ARCANE: Meeting the Creative Minds Behind The League of Legends Series!! | Arcane Season 2 | Netflix
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00:46 Celebrate in a fashion responsible. You have to have the age legal for consuming the alcohol. Hi, my name's John. I'm with the Real Regiix, and thank you guys for taking the time to chat with me. I mean, the first thing I wanted to say
00:59 is thank you. just because I remember when we first put on the initial episode of Arcane season one, I hadn't seen anything quite like it. And as a lover of animation, I was pretty blown away and continued to be. So just thanks for all the hard work and effort you guys put into this, because it clearly must have taken a ton. And so I guess my first question, you know,
01:18 we live in a time that obviously is rife with a lot of great animation, but it has for me been a while since I've been able to forget about the computer and feel like I'm watching something that is living and breathing and an alive piece of art. And so my question to each of you, kind of, is how do you view that process and what was the key to orchestrating that aesthetic and did you need to innovate anything in particular
01:38 to bring season two, especially, to life? Do you need to innovate because that was part of Fortage DNA to do picture that way? We had to improve the way we were doing pictures because the scale of the project was bigger than anything else. And the scale was the challenging, like how can you have that, like,
01:57 attention to detail and like the small boutique studio approach but at a much larger scale it was done to task but the goal of doing a timeless picture you know is something for tish has always keen on doing and and you know it's a studio founded by three artists so everything is driven by this artistic vision you know and the the crafts of making picture the the The way we paints every single background or texture, you know, gives this timeless look to the show. I mean, truly, it does feel, yeah, like living oil paintings, which, you know, is, yeah, it has, with the steampunk that it really does feel like you're glimpsing something out of time that's ancient and future at the same time, which is just neat in the landscape. And for each of you personally, in, you know, in your respective departments from producing, animating, writing. what was the biggest challenge perhaps in this season
03:01 and what was the biggest triumph? And is there any moment image line of dialogue that most resonates what's you now? For season two? Season two. I mean, you know, wrapping up any story where it's like, that'll be the end of it is daunting as shit.
03:19 But also like, not just for our own sake, but like just generally speaking, the landscape of TV shows who stuck the landing is not vast and so that is it's just it's it is intimidating you know
03:37 and so you kind of drive yourself and not so with that until you kind of you know you just have to do it you have to kind of put down your you know your thoughts and you could commit to to very final actions of characters and
03:48 that that definitely was like the most challenging and scary part you know and I think I mean I'm really happy it the last episode in particular was an absolute behemoth I mean I think the first the first animatic the first kind of storyboards clocked in it like over an hour because it's just like you you need to do everything justice and then like there's there's an economy around that that's very difficult so I'm very very proud of what the team has done there you know working the editors the storyboarders and uh yeah I definitely like that that that watching that come together was was definitely an amazing feeling because
04:31 again it's it takes for years you're kind of anticipating that moment and then it's finally there so that was that was great absolutely and then you probed it on a granular level and you've been there through every step of the beauty and frustration of it all is there are there any babies you had to kill that you particularly met you know hung for our our graveyard looks like arlington sure that's our joke I think what's nice about writing is when you get to the end you finally get to just say things that you had been putting in subtext the whole time
05:03 so you get to finally have characters say what you thought their story was from the beginning so a lot of those last lines and the final moments were always like is this two on the nose should we just say break the cycle that was the story from the beginning should we just say it and the answer we found was yes Like, it is cathartic to just finally have characters speak what you've been, the story you've been trying to tell.
05:28 So I thought that was really nice. So you earn the theme rather than just giving it towards. That way, exactly. Then from there, I'm curious, you know, what's the future of Rune Terra in this space, you know? And how much do you think about the interplay between the game and the show? Do you want them to feed each other, I imagine, to some degree, but how much are you focused on that? Arcane started with the inspiration from the characters, you know, from the game characters. And so I think it's similar in that sense where you start from there.
05:57 And we look to our team of writers, you know, an artist to really just ask this question, like, what do you really want to see? Like, where do you have this, like, this burning desire to be like, I want to see this story or this character on screen? And try to start with something as simple as that. You know, you can always kind of get lost in, like, strategy and whatnot, but then you just don't find the right person. So what's like a strong vision? Who's someone who could just like, you know, make something awesome because they have the right North Star, the right dream. That's the most critical thing.
