<\/i><\/a>Watch Video<\/a><\/div>\nRough Automated Transcript<\/strong><\/p>\n hello Story and Cinematics in Legacy of the Sith talk with Charles Boyd, Creative Director, and Ashley Ruhl, Lead Cinematics Director. Hosted by the Galaxy of Heroes booth as they are…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24072,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,68],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-lore"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swtorista.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swtorista.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swtorista.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swtorista.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swtorista.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/swtorista.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swtorista.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swtorista.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swtorista.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swtorista.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nhi everybody
\nall right sorry this year we should be
\nsaying ‘hello there’
\nthank you so much for coming we are
\nhere to talk about how we build story uh
\ncontent in star wars the old republic uh
\nthank you so much for coming i’m charles
\nboyd i’m the creative director for star
\nwars zeal republic and i am joined by
\nfabulous
\ni am ashley rule i’m the lead cinematic
\ndesigner on Star Wars: The Old Republic
\nas you can probably guess if you’ve
\nplayed the game we have some players
\nhere i think probably yeah
\nstory is really the first thing that
\nwe figure out in anything we do in the
\nold republic it leads the way for
\neverything else it decides what the what
\nthe planets we go to are going to be
\nwhat the characters are going to
\nencounter
\nevery all everything all the gameplay
\nflows from the storyline because that is
\nyou know for us the central part of the
\ngame kind of our our
\nunique feature the thing that we feel
\nlike everybody shows up for in the
\nfirst place is to play through your own
\nstar wars adventure with your own
\ncharacter good or bad or
\nromantic whatever they might be
\nright and and explore the galaxy uh
\nso
\nreally the first step in anything we do
\nis just developing a plot summary it’s
\nthe least exciting looking document
\nyou’ve ever seen it’s a word document
\nmost of the time which is literally
\ndescribing what the storyline is going
\nto be at a high level
\nsometimes that can be the storyline
\nfor two years worth of stuff and
\nsometimes it can be the storyline for 15
\nminutes worth of stuff it just you know
\nat every level we try to uh
\nhave those documents because they serve
\na lot of purposes right
\nit’s so
\nin some cases it’s other writers writing
\nthem for me to review and all that uh
\nthey exist so that we can share them
\naround the team especially the
\ncinematics team early on so that they
\ncan start thinking about how they’re
\ngonna build these stories how they’re
\ngonna tell them in cinematics and
\nplaying helping the world designers
\nstart planning what the world is going
\nto be like how it’s going to be laid out
\nand also perhaps most importantly uh
\nwith our partners at lucasfilm uh
\neverything we do still goes through
\nlucasfilm still gets reviewed by the
\nstory group
\nwe’re still deeply involved we actually
\nwork with pretty much the exact same
\npeople we’ve been working with for
\nfor me almost 16 years now believe it or
\nnot so they’re still really involved
\nwith the story still really involved
\nwith what we what we design and build
\nwhich is so cool to get their feedback
\nand their thoughts and contributions uh
\nwith everything you do
\nso we kind of shift that off shift that
\naround share it around
\nand then the next step is the
\ndialogue writing so we have special
\ncustom tools because of course our
\ndialogue unlike most movies or shows is
\nbranching right it’s spread you have
\nchoices those choices have different
\nresponses those responses have different
\nresponses
\nyou can’t really do it very easily in a
\nnormal screenplay format so we have a
\nspecial tool that kind of looks like
\na like a tree it just sort of branches
\nand branches as it goes down
\nand so the writers get started
\ncreating the actual dialogue and that’s
\nwhile we’re kind of getting feedback
\nand sharing things around
\nand that goes through a whole lot of
\nreviews and feedback and innovation and
\nstuff as you’d expect
\nsometimes most of the time it’s
\none writer writes a whole story sequence
\nit’s rare that more than one writer
\ncontributes to a single scene
\nso for example on manon recently in
\nthe legacy of the sith but one writer
\ndid the entire empire storyline one
\nwriter did the entire republic storyline
\non elon i actually wrote most of the
\nstoryline and dialogue on the alarm from
\nboth sides so we try to have one
\nwriter kind of own the whole experience
\nand it’s similar for the cinematics team
\nwhich actually we’ll talk about in a
\nsecond
\nbecause i feel like that really gives
\nit a continuous voice gives it a
\ncontinuous
\nconsistent tone and feel
\nit’s important for creative people to
\nhave that sensibility and have that
\nsense of contribution to their own work
\nright it’s it’s hard to all be throwing
\nyour own minds into the same thing we
