Received a lovely comment with some feedback on my camera work via YouTube, and I've made some changes in line with the suggestions. I have readdressed the pan up shot to their holding hands, and made the head movements smoother and more communicative. In the "dialogue wheel" shots I've done some dirty, dirty hacking but the end result is now that Joker's throat and/or shoulder doesn't take up a quarter of the screen and pop around when the shot should be focusing on her responses. I'm pretty pleased with the end result.
I've been making some custom FaceFX tracks for Shepard to use during the nodes she isn't speaking in - reactions and stuff mostly since, at the moment, she's a bit of a plank of wood whilst he's talking and that's boring and unrealistic and not very cinematic. She should smile in a couple places, look concerned in others, stuff like that. So I've implemented a couple of those.
Fortunately, now that I understand the basics of what I'm doing, setting up some cameras for the rest of the scene ought to be more straightforward.
Biggest challenge is going to be testing out the alternate pose I'd like them to have and whether or not I can get some kind of kiss going on that isn't the one that happens at the end of the sequence.
I'm not going to fight it too hard though, if I can't get it working in a few hours' worth of effort, then I scrap it and move on. I have things to do if I want this out the bloody door, and I do.
A person very near and dear to me who does music composition has started work with me on a theme to use. There will be a more filled out version of it for use in a trailer once this is all finished, and probably a piano only version to use in this romance scene. It'd be nice for Joker to have his own love theme. Like all the others in the game, it's rooted in G Minor. There's only a melodic sketch right now, but it's really, really nice so far. It expresses longing, bravery, and a sense of belonging, too... but is also little tender and unsure in some places; there's a gentle motif of stumbling sort of with touches of staccato, which I think is a nice acoustic aesthetic for how he walks. Can't wait to share it when it's a little more together!
No solid promises, but if there's a form of this theme that requires strings I do have a few of my own that I may be able to pull, to get it actually played at a College of Music here in the UK... I know that sounds a little nuts? But like, I know people, and stuff.
But, we'll see. ME music is heavy on piano and synth so chances are good it won't need it, but love themes usually benefit from strings.