06:28 So RIP has a lot of characters, you know, over 160 champions at this point. So there's a lot of things we can do, which ones should we do. It comes really down to just like we have our trusted team. What do these individuals want to do, you know? And then, yeah, the interaction, I think it just makes things better when you feel like you watch a show and a story about a character that you then right after and kind of log in and feel like you're continuing their story. That's the dream. It's very hard to do, you know, because they have very different needs, you know, the different kind of expressions of of those
07:02 characters. But I think that was always a dream is that we can kind of have the coexistence, the symbiosis between, you know, a game and the characters where we tell the story on the big screen. It seems like it naturally really allows well for that. Yeah. You know, it didn't seem like one is treading on the other's feet or anything. And yet, like, some have tried. It's just hard, you know. It's just hard. They develop very differently.
07:27 So that's also something we need to keep our eye on, like, how do we do well in that regard as a studio. Do each of you have a favorite episode that you feel like speaks to your unique contributions at any point? Are we going to give the same insight? Yes, yeah. Bart and I worked on 207 together. So we, like, so much of that was like, us back and forth. So we, I don't know, I feel like that's a, that's a big part of our hearts. That's a beautiful episode. That might be my favorite of the season. There you go. Absolutely.
07:56 Yeah, it's, I mean, two of seven, it's just a very, very, very special episode. So kind of that one's hard to argue with, you know, I mean, on the level of just the beauty of moments, the music, the, there's so much to love. I do also really, probably close second to me is two of five. Yeah. Kind of like the Vy, jinx, dynamic and the ups and downs.
08:22 It's just something that like we've, it's just a very charged relationship that we've built over so many years. And that was very, very cool to see that kind of mini reunion. So I would always cry, even during the animatic, every time at the end,
08:35 animatic, just sobbing through it. And then I have to give notes. Cheers, thank you. One thing I noticed, just out in culture, obviously. You know, the show's been hugely popular. undercon this year. I noticed a lot less
08:49 jokers and Harleys and a lot more Vise jinxies and echoes. Do you, have you seen out in the wild like a particularly elaborate or beautiful cosplay that you loved? And if you had to do one yourself, who would you choose? Who would you be?
09:03 I've seen a minion, one of Victor's minions that was dope. I mean, obviously anyone who does Victor God Victor is with like the lights is... I haven't seen one yet. Really? I haven't seen like a full-blown kind of you know, victory yet.
09:17 I'm curious because that must be really difficult. I haven't seen a Warwick yet. Oh! That one's going to do it. But they've been amazing. I mean, Vye's, jinxas. I mean, yesterday we saw a bunch of echo. Yeah, it's fun to see. There's only one answer for me of who I could be, though.
09:34 Vi. But it's also the props they're making sometimes. You know, the props they're making are like crazy, you know, because we also spend like months and months like elaborating them, you know, making them like super complex and super fancy. And we met the other guy, the other day, a guy who did like this eco-cosplay and you also built the Z drive with all the, you know, the zootrop mechanism with the monkeys
10:04 and everything. It's like, oh, that's brilliant. And it lit up. That's incredible. Yeah. That was incredible. Yeah. Well, and that's too. This speaks to the kind of continuum of artistry. And I think that's just a nice, not everything produces that man that's a really lovely thing and i guess i would be remiss if i did not ask someone would find me and penalize me is there anything ahead it seems like the show clearly at least leaves a couple of threads that we could follow directly but also there's got to be as you said you've got hundreds of champions and and storylines to follow is there a next season of something or other related in the work i i think it's fair to say that there are some characters and
10:44 storylines that, you know, we'll probably want to, you know, revisit, continue in the future. I think it, again, right now is really investing in the team and seeing, like, where, where are these ideas that bubble to the surface, you know, and that can be something that comes over cane, that can be new stories, and we're just really investing in that process right now. So I think, you know, eventually we'll want to continue this, yeah. Beautiful. I guess I've got a moment longer. This never almost happens. What's the biggest sort of outside inspiration that you brought in that no one would have guessed or just that was particularly important to you
11:18 in crafting this story yourselves? Or was there any at all? We all brought a part of ourselves to this a lot. You know, I think a lot of us are siblings and brought our own history of that. Vaggage. Love and hate, okay, those of the moments coexist.
11:38 Yeah. To the show. You know, so in their personal journeys and things, Obviously, I brought a lot of, like, what I wanted queer representation to be because of what I felt like I didn't see when I was a kid that would have changed my life personally. If I had seen Archim when I was 16, I would have known myself so much better. So I'm, like, very happy that that exists for that reason. Building up the team also and giving them the opportunity to work on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity also is something I'm pretty happy. yeah well that's got to come up with a lot of like just original inspiration as it must
12:18 feel like you're part of something unique you know amid a pretty populated again content landscape in general yeah well beautiful uh thank you guys so much for your time i really appreciate it i wish i could spend an hour with you but i know there's a lot to do so thank you so much for the art the artistry and the joy thank you thank you man thanks for coming out
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