provide a sense of staging or blocking. Certain other techniques that have been seen in her boards are rotation shots and panning shots that put a character in the background in focus. There are also long shots where the camera pans from a much farther distance to indicate the different kinds of relationships between characters or who is more dominant and submissive respectively or which characters are otherwise the focus of the scene.

Again, the long-winded point behind studying Rachel Doda’s approaches within her line of work in particular is to help compare to the snow scene with the main cast this chapter. It’s all to be on the same page in order to speculate how some of the shots may have come from her. Instances such as Ruby looking at the relic in the foreground or this shot where it aptly shows how Ozpin is pressured to defend himself against the members of Team RWBY through the use of height in the terrain can be compared to some of her other faraway panning shots. Of course it follows with a more high angle shot where Yang, Weiss and Blake are framed to surround Ozpin as he further attempts to defend himself. Then there’s one instance where the camera pans to showing Ruby possessing the relic and it follows with a clever shot of Ozpin’s hand being lowered after his arguments were questioned. Next is Oscar’s hand towards the camera as he tries to restrain Ozpin which is similar to the types of foreground-focused shots quoted from Rachel that she has done before. And then there are the moments of hair and clothing flowing in the wind for dramatic effect. In the first instance where Ozpin talked about Leo, the comparison can be made to Qrow telling Raven why it’s important to be told of the Spring Maiden’s whereabouts as a visually-timed period to their sentences. Now there is a strong possibility that all of this speculation could be way off and Kevin Harger, Cassidy Stone, or Veronica Valencia could have done the boards for this snow scene or even the next one. Whatever the case, hopefully, this will at the very least further entice food-for-thought and discussions regarding the various techniques in visual direction and who may be responsible for what.

Moving on, this would be a good time to talk about something rarely ever mentioned in any of these RWBY production posts before: voice acting. By now, many fans have been made aware of the fact that more and more of the ensemble cast in the show have been voiced by talent who spent their careers dubbing anime in Dallas or Houston Texas via titles from Funimation or Sentai Filmworks. What not as many people may be aware of though is how remarkable for casting choices like this to still happen given the current anime dubbing climate. Since the success of Space Dandy on the Toonami programming block on Adult Swim, Funimation started doing “broadcast dubs” or now called “simuldubs.” This practice is a similar but more time crunch approach to simulcasts where the episodes are provided from whatever licensing companies in Japan to premiere an anime dubbed within either a few weeks or some cases like My Hero Academia and Re:Tokyo Ghoul, the same day. This same practice recently started earlier in 2018 with Sentai Filmworks and HiDive under the name “dubcasts”. Whatever the name, it has made for stressful scheduling on voice directors, script writers, voice actors, and engineers and has led to sometimes cases of voice actors initially cast to not being able to do a part due to being sick or other matters.

In the case of My Hero Academia’s voice director and the voice of Momo Yayorozu, Colleen Clinkenbeard, not only is the scheduling especially tight, but when she started voice casting and dubbing the movie in July, she had to give the responsibility of dubbing the rest of season 3 to Clifford Chapin, the voice of Bakugo and Shay D. Mann from RWBY, to name a couple of his roles. Similarly, another voice actress named Luci Christian, who voices Ochako Uraraka from My Hero Academia, also does quite a bit of voice acting between Funimation and Sentai Filmworks and is also involved in various simuldubs and dubcasts. So for both of them to manage to record the voices of Jinn and Little Miss Malachite respectively in this chapter is astonishing to say the least. Casting of anime dub voice actors in the show started since volume 3 and went full force in volume 4 when Marissa Lenti of Sound Cadence studios started providing additional casting. And it has definitely brought the attention of those who have played a part such as Cherami Leigh as Ilia Amitola and those who want to play a part like Cristina Vee. But back in 2016, same-day simuldubs had not yet been done since Space Dandy and only a lot more shows have gotten that close scheduling treatment since then.

Lastly, there’s the scene that ends the episode to breakdown. More striking shots of the stance and side between characters were definitely well-framed in this last segment. But this is also a good time to revisit the matter of visual effects and compositing. The smoke effect when the tower and props appeared in a white void helped address the minor concern brought up earlier about whether the VFX team would resort to using the same kind of look for certain effects. Where smoke has generally been presented to be more cel-shaded in latter volumes, here the smoke emitted from Jinn is a lot more wispy and grainy. This is to help further indicate how the overall post-production process requires just as much creative input as it does technical. And then there’s Salem herself. Her surprise reveal definitely left an impact on viewers but it also served as an example of a callback to the shot that revealed her current design. One example is more stoic and menacing while the other is more innocent and melancholic. This is far from the first visual callback in the show as Cinder stabbing Weiss in chapter 11 of volume 5 was another instance as explained by Rachel Doda in the same RWBY Rewind episode quoted earlier:

“So for storyboards, what we’ll do is we’ll go in and talk with the director and we’ll see what their vision is and what they want, we’ll give them options, we’ll give them thumbnails. Sometimes we’re given enough freedom where we’re like, “oh we can just do whatever we want and then come back to the director”. In this case, I believe Kerry was very specific about what he wanted for this moment. And for me personally, looking at this, you get a bunch of callbacks to Pyrrha’s death. But you also get a callback to Amber’s.”

And that is the end of chapter 2′s production analysis. The action was definitely absent this episode, but that is not at all a bad thing. The cinematography and character expressions this episode were the definitely what helped make the story as engaging as it was for fans, with staging as the primary means to create tension and rift between Ozpin and literally everyone else. The vfx and compositing also played quite a secondary role, specifically with Jinn’s character and her overall presence in the story. And of course, the contribution of the Dallas voice acting talent pool continues to be a pleasant treat, despite tighter schedules due to the growth of simuldubs. With the episode setting up what may potentially be a hefty backstory, it’ll be interesting to see what creative and technical choices are to be shown in chapter 3.