Series Craft: Director Barth Maunoury Breaks Down An Emotional ‘Arcane’ Sequence

The first chapter in the Arcane: League of Legends story — more specifically, the story of orphan sisters Vi (voiced in the U.S. by Hailee Steinfeld) and Jinx (Ella Purnell) fighting against oppressors in the downtrodden city of Zaun — came to a rousing close November 23 on Netflix. A global sensation that attracted hardcore gamers dedicated to Riot Games’ online player-versus-player video game, and audiences unfamiliar with the fandom, Arcane is the rare video game adaptation that retained its 100% positive Rotten Tomatoes critic score across two seasons.

Arcane’s dynamic, dimensional manga look is the work of Paris-based animation studio, Fortiche. The series’ animation style was initially developed making Riot Games tournament music videos, blending 2d and 3d animation with an overlay of painterly strokes meant to embrace imperfections not usually seen in video games, or animated video game adaptations.

The second season was full of emotional and visually arresting sequences through all nine episodes, so it was difficult to pick a season “best” example. [Warning: There are spoilers ahead if you haven’t yet watched the second season.]

Instead, we asked Fortiche director and head of character animation Barth Maunoury to walk us through a sequence that features an array of techniques and also holds serious story consequences: the sacrifice of Jinx’s mute companion Isha – who heroically saves the life of her childhood friend, empowered by a stream of flashbacks that intercut the action – at the end of “The Message Hidden Within the Pattern.”

To illustrate his answers, Maunoury and Fortiche provided colorscript paintings, and environmental matte paintings from the sequence.

Boarding The Sequence

Barth Maunoury: From the moment we received the final version of the script, the ending didn’t change. We knew what had to happen to all our characters. But with Stéphane Annette and Gilad Carmel, lead story artist and editor of the episode, and Pascal Charrue and Arnaud Delord (supervising directors), we worked for a long time on a non-linear structure for the episode. Unfortunately, with all the new elements in the episode (Jayce’s return, Viktor’s commune), we realized that it would be better to go back to a more classic structure that would be more satisfying for viewers and allow us not to miss out on the emotion we needed to convey.

Animating To Eason Chan’s “这样很好 (Isha’s Song)”

Maunoury: Since the first season of Arcane, we’ve been accustomed to designing our sequences with sample music. This allows us to quickly establish the desired mood for the scene, and clearly communicate intentions with Riot’s music team. For season two, we were lucky enough to be able to work with definitive versions of the music earlier in the production process, enabling us to work on the images as closely as possible to the musical emotion.

For this sequence, we decided on a very melancholy British rock track with a very intense surge that perfectly suited the mood we were aiming for. This time, we only received the final music at the end of the episode’s production, and even though it was very different from the temporary version, it perfectly captured the emotions we were looking for.

How Color Scripts Help Tell The Story

After (or during) the storyboard stage, we quickly set up this very important colorscript step with Julien Georgel, the art director, because all the elements that appear in the image are at the service of the narrative, right down to the color. The time of day, the weather, the color of the building… nothing is left to chance. We make at least one vignette per sequence (sometimes several), allowing us to see at a glance how the episode evolves in its dramaturgy. In this sense, this episode is no different from the others, even if its colorscript is particularly successful.

The Look of Isha’s Memories

Maunoury: I have to confess that the idea came gradually. There had always been a desire to have an atmosphere and colors that contrasted with the horror of reality, but it was focused on the set. During the first versions of the compositing (the final stage where all the elements are assembled), we felt that the idea could be taken a step further. I did a first test by redrawing and adding doodles to a close-up of Jinx and Isha jumping in the sky to bring back that playful side, as if Isha had drawn her memories. Once we’d agreed on the look of the image, we divided up the work with several artists to “doodle” all the souvenir shots. We had to work fast, as the deadline was getting dangerously close! But we’re very happy with the result.

The Scene That Landed Most

Maunoury: The last look Isha gives Jinx disarms me every time, the animation in this shot is magnificent.

Readers may view the full sequence as a Netflix Youtube clip here: