#dwortz

[hypeathon]

RWBY Animators Spotlight #1: Joel Mann & Harley Dwortz

*Last Updated May 6th, 2019

This is a personal small project I’ve considered doing, inspired by The Canipa Effect’s Animator/Studio Spotlight videos & AnimeAjay’s Dragon Ball Super Animation Supervisors mini-series. I’ve spent a few months researching animators that have worked on the 3-D anime-inspired webseries, RWBY for a while out of desire to acknowledge and better appreciate what they’ve worked on. And as of this post, I decided to take the plunge and make a blog post using info from a combination of tweets from animators, con panel videos, blu-ray/dvd audio commentaries, behind-the-scene videos, and demo reels.

Expect some variation between posts, but the general structure will feature a brief mention of when each animator got involved in the show, an interpretation of their scenes and styles while partially mentioning the 12 principles of animation as a frame of reference, a personal comparison between certain Japanese animators (since many of RWBY’s Production staff take inspiration from anime and are anime fans, I’d figure why not do this), a list of scenes and shots that were either confirmed they worked on or can be presumed they did upon observation (and I could be wrong as to which scenes some animators did) and a demo reel of each animator. Since I’m still new to the idea of making blogs, I have no idea what kind of attention this will get if it gets any at all. Hopefully, people will like it, maybe learn a thing or two. Anyway’s let’s get started!

Joel Mann

To kick-off this series of RWBY animator spotlights, we’ll start with Co-Lead animator of RWBY from volume 3 onward, Joel Mann.

Joel’s time working on RWBY at Rooster teeth started during volume 2 with one of his first scenes being Cinder, Emerald, & Mercury’s meeting in their dorm room, in chapter 5. It’s throughout most of volume 2 that he spent time on interestingly big scenes due to either the importance of said-scene or the challenges doing so. Moments such as Ozpin’s speech in Volume 2 were what fell into the former, where Joel studied footage of speech performances and listened to the audio track for Ozpin so frequently that by the time he did motion capture, he had it memorized. And then moments like the students dancing together at the ballroom in chapter 6 of the same volume fell into the latter of being really challenging. Considering Volume 2 was the first time he did serious animation in a couple of years (as confirmed in the vol 2 blu-ray animators audio commentary), his character acting turned out pretty decently.

Since then, he has either spent timing doing motion capture as characters like Tyrian or spends time on action sequences. The first fight he got to animate was Team RWBY & Team JNPR fighting off every Grimm in Beacon in Chapter 12 and it was one of the rare occasions where fight sequences were not largely done by either Monty Oum or Shane Newville (though the former did animate the Team CFVY part). And by volume 3, he would become co-lead animator, sharing the position mainly with animator Dustin Matthews. Since then, his traits with animating fight scenes have started to fully mold. From the Qrow vs Winter fight to Ruby vs Neo & Torchwick to Weiss & Blake vs the Atlessian Knights & the White Fang to Ozpin and Cinder’s face-off (the latter two he was given a week to do each), he increasingly pushed the envelope of squash & stretch and staging, the former animation principle he utilizes on characters to create a zipping, flashy speed. Joel only goes further on the exaggeration by the volume 4 Character Short and Chapter 1 of Volume 4, specifically with Ruby’s semblance..

In terms of the latter principle, staging, this can be seen when characters in Joel’s sequences are making various stances, to the point where they sometimes pause for a split-second. This combination of staging and squash-&-stretch are what have made the bulk of how Joel has approached dynamism into action he has animated, though this has garnered mixed feedback from the fan base. Some have heavily praised him strongly by even mistakenly assuming he “worked closely with Monty”, which was hardly ever the case while others have criticized him for not resembling the way Monty animated enough and being too “stop-&-go” or having characters “teleport” too much. Ignoring the fact it’s in an animator’s nature as essentially an artist to possess and develop his/her own identity when approaching a sequence, something Monty Oum himself was always for, Joel has simply been honing his craft the way he would feel makes sense. When he has characters do certain stances or poses, it leaves a memory in the viewer’s eye whether it’s Ruby making hang time while having her feet planted on the bottom end of the sickle part of her weapon or making a quick sliding rotation as she lands before stopping or Ren staying crouched onto the Petra Gigas’s arm before jumping back and back flipping. Best case scenario, you get something like the wide-angle shot in the volume 5 Weiss Character short where Weiss both swiftly and elegantly lunges at each and every Beowulf.  

