A round of applause for the storyboard artists.
League of Legends show Arcane, the final season of which is getting a staggered release on Netflix this month, has been much praised for the quality of its animation, which comes from French studio Fortiche. The goal was to “create an animated series that has the fidelity of what you see in animated movies,” showrunner Christian Linke recently told GamesRadar.
During an earlier Q&A with press and influencers at Riot HQ last month—we’d just seen an early screening of Arcane season 2’s first episode—Linke took a moment to specifically praise some of the “unsung heroes” from Fortiche who’ve worked on the show: the storyboard artists.
The imaginary cameras through which we view each animated scene are “only about clarity” for a lot of animators, Linke said, but “for Fortiche, it’s about style”—using the camera to “hide things” from the viewer and to “make statements.”
And it’s storyboard artists, who compose shot-by-shot breakdowns of each scene, who are responsible for defining much of that camera work and storytelling before it’s put into motion.
“You have to be a master of physics, camera work, and acting,” to be a great storyboarder, Linke said. “No one will see their work, but they’re masters.”
(Other animation artists are arguably equally anonymous, because even if their work makes it to the screen it’s not as if “Maxime did this” is scrawled directly across it, but I only say so because it’s my nature to unhelpfully quibble over technicalities, not because I disagree that storyboarders deserve acknowledgement for their behind-the-scenes masterworks.)
Arcane’s second season, which will be its final season, is dropping in three episode chunks throughout November—three more episodes air this weekend, and three more next.
Another animation-related tidbit that’s come out of recent interviews regards a certain romantic scene in season 2: Linke said that animation director Barthelemy Maunoury told him that the team “wouldn’t have been able to do it well” had it been written into the first season, because it wasn’t as technically capable then. He didn’t go into details, but I take it that it’s hard to make lips behave like lips, no matter how talented the animation team.
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