Previous Volume 6 Production Analysis Posts:

Chapters one, two, three, four, five, six, & seven

With chapter 7 behind us, we were now at the halfway point of what has been a generally stellar volume so far due to the various small changes in the production that has led to quite a bit of pay-off in the overall presentation. Now that chapter 8 is out to also mark the show taking a brief holiday break the week after, let’s digest to see what else is there to offer.

Kicking off the episode is what is collectively considered one of the most bizarre scenes in terms of presentation alone in this volume, though not unintentionally. This was first seen though the ending shot in chapter 7 and this one makes sure the tone is consistent. Through a combination of snappy camera movements akin to Nora’s more light-hearted scenes, overly exaggerated character acting and even a touch of wacky sound effects like the whip cracking, it’s very clear the two Nubuck guards exist to provide a stern yet oddball aura to them. And with the introduction of Caroline Cordovin and her interactions with the main cast soon after, most of the scene stays very eccentric. My first guess as to who provided the storyboards for at least part of, if not all of this segment was Cassidy Stone who I mentioned in the last production analysis as the one who did a fair portion of the boards for the main cast meeting Jaune’s sister and her family. Just about all of her confirmed scenes have been comedic and portray similar snappy camera zooms and pans, specifically panning from one character to another for close-up reaction shots that was previously seen in the ramen dinner scene in chapter 7 of volume 5. There’s also this tendency to have one character framed closer to the camera in the middle dividing the rest of the cast in the shot, something also seen in a couple of the storyboards Cassidy has provided before. Though it’s currently unconfirmed whether she actually did this segment, so everything stated is simply educated guessing. She might not even be the only storyboard artist on the team that utilizes such techniques.

All that being said, in terms of animation, it was confirmed that Nicole LaCroix animated both the Nubuck guards and Caroline in this sequence. Whether it’s entirely of part of the scene is unclear but at least this helps provide a bit more context in terms of how she and she alone animates characters in comparison to what she supposedly did in chapter 2 where team RWBY interrogated Ozpin. For the sake of avoiding any confusion, the supposed order in that scene is Nicole LaCroix animated the part where Yang argues with Ozpin, then Collin McAtee’s sequence of Oscar fighting for control against Ozpin and finally Asha Bishi who animated the part where Jinn is summoned. The exact cut off points between each animator and their sequences are unclear, but this is where some extensive guesswork comes into play. Let’s say that perhaps Nicole animated the from the cut when Yang questions Ozpin about Lionheart all the way through when Ozpin argues back about being betrayed before. When comparing the character acting in that part of that chapter to that of the Atlessian Argus base scene in this chapter, some similarities can be seen. Of course the tonal nature of the two scenes are night and day and thus the animation is influenced by that, pushing the envelope of squash-&-stretch. But in terms of how the characters move in general between the two scenes, be it zany or subdued, a pattern can be seen of the characters making key poses when shifting their heads or expressing a gesture that feels as if there’s this trajectory in how they move. It could even be argued that every other movement is in an arc which follows one of the 12 principles of animation. Imagine if the character animation in the Ozpin scene in chapter 2 being a much more subdued version of the animation As always, until there’s confirmation, this is all just food-for-thought.

Let us address one more part of the Atlessian base scene before moving on to the rest of the episode, that being the voice cast for the new characters. The former is voiced by Mela Lee, known especially for the voices of Rin Tohsaka from every Bang Zoom California dub of the Fate franchise and Rachel Alucard from the Blazblue series. What was most surprising about this was how much deeper the pitch Mela used was compared to most of her anime dub roles. And then there’s Kyle Phillips, the voice of the Nubuck guards who is more known in anime dubbing as the voices of Denki Kaminari from My Hero Academia and Marco from One Piece. Fun fact, this makes Kyle yet another of a growing handful of voice actors to be cast in RWBY who had done voice directing work for an anime dub. Other voice actors who previous did ADR directing include Chris Sabat who voices Arther Watts, Mike McFarland who voiced Fennec Albain, Colleen Clinkenbeard who voices Jinn, J Michael Tatum who voices Klein Seiben, Aaron Dismuke who voices Oscar, Clifford Chapin, who voiced Shay D. Mann and Monica Rial who voiced Sienna Khan. It’s also worth noting as a side note that Kyle Phillips has a Youtube channel where he has posted outtakes and other behind-the-scenes of certain recent simuldubs he was the voice director of, including the third and final installment of Fairy Tail, Ace Attorney, The Ancient Magus Bride, Overlord, Hinamatsuri and Hanebado.









With all of that said, let’s move on to the next scene at the Cotta-Arc home which features somewhat subtle yet competent visual direction. It especially shows the moment Jaune attacks Oscar with the editing the cuts to be timed in a rapid-fire pace to help indicate how heated the former is. Then animation plays the role of capturing both Jaune’s regret towards his actions as well as his frustration and him being unsure of what to do with it all. There’s also Oscar’s response through his body language that shows Oscar how frightened he feels to the point where even when Jaune was about to go up the stairs after backing off, he just flinched. Though probably the icing on the cake was this show of each member of Team RWBY separated by the stair banisters with the shot of Oscar staring at the front door with the doorway to the room being framed behind him at a close second. The show has consistently aimed for better visual direction since volume 3 and shots from certain scenes this volume have been especially striking. But there has been an ongoing pattern where objects like windows, trees and stairs have consistently been used to provide framing that further emphasize the context of characters and the story being conveyed in a given scene. I have no idea if there is one specific storyboard artist applying this or if it’s the result of Kerry Shawcross as the director and all the storyboard artist comparing notes or something else altogether. Either way, this is further signifying that RWBY can have a lot more going on with its presentation than its fight sequences.