Of all the animators to compare him to in the anime industry, his works come off similar to Arifumi Imai, who’s known to contributing scenes in shows like Attack on Titan, One-Punch Man and Sengoku Basara. Imai, like Joel Mann, uses a lot of zipping and trails through flames, smoke, smears or other visual effects, as well as exaggerating the human body to an absurd but effective degree (yes, that guy cart-wheeled the horse he mounted on). Another example would be animator, Masayuki Kunihiro, who has consistently been working on anime projects from studio Ufotable such as Tales of Zestiria the X, Fate/Zero, Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works and God Eater. As one could see from those examples, Kunihiro shares that sense of staging through extreme poses and stances before having characters strike and lunge with that sense of distortion found in squash and stretch.

Here are a list of confirmed/presumed scenes Joel Mann worked on:

Cinder talking with Mercury & Emerald about Pyrrha - Vol 2, Ch 5

Team RWBY at the dance - Vol 2, Ch 6

Ozpin’s speech - Vol 2, Ch 8

Ozpin approving Team RWBY’s Search & Destroy mission request - Vol 2, Ch 8

Weiss, Blake & Yang’s discussion at the campfire - Vol 2, Ch 10

Team RWBY & JNPR fighting off the Grimm at Beacon - Vol 2, Ch 12

Parts of Qrow vs Winter fight - Vol 3, Ch 3

Part of the Cinder, Emerald and Mercury vs Amber fight Scene - Vol 3, Ch 7

Weiss and Blake vs Atlessian knights and White Fang - Vol 3, Ch 10

In the Volume 3 blu-ray/dvd Director’s Audio Commentary, Kerry Shawcross and Miles Luna referred to Joel’s time working on this scene as, “the Joel effect”, since he did this scene within a week.

Majority of the Ruby vs Torchwick and Neo fight - Vol 3, Ch 11

Between the Volume 3 audio commentaries, Gray said about 10% of the fight was animated by Monty whereas Joel said the Ruby vs Neo parts were what Monty Oum did.

At least a third of Joel’s time spent animating the fight were manually applying hair and clothing physics in every shot. This was a challenge due the setting being windy in the sky.

Ozpin vs Cinder - Vol 3, Ch 12

Ruby slaying each Beowulf (presumed) - Vol 4 Ruby Character Short

Ruby fighting the Beringel until she fell through the collapsing roof (presumed) - Vol 4 Ruby Character Short

Provided mo-cap of the Beringel using child crutches

Team RNJR counterattacking the Petra Gigas after Jaune lays out his plan (presumed) - Vol 4. Ch 1

Part of the Qrow vs Tyrian fight - Vol 4, Ch 7

Wide-angle shot of Weiss striking each Beowulf and sprouting icicles from the ground - Vol 5 Weiss Character Short

Yang clashing fists with the Ursa and breaking its arm (presumed) - Vol 5 Yang Character Short

Part of Raven vs Cinder fight - Vol 5, Ch 13

Harley Dwortz

Next on the animator spotlight is Harley Dwortz. Having been involved in Rooster Teeth animated projects since Red vs Blue season 10, Harley was one of the first animators brought on during volume 1. When fans look back at volumes 1 & 2, they tend to refer Monty Oum’s own fight sequences or scenes that match that presentation from certain other animators. That may be what made the characters introduced to the audience what they were in combat, but animators like Harley brought out everything else about the characters behavioral-wise. It’s in such non-action scenes where Harley shines as an animator.

