#36 Scene: The Father

 This post presents the conclusion of long ongoing project of mine, a scene for trial 6 in the trial of radishes, which are a tutorial for the radish modding tools for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

Cinematography Techniques

The active reader might remember post #18, where I introduced how the creation of scenes is organized in the radish tools. There, I begun with the dialogscript for my The Witcher quest around Alene and Co., more specifically the moment when Geralt and the player first meet Alene's father.

The dialogscript, though, is only text and structural organization of the scene flow. The visual, the actors placements, animations, shots and props - the cinematography - was missing. A starting point provided by the trials and a nice ressource for beginners is the following booklet:

Cinematography Techniques: The Different Types of Shots in Film

A much more holistic and thorough review of cinematography can be found in the book Film Art, which already had a lot of appearances on this blog.

A Witcher 3 Scene: The Father

So, here is the final scene:

As you can imagine, progressing from a dialogscript (dialog + basic scene flow) to a storyboard (the central point for the cinematography of a radish scene) is not trivial. And while thinking of a cinematic concept wasn't that difficult, implementing it and fixing all problems was quite laborious. There are a lot of special workflows and technical difficulties involved that required a persistence from me that I did not have all the time, leading to several longer pauses in working on the project.

Here are some shots and trivia I am proud of:

While the flowers are being talked about, a shot from their perspective is shown,
highlighting the beauty Alene has in her mind.

After three shots of Geralt trying to do conversation, we get this close shot focusing
on Geralt stopping (that) and Alene's silentness.

A view from the village, representing the fact that the villagers, too, have a
perspective on the situation: Left: The door to the father, right: Geralt & Alene.

At the door, for the most time Alene is present...

...until her father demands of her to come in, leaving Geralt.
This shot highlights the absence of Alene via negative space.

When the father has left and until he speaks again, Geralt is shown from behind a lot, making for a change in what the eye sees and bringing a feeling of Geralt grinding thoughts.

Geralt in the foreground, the door in the back.

An overhead shot, framing the choice as something that is above single actors.
Inspired by Psychonauts

Also:

• in order to open/close the door, I specifically had to implement the cat, which usually sits in a small basket in front of the house

• the weather starts getting worse from some point on, reinforcing the tragedy of the scene
  

• if Geralt chooses to not get involved, in the last shot, a small leaf flies down, marking a line between the house and Geralt, symbolizing him parting from the situation
  

Conclusion

I am grateful to have finally finished this project. It turned out much more laborious than the previous trials, but then, so did every trial stage so far.

Hope you had fun reading this and/or found something interesting.

Until next time!