Lastly is Ruby and Maria’s scene in the backyard. While there is a bit to talk about in terms of shot composition and the animation, there’s also a couple of small production notes from one of the audio department’s sound designers/recording engineers, Phillip Spann on Twitter. The first was that when Ruby mentioned Jinn to Maria, the sound of Jinn’s chains were heard mixed in with the wind chimes. It’s faint and really easy to miss, but when listening to the sound during Jinn’s introduction and and the cut with Ruby’s line back-to-back, it’s there. The second thing is the sound effect for Maria’s semblance, an audio cue very akin to Emerald’s. It can be heard right after Ruby asks Maria what her semblance is via a high pitch sound building up. This was also heard about four times in her flashback against Tock and the other bandits. Kerry Shawcross as the director has been criticized quite a bit in the past for not applying enough “show, don’t tell” into RWBY’s presentation during volume 5′s run. As much as he took that to heart and utilized visual language very consistently, he, along with audio lead, Chris Kokkinos and the rest of the audio department, do also put a lot of consideration into communicating aspects of the story through sound as well, something he gets nowhere near enough credit for.

Moving on to the rest of the scene, there have been quite a few bits of quality character acting between Ruby and Maria’s interaction, a bit of which was confirmed to have been done by Hannah Novotny. All that was made clear was that she animated the shot of Ruby standing up, gladly wanting to talk about her silver eyes, but I’m willing to bet her sequence started from when Ruby tells Maria where everyone else is to Ruby assuming Maria was proud of herself after the latter told her story of how she pursued being a huntress. One of her calling cards that can be seen is the extensive yet subtle use of anticipatory action in the way both characters move. As a side note, there was also a bit where gets upset for admitting she didn’t know much about the silver eyes and her hands do what is not quite a smear, but definitely has a stretch and arc motion effect before she folds her arms. Skipping to a little later in the scene, there’s this silly, fun bit with Ruby doing this eager gesture with her fingers when she asks how to use her abilities in the most absurd way imaginable. Her facial and hand expressions both in that shot and in another one when Ruby gets bopped on the head provide a great, solid reminder of the titular character’s “adorkable” nature. Something else that complimented the moment was Maria adjusting herself by crossing her legs which combined with the way she twirls and rests her weapon on her hand felt perfectly timed to show the character is getting into a teaching mode. Hannah Novonty said she couldn’t remember who did the part with Ruby, but my first guess is Asha Bishi since such deliberate secondary action seems to be her forte. That or it could be another animator who I’m currently oblivious to in terms of putting that kind of thought into the animation.

Finally, there’s the storyboards, which Rachel Doda more or less stated she did. Similar with Hannah’s animation, one or two or Rachel’s tells through her techniques can be seen, such as having two characters face each other in a long shot while the camera pans and blocking of the lemons from the tree up close immediately drawing attention from the viewer while Ruby is afar. Though one aspect of the boards that peaks my curiosity are the butterflies. Obviously given the choice of colors on their wings, they help represent the silver eyes and add a more spiritual atmosphere in the garden setting. One could even go as far as to argue that butterflies represent souls of silver eyes. It wouldn’t be a stretch either considering the connotations in different cultures such as the Aztecs and Japanese (think of the Hell Butterflies from Bleach as an example). With all that being said, I’m not sure how much of presentation of butterflies was Rachel Doda’s idea specifically or how much was Kerry Shawcross. One particular reason I think it might be the latter may have had a strong input is because Kerry was the one that wrote the scene with Jaune training through Pyrrha’s recording. in the forest in chapter 2 of volume 4 according to the blu-ray director’s audio commentary of that volume.

“This was uh, hopefully doesn’t sound douche-y, this was the first time I cried while writing. But yeah, I was sitting in the room listening to Pyrrha in my head and then I started, it was like, if people were watching me, it looked schizophrenic where I started crying and then went (gasp) and then started typing and had that smile on my face.”





What that scene had in common with Ruby and Maria’s was the use of insects, specifically fireflies, to imply an attuned, spiritual atmosphere. And just like butterflies, fireflies also have a very spiritual aspect to them in certain cultures, namely Japanese. Since Kerry is also the main director and a co-writer, it’s very possible he discussed with the Rachel Doda about having the butterflies be ever-present within the scene.





This episode went through the same challenge as last week’s by transitioning the tone but in the opposite way by going from comedic to serious which then led to a more tranquil yet fairly optimistic scene. Though like last week’s episode, chapter 8 handled the shifts in tone very well. With a two-week break for the holidays, the episode of RWBY Rewind that coincided with this chapter and in it left a preview for chapter 9 that unlike previous ones, was met with small backlash among certain critics. The critic that did initiate the criticism did apologize for their phrasing and the willingness to do so is highly appreciative, but it still needs to be made clear regardless that the preview as shown had no animation errors. In fact, based on a couple of educated opinions on the matter from fans, what people were responding to was the compositing of characters and objects or perhaps lack thereof since that last stage in the visual aspect of the production may not have started yet at the time. Again, not a matter of animation, but compositing for a work-in-progress clip that is meant to be a preview for an episode meant to air in two-weeks as of the time that clip was first shown. It’s something that can be seen in other previews for professional animated projects, including something as high profile as the Dragon Ball Super: Broly movie.

Hopefully, this will help douse any further misconceptions about the quality of the show’s production for the next episode. Until chapter 9 comes out, let’s give the CRWBY a break for once and let them have a happy holidays.