When Monty, Miles, and Kerry developed and fleshed out the story and forged volume 1′s script between June 2012 and April 2013, they established various traits about the the main cast such as Weiss and Blake preferring to drink coffee and tea respectively and Yang being sensitive about others messing with her hair. However, animators such as Harley Dwortz added a lot of expression to whichever characters they animated. This is most evident with Weiss Schnee, who has an especially girly and sassy body language that Harley puts forth a lot of thought into in her assigned sequences. In chapter 7, as janky and rough the motion capture was, the idea both Weiss and Ruby’s attitudes as they bicker with each other is made evident from the way Weiss walks in response to being told she’s bossy. In chapter 8, Weiss emotes an exaggerated distress as she falls which then leads to Jaune’s enthusiastic response as he seized the opportunity to rescue her. Even the team RWBY dorm room scene in chapter 2 of volume 2 brought forth both rather unusual and yet fairly appropriate character acting from Weiss between her thinking seriously while balancing on a chair to her shyly tip-toeing to recover and maintain her composure, a silly scene that required a bit of “trust” on Kerry Shawcross’s part.

She was even subject to praise by the late Monty Oum in the volume 2 blu-ray directors audio commentary, feeling encouraged to improve the rigging or virtual skeletons to put simply on the characters. This even extended to her adding animation tricks in the more limited Poser software that Monty himself never thought of, such as Neptune’s head-shaking in chapter 4 of volume 2 and Ruby’s arm flailing as she got the choke hold from Yang in chapter 7 of the same volume. Harley goes that extra mile with expressing the right gestures for the right characters, whether it’s Pyrrha frantically moving back and forth to guide Jaune who clings on to a Deathstalker, Neptune being moved around by Ruby while smiling and being still like a cardboard standee, Ruby being awkwardly fidgety when attempting to strike a conversation at her Mom’s grave or Ren and Nora’s rather out-of-sync waltz which follows with Penny’s rather adorable dance (which of course, got a laugh out of Miles Luna).

It’s worth putting into context why any of this matters. The character acting established by animators like Harley is what set the foundation for how these characters would be depicted in mixed media projects be it in manga installments or in Blazblue Cross Tag Battle. In the case of the latter, Weiss’s idle animation where she nonchalantly checks her nails came from something Harley herself did. This can even apply to animal characters like Zwei who was the first person to animate the character and according to Monty, she and animator Dustin Matthews previously worked on animating animals in The Sims 3: Pets Expansion. It doesn’t matter if it’s scenes from the earlier volumes or in the ones past the narrative time skip like Qrow and Raven’s meeting at the tavern or Ruby laughing at Jaune’s hoodie as her head inflates. Harley takes pride as an animator thinking about how to express each character, even when they’re just standing and talking. 

Whenever she’s not preoccupied working on RWBY or Red vs Blue, this attention to character acting from her is also very present in every skit she has animated in RWBY Chibi. In the Shadow People skit in episode 5 of season 1, Harley gives Weiss an extra bounce in her steps which would seem too silly if the character models were more normally proportioned but make perfect sense as their super-deformed versions. Same goes for Ozpin in the Director Ozpin skit episode 1 of Season 2, where he shuffles his feet around as he walks like something out of a Charlie Brown cartoon. That’s not to say she constantly exaggerates in RWBY Chibi, as the focus is on making the animation believable and engaging in the context of the show’s aesthetic, be it the way Ozpin’s cheeks move as he whistles or the way Weiss’s ponytail slips off of Ruby’s hand. 

Harley’s quirky and expressive animations would be comparable to certain animators that have done similar scenes in the popular, on-going, magical girl Precure anime franchise, namely animator Yuki Hayashi. You can watch Hayashi’s own scenes on mute with no context as to what the characters are talking about and still get a good grasp of their chemistry and personalities. He has also done some freelance work, animating in shows from other studios, including the popular, meme-worthy, dancing sequences in he ending theme of the first season of Blood Blockade Battlefront. Another animator known for great character acting is Norimitsu Suzuki. Although he’s known for bigger things like his smoothly drawn liquid, explosion and smoke effects and 3-D-like rotation, he is also great at animating characters express themselves. If you’ve seen an ending theme from a Studio Bones title like the 2003 version of Fullmetal Alchemist, Soul Eater or Star Driver or the first ending theme in Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear-Card Arc, that’s where Suzuki’s knack for having characters walking, running, dancing or whatever other gestures is best seen.