\ndid it once or twice and
\ni promise it’s none of the quests any of
\nyou like
\nthose turn out well
\nso it’s always important to to have that
\nthat creative vision that’s consistent
\nthrough each individual piece and then
\nwhere where it becomes my job is making
\nsure that all of those creative visions
\nadd together into one
\nexperience
\n[Music]\nso
\nonce the dialogue is written that also
\ngoes to lucasfilm
\nand feedback and thoughts
\nit is also then submitted to our friends
\nin spain who translate it into french
\nand german every single line
\nand then from that we do generate actual
\nscreenplay format things which are very
\nhard to read as you can imagine
\nso
\n[Music]\nwe i actually sit in on a lot of the
\nvoice asking sessions which is the next
\nstep right we ship it out for recording
\nwhich we do in
\nlos angeles new york london
\nvancouver sometimes we’ll wait we joke
\nthat where wherever an actor is we will
\nfind them and we will record them i
\nthink we’re over
\nwe’ve got to be over a thousand actors i
\nthink at this point
\nit’s a crazy crazy
\nthing but anyway
\nso as the as the dialogue recording is
\nhappening
\nthe cinematics can kind of start uh
\ndo you want to talk a little about that
\nand then we’ll i think of the next
\nstep after that i’ll jump right in all
\nright
\nand before the the dial or before the vo
\nis even in the game i’m going through
\nall the scenes and checking basically
\nasset lists like okay we want to build
\nthis giant fish coming out of the ocean
\nwhat kind of assets do we need for
\nthis to make it feasible does it fit in
\nthe budget does it fit in our schedule
\nso we’re going through every single
\nscene seeing which characters are there
\nwhich locations we need if we need any
\nextra visual effects or special
\nanimations that kind of thing
\nbut once we
\nhave a better
\nunderstanding of what all the scenes are
\nthe cinematics team all sits down and we
\ntalk about
\nvisual tone
\nwe talk about what in each of the
\nscenes is important to highlight in
\nterms of emotional engagement what is uh
\nan important player choice what is an
\nimportant character moment or companion
\nmoment and that really shapes our uh
\nfilm language it changes how we shoot it
\nand if it’s like a really tender moment
\nor really like it’s not sticky or just
\nlike really dramatic and epic it really
\nshapes how we are going to shoot it and
\nso it’s nice to have a run through with
\nthe entire cinematics team to really get
\na high level understanding of how we
\nwant our visual language to look
\nconsistently
\nafter that each cinematic designer gets
\nassigned scenes so they own that scene
\nfrom the very
\nbeginning to end and so we have a we
\ndefinitely have a tone guide but the
\nexecution of it is very much up to our
\ncinematic team or at each individual
\nindividual cinematic designer
\nand then we uh
\nwhen we’re in the tool basically like
\ncharles said every single line of
\ndialogue has its own timeline so we are
\nbuilding timelines on each line of
\ndialogue and if it branches we have to
\nmake sure that when it branches it comes
\nback together that we’ve staged the
\nactors
\nin a way
\nthat it all comes back together so
\nyou can’t have one dialog option where
\nsomeone wanders up and then the next
\nshot they’re right back there so we have
\nto really think about consistency of
\nstaging
\nand yeah and then we do oh and
\nthen so
\nthe way we build cinematics is we have a
\nhuge animation library sometimes we
\ndo get custom stuff but mostly we rely
\non 10 years worth of animation we have
\nin the game the cinematic animation
\nthat we have and each cinematic designer
\nis both staging the actors and animating
\nthem by choosing gestures and walks and
\nhead turns everything in this trailer is
\njust animations that we have in our
\nlibrary that we use to construct the
\nscenes and each cinematic designer is
\nalso in charge of talking to our visual
\nvisual effects department making sure
\neverything looks consistent with what
\nthey’re thinking for the scene they work
\nwith our sound department they work with
\nmusic so they really get to be a
\ndirector of their own scene and for me
\nit’s really important that everybody
\ngets to own that experience and really
\ndeliver on a vision for the characters
\nit’s also really important to me that
\nhowever we execute on these scenes that
\nit is very much the player’s story we
\nalways want to make sure the way we
\nshoot it we are putting the player front
\nand center they don’t have to be at the
\ncenter of the screen for every shot but
\nthe story really needs to focus on your
\nexperience and how you engage with the
\nworld and feeling like you have made an
\nimpact that it you are important and you
\nmatter in this world
\nso that really comes through in our
\nin our visual language
\nand then after that we do a lot of
\nreviews we do reviews with the
\nnarrative team cinematics team the fx
\nteam everybody just comes in throws in
\ntheir two cents because getting fresh
\neyes on a scene that you looked at for
\nthree weeks is so so helpful because
\nthen if it’s like oh i don’t understand
\nwhy this character came from this way or
\noh that doesn’t really feel right for
\nthis character let’s try a different
\ngesture it’s really nice to have that
\nfeedback and just have that really
\ncollaborative feel that everybody’s
