Probably the most hotly-anticipated panel at this year’s Annecy Festival — allegedly, people were camping out to get in the queue — Fortiche’s presentation of behind the scenes material on the upcoming season of Arcane showed some fascinating insight to their process behind this atypically prestigious production. The League of Legends adaptation isn’t just popular; it also represents something of a sea change at the studio, sparking a move from creative production (primarily music videos) into original work, with a recent Studio Focus session (the company’s first) announcing their first feature film, Penelope of Sparta.
As for Arcane itself, the second (and final) season, due to be released on Netflix in November, has taken four years to write and produce, the team citing six hours of footage containing over 9,000 shots, produced by 450 people across three studios, with work still ongoing. Fortiche Producer Christine Ponzevera called it “three feature films worth” of footage, but also said that with that in mind their timeline was shorter than it sounds, as “half of what it took to produce season one,” which was produced over seven years (plus extra for preproduction and initial scripts).
The team spoke some about the lessons learned from Season 1, with director Barthélémy Maunoury mentioning a bar scene, noting that it still “felt too nice” and deciding on adding a bit more grit to the environs of season two — demonstrated through mood board references to a club scene from Trainspotting, a fight from Snatch. Most of all though, the Fortiche and Riot creatives emphasized that production on Season 2 was defined by a more collaborative workflow from the very beginning, with scripting closely intertwined with look development and preproduction.
Scriptwriter Amanda Overton from Riot Games spoke about the exchange between her writing process and the visual development at Fortiche: “We got to pitch our story ideas and get their visual input,” she said, able to incorporate the animator’s own ideas back into her work as she wrote. Production designer at Riot Arnaud-Loris Baudry (who previously worked at Fortiche) noted how he had gotten used to his part in production being a little siloed off, while praising the fact that here it was more open across departments.
The scene in question was initially teased out throughout the session, broken down into its various moving parts. The complete version that was shown, to intense approval from the audience, was kinetic and exciting even as it envisioned dark circumstances for its protragonist, a continuation of the mix of graphic stylisation and 3D articulation that made the first season so compelling. A montage set to music, it shows Vi now living as an underground fighter, introducing her by laying out her opponent with one punch (the victim is actually a henchmen from Season 1, who Vi has actually knocked out as a kid, then as an adult in episode four, and now here).
The scene moves rapidly, showing Vi going through the motions through repeating shots of her knocking out fighters, going to drink, hallucinating her loved ones screaming at her, before lurching back to her dingy apartment, filling up with bottles in a faux-time-lapse shot, the routine beginning again with her smearing some black face paint on. The sequence was full of gritty texture, with a lot of prominent film grain and VFX that emulated damaged prints.
Before playing the scene later in the session, the presentation started by showing the script, which was displayed alongside some images from the scene, the writing describing Vi’s transformation and new circumstances, stressing how the character has changed to try and erase as much of her old self as possible. Concept art showed off Vi’s new stomping grounds, a ramschackle underground fighting ring and a claustrophobic, cluttered apartment. After showing off some character sheets for a diverse array of the ruffians that Vi would be fighting, the team discussed how the sequence also represented how they learned to be a bit more efficient in a way that complimented their thematic and stylistic choices. For example, the arrangement of the shots in the ring helped cut costs by keeping Vi isolated and the crowd away, reflecting her state of mind but also saving a bit of time.
After a fairly brief demonstration of how they filmed live-action reference for blocking and a quick aside about the blending of 2D VFX work with their 3D animation (“part of the DNA of Fortiche and Arcane,” says Maunoury), before moving onto discussion of the backgrounds. Designed to be “readable but hectic,” the paintings here were meant to emphasize Vi’s alienation from the two worlds of the show, and how “barren” her life is.
After the boards came discussion of music and timing, with Nirvana’s “Territorial Pissings” acting as temp music at the layout stage before being replaced by an original song. Later the sequence was adjusted, retimed for that song — all of the panelists throughout the event having mentioned a “music video” approach to Arcane’s standout set pieces, which especially rang true here. Overall the session made the upcoming season feel like a refinement of the last, from its more efficient production timeline to the creative lessons learned, which Maunoury attributes to being able to retain most of the team from before, all learning the same lessons together. Though the session was based around a rather dark transformation for one of Arcane’s main characters, it represents an exciting new step for the studio as it continues to evolve.
Netflix released the teaser trailer for Arcane S2 on Tuesday.
Kambole Campbell is an Anglo-Zambian writer and film/TV culture critic based in London.