Here are a list of confirmed/presumed scenes Harley Dwortz worked on:

Ruby and Weiss arguing about each other’s personalities - Vol 1, Ch 7

Jaune holding on to the Deathstalker Grimm’s tail until he got flown to the sky - Vol 1, Ch 7

Jaune picking up Weiss as she falls but they both fall anyway - Vol 1, Ch 8

Weiss asking Blake what’s wrong and the girls discussing about the White Fang* - Vol 2, Ch 2

Harley mentioned how the part where Ruby, Weiss and Yang walked into the room was difficult because of how they weren’t really walking into the space they’re in. She had to stitch in mo-cap of walks together.

Animating Weiss zipping off the chair and back in position was also difficult due to the hair simulation on Poser only registering one character at a time and she used three Weiss models for each time she zipped across.

In the Volume 2 Director’s Audio Commentary, this is what Monty Oum and Kerry Shawcross had to say about Harley in this scene:

Monty: “She puts in that extra mile to put in like the asymmetry and like, she records her own face {Kerry: Yeah, she does.} and then acts the camera.” Kerry: “If you go look at her, for like, from her timelines, the end of it is just like her face, like, just shot at her desk. Of just like, her acting things out.” Monty: “I also, y'know, I, I, I, I’ve learned from watching them work on this stuff that I need to do a better job of like, making the rigs. Suddenly I’m in the animation commentary, make the rigs more capable (Miles chuckles.) of them to allow to do this kinda work because it’s like…”

Team RWBY going over their White Fang Investigation plan until Sun and Neptune interrupt - Vol 3, Ch 3

Ruby decides who Sun and Neptune can pair up with on the White Fang investigation - Vol 2, Ch 3 

Harley, like the other animators, was given freedom on how she wanted to animate the scene and thus had Neptune frozen stiff and swaying when moved next to Yang. According to Kerry Shawcross in the Volume 2 Director’s Audio Commentary:

Kerry: We have a pretty big policy of, if an animator has an idea just like, just go ahead and just like rough it out, just like we’ll watch it, we’re, we’re probably gonna go with it. ‘Cause that was Harley when she was like “Can I make Neptune like, stiff when she pushes him?” And I was like “Yeah, absolutely you can.”

Jaune approaching Pyrrha in a dress and asking her to dance - Vol 2, Ch 7

Between all four of the Volume 2 dvd/blu-ray audio commentary tracks, It’s unclear whether she did the actual Team JNPR dance itself or if it was Monty Oum as the fandom presumes

Jaune mentioning to Pyrrha that he has 7 sisters - Vol 2, Ch 7

Part of Zwei’s introduction - Vol 2, Ch 8

Oobleck bonking the one White Fang member as they board the train - Vol 2, Ch 11

Ruby and Oobleck facing one of the Mechs - Vol 2, Ch 11

Ironwoods forces mowing down the Grimm at Beacon - Vol 2, Ch 12

Opening scene of Ruby at Summer’s grave - Vol 3, Ch 1

Sage Ayana and Dew Gayl’s brief bout - Vol 3, Ch 2 

Scarlet and Neptune’s brief fight (with help of Carmichael Simon and another stunt coordinator) - Vol 3, Ch 2

Harley stated how unlike a non-fight scene where camera layout, prop and models are all set for her, in fight scenes have less information to go off of aside from how the modeling vaguely moves and thus animating can feel “nebulous” as she phrased it,

The latter-half of Weiss, Winter and Ruby’s conversation from the slap onward - Vol 3, Ch 3

Weiss & Winter’s conversation about her training - Vol 3, Ch 4

Yang and Neon talking before the match - Vol 3, Ch 5

Mo-cap for Neon - Vol 3, Ch 5

Pyrrha initially agreeing to being the Fall maiden - Vol 3, Ch 6

Opening scene where Salem and Team WTCH have their meeting - Vol 4, Ch 1

Team RNJR with the blacksmith - Vol 4, Ch 1

Weiss talking to her father in his office - Vol 4, Ch 2

Raven talking to Qrow about whether Salem has the relic - Vol 4, Ch 4

Weiss talking to Henry Marigold at the reception - Vol 4, Ch 6

Kid Ren and Nora hiding from the Nevermore until it leaves - Vol 4, Ch 10

Harley’s most recent Demo Reel: