Hey everyone, this is Monty Oum. And I'm Kerry Shawcross.
And we're here to give you a behind the scenes look at
RWBY Volume 2. We're gonna show you storyboards, models,
cool animations; everything that makes RWBY what it is.
But to be on the safe side, if there's anything
too spoiler-ish, we'll make sure to have
editorial bleep or blur it out.
So, let's get started!
"Hellooo! I believe
you two may.....know each other?"
"Aren't you that girl that exploded?"
"Uhh, yeah!"
"My name's Ruby."
I think the fans especially,
find that RWBY is just some- something that is very
different. It has a
very unique spark to it that's very hard to
describe. I think what also keeps
people coming back is, the shows got a lot of heart
and you really learn to
care about these characters really quickly.
So, Volume 2 of
RWBY gives us an opportunity to
explore more of the
setup we started last year.
"We have big plans for you Roman."
M: I'm super jazzed about Volume 2.
K: Yeah, uh M: Because we- we have
all the character- we have character introductions
out of the way. We've kind of set the stage and
now we get to really hit the ground running.
So I'm really looking forward to spending some more
time at Beacon, getting to know the school.
We're going to get to be introduced more characters from
the different kingdoms of Remnant.
"Salutations!"
We'll get to know some more about what's really
going on with the Grimm
and what are they really capable of.
K: But, yeah. We're just- we're happy that we, now we have this base
to go off of and start, you know, telling
a much bigger story. M: Yeah.
Well, we just wrapped up about two months or so
of pre-production. What that entails is
uh, a lot of planning. Miles and
Kerry off uh, developing twelve scripts.
M: Do you wanna see the writing proce-? Here's the writing process.
K: Yeah.
Alright uh, it's- it's ten am.
K: Alright. M: And scene.
Did you....
see the new Godzilla trailer?
K: Uhhhhhh
No, not yet.....do you wanna
M: Want me to pull it up?
M: Nice.
K: Yeah M: Yeah, yeah no yeah uhhh
K: "Yeah, no yeah" comes up a lot. M: "Yeah, no yeah" is like our catchphrase
It's- it's "Yes,
I do think that's a good idea. No,
don't doubt yourself! Yes, let's move forward-" it's
K: Yeah, no yeah M: Yeah, no yeah. Yeah, no yeah that's good. K: Yeah, no yeah
Then it's time to bring in the cast.
And, this time around the table read
of chapter one, part of chapter two.
Just to reacquaint all the actors with each other
and get used to uh, what'd be
like to actually be able to read off of
each other. Which is an experience they don't
generally get once they're in the booth.
"Yang Xiao Long, prepare your kingdom for battle!"
"Bring it on!"
Once the scripts are more or less considered locked,
there's a shot listing process.
We're trying to treat it
not unlike a live-action production or
a bigger scale animated movie
where you don't want animators to be wasting their
time later on anything that's not gonna actually
wind up in the final edit. So you have to be very careful.
"Jaune! I'm sorry!"
RWBY is making heavy
use of the tool "Poser" by SmithMicro.
You can go ahead and
set up the set and move the characters
around like you're actually rehearsing actors.
Aaannnd, you're figuring out blocking and what's gonna
work or what's not gonna work. So you're solving a
lot of problems early.
Ya know, so the good thing about us using "Poser"
uhh to actually board the shots
is that, when we're done the animators
actually have a template
to work from. And since they have a layout
file, it can help their process because
they can just start right
here on the shot and
just animate the characters themselves and not
have to worry about
"Where does Ruby go? Where does Weiss go?" You know?
So, um, that kinda speeds the process along.
"Oh the amount of planning and organization
that goes into this event is simply breathtaking!"
We've got writing and storyboarding
which serve as the blueprints for
the story that we wanna tell this year.
But, then there's a lot more that happens after that.
So we thought we'd introduce you to the
various part of the production pipeline by
following the supporting character of "Velvet" that we
introduced in Volume 1, and follow
her from concept to modeling, in how she comes to
life in the recording booth, and in the
animation and in the edit. But the first thing that
we need to figure out is, what's the look
of her new combat gear gonna be?