\ncoming together to make the same thing
\nand ultimately it’s really fun to
\neventually just get all of our scenes
\ndone and then when we ship
\ngetting to watch all of y’all play
\nonline and see your reactions to it
\nbecause that honestly is one of my
\nfavorite parts is seeing people react to
\nthe scenes that we’ve created what
\ndialogue choices you make how what
\nyour reactions are to certain dramatic
\nmoments or characters or who you romance
\nand it just forms our hearts we love to
\nsee that experience and yeah
\nanother really interesting thing about
\nthe cinematics is that a lot of it
\nreally depends on that voiceover line
\nitself existing that’s kind of what our
\ntools are based around so they you
\nall are able to do some scene work and
\nthings without the voiceover especially
\nlike
\nbeginning of legacy of the sith right
\nlike the big space scenes that you built
\nwhich were fantastic ashley ashley did
\nall those awesome space battles at the
\nbeginning uh
\nand and if you like seeing your
\nplayership in that scene that’s
\nthat’s because ashley went way above and
\nbeyond to make that happen
\nyeah so
\nbut otherwise it really depends
\nbecause like you’re saying y’all are
\npicking all these animations and
\ngestures and stuff because you need the
\nvoice over there to get the timing and
\nit’s and it becomes essential especially
\nwith
\n16 voices for a potentially for one line
\nright with if it’s a player line that
\nevery player has that’s 16 people
\ntalking
\nin english and then another 16 in
\ncorrection another 16 in german so
\ny’all
\nyeah yeah to get that timing right
\nyeah and for me the coming from an
\nanimation background listening to the
\nvoice actors and their performance in
\nthe line is so important to me because i
\nreally want to create basically i create
\ntwo timelines in my head we have what
\nthe person is saying and how they’re
\nbehaving it’s two different things that
\nthey’re you know either
\nverbally saying or physically saying and
\nso getting that performance listening
\nto the voice lines and trying to really
\nimagine how do i capture that that
\nessence of that character make sure that
\nevery every gesture that the
\ncharacter does is very true to who they
\nare like zenith acts very different than
\nkira does making sure that each of these
\ncharacters feels very
\nunique to their personalities
\nyeah so
\nit’s just that easy
\nashley you’ve been working on sourfield
\nrepublic since about knights of the
\nfallen empire is there any cinematics
\nthat you’re really proud of or your
\nfavorite that you work from?
\nit’s funny because i actually
\nworked at on the game at launch it
\nwas my first job in the industry uh
\nworking on a couple other planets and
\nso it’s it’s funny like i was on spot
\ntour left went to other companies came
\nback for coffee quartet
\nleft again came back for echoes of libya
\ni think from
\nspecifically from like cop here just
\nanything oh okay
\ngosh i
\ni just love the really big epic scenes
\njust that i i love the drama of it i
\nfeel like there’s not a lot of
\nproperties where you can just go ham
\nand the uh
\nthe end of echoes of oblivion with the
\nthree emperors was probably one of my
\nfavorites
\njust because it was the most dramatic
\nthing that i could think of to make
\nvisually i think that scene had about
\nlike four lines in it and you were just
\nlike just make something like cool and i
\njust like came up with this like
\nthere was like you know mention of the
\nghosts and stuff like that but i was
\nlike okay how are we going to do this so
\ni worked really closely with the uh
\nvisual effects team to really capture
\na look for for everything
\nthat was one of my favorites and
\ni want to say one before
\nthe uh
\nthe reunion with malavai quinn on iopath
\nis probably one of my favorites too just
\nbecause it’s very
\nin the in the romance sense uh
\nbecause i have a soft spot for quinn and
\nuh
\ni was listening to the jane eyre
\nsoundtrack on loop while i was building
\nthat scene because i just needed to be
\nthis like
\nlonging sort of scene and i’m so glad
\ni get to to make that stuff i get to
\nmake these big you know bombastic action
\nscenes i get to make the really dramatic
\nforce ghost scenes and i get to do lots
\nof love and and affection scenes
\nwe actually had the pleasure of
\nhanging out with darren depaul earlier
\ntoday who is the voice of valkorian
\nand of course general daeron
\nand yeah we got to laugh about
\nashley killing him off twice
\nyeah i did the scene at the end of kotet
\nand the scene at the end of that goes to
\noblivion so and both times it broke my
\nheart and was like no i can’t i don’t
\nwant to do this but yeah it was it
\nwas very fun to get to do that twice
\nbut yeah we were we were so we
\nhad enjoyed working with ashley so much
\nthat we just kept trying to deliver back
\nover and over again and so i’m really
\nglad all right
\nthank you all so much for coming oh my
\ngosh
\nhanging out at the image gave us the end
\nof celebration to be here with us thank
\nyou so much i hope you hope everybody’s
\nhad a wonderful show
\nyeah i’ve been this is my first
\ncelebration so i’m really happy to meet
\nall of you and yeah get to be part of
\nthe team and yeah get to celebrate the
\ngame that we all love help yourselves
\nthank you so much<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"