With the amount of fanart and-and uh, that I see
done by our community members,
I feel like it would be a great opportunity to
have them contribute to one of our characters,
who is also voiced by one of the community members.
Here we are with, uh, heh
some of the submissions from the Velvet Scarletina
uh, design contest.
Here we have the voice of Velvet,
community member Catie Ward.
Uh, this was tough. I mean we've got a lot
here and I kinda had to insist her help
to whittle it down from the
over 1,300 submissions.
Uh, from all you talented artists out there.
Y-you were really able to
kinda like, uhm, whittle it down for me. So this is great.
C: It was a little heart breaking, especially when you
know how much effort people put into these things.
M: It- it is really heartbreaking,
but it was a lot of fun looking through all of them
and we're down to the top twenty-five!
Which is still a lot.
C: The first scene Velvet was in,
you see her being picked on by Cardin.
"OW! That hurts!"
"Please stop."
I don't think people have seen enough of her
yet to completely....
create a... a character for her.
M: So, yeah. We wrote in Velvet just kind of as
a small demonstration of what
it meant to be a Fanus. And the
fans immediately loved her.
M: I often tend to take influence from
really any direction possible to
leave it open to this sort of influence but then
be like, well maybe
it's something the art could inspire.
This- this is one of the things where it just generates natural
conversation, which I like.
M: We just needed a girl with bunny ears, K: Yeah
M: and now we have a badass character with bunny ears!
K: It's good that we didn't go- we almost went with a dude with an elephant trunk.
Probably woulda turned out not good. M: Not as cool.
M: See, ok. So I really like this one,
but at the same time it also
feels like something I cou- I would use for another character.
C: Hm, true M: Ok, so let's put this aside.
C: Alright, so that's a no pile? M: This is a no for me.
C: Alright, that's ok!
With the coat, this one's I guess more stealthy?
M: It, at first glance looks very
conventional. But if you actually look very closely
she's wearing some very unique leg armor.
Where Velvet is wearing whats called "Pumpkin Panties"
C: We've agreed on that we do really quite like the coat.
M: Yeah, like I like this just for an
"on-the-town" Velvet design.
C: What about for her glasses?
M: I do like the idea of- I don't know why
I didn't think of putting Velvet in glasses.
I mean, she is training to be a huntress.
But this seems like she's like a vampire hunter or-
It's very dark for her. A little too dark for her.
C: It's- it's too Yang?
M: Sometimes they're just- we don't pick a design
through complications of how something
might be rigged. For example, these two long tails here.
Uh, Nora at one point had a
design similar where it's just, her bow was
enormous and she had two long tails but I
didn't want to encumber her movement.
I'll put this on the "no" simply for
it might be more complicated than it's worth.
C: I mean, even with the fan submissions that we
saw for Velvet's costume, I think
it's really quite
poetic that the fans got to choose what
she was to look like. And that, you know,
staff at RoosterTeeth decided that they
wanted a fan to play her. It just sort of
shows that RoosterTeeth is still very committed to
their community and also I'm super exited about it.
So, this one is my favorite.
I love this a lot and I- I- it's
really difficult for me to explain why.
You can sort of see hints of like, how that could be armor.
M: And at the same time it's like,
whatever it is under this it- I mean that could
be just normal everyday denim blue jeans.
C: I- I also think that I- I would
like to cosplay as this. Like, this is something that's so-
it looks very simple to be able to do.
M: So I would- I... I'm very
much on board with this one being the final design.
Congratulations to uh, username "Munnkie?"
C: Yeah! This is you!
M: Excellent job!
Uh, that was-
There were- there was a lot of competition, but
you just did something very unique
and that really stood out for us and we're gonna
hopefully live up to this design as much as possible.
We'll be seeing more of her, so...
Yes, this is great! Thanks a lot!
Thank you for tuning into this first production
diary! Next time we'll take a look at
how these concepts get translated into the
3-D models that get animated into the show!
Yep, so uh we'll see you next time.
Jesus
M: Get to work!
cc by strikinghope