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Directing Scenes in A Tithe in Blood
🕑 Added 2024-07-15 20:18:02 +0000 UTCHello, this is papaya, the scene director/scripter for A Tithe in Blood. I'm responsible for putting everything together in the engine among other tasks related to directing scenes, like requesting or creating additional assets and effects.
Time sure flies, doesn't it? You blink, and suddenly an entire act is already 85% scripted. As it turns out, working on a visual novel set in the winter when you're enduring a hot summer really motivates you! I'm going to be digging into the next act very soon, which starts off strong with a unique transition. You'll see what I mean in the full version.
If you've played the full demo, you've already gotten a taste of what I've been doing in scenes two and three. A Tithe in Blood's scene direction draws heavily from TYPE-MOON's visual novels, though I also utilize some basic film theory. I've also been rewatching Mononoke episodes for kabuki-related inspiration. Such involved and active direction requires a bit more SFX for immersion, so I've been making what feels like a somewhat ridiculous amount of SFX requests. Suriko has been very helpful with finding and editing what I need, though, so I'm grateful. Thank you, Suriko!!
I thought I would go over some techniques I frequently use and explain their purpose while also dropping screenshots from portions of act 1 that aren't public. Now you can be both excited and educated!
One Subject Focus
This is probably one of the most frequent techniques I use in scenes. I close up on the subject, blur other elements, and in the case of some shots, I also darken other subjects into silhouettes to create the illusion of their back facing the camera. A Tithe in Blood has a lot of mystery and introspection in it, so I utilize this for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it's to have you focus on the subject so you can focus on their reactions or how they're moving. Other times I use it to represent distance between people having a conversation, especially when there's a back-and-forth going on with the shots as the dialogue advances. Of course, there are also times where I do this for a combination of reasons–representing distance and directing the player's focus aren't mutually exclusive things.
In the above screenshot, Honoka is distant from the two people she's speaking with. This is an interaction she's not interested in having, so you also see the close up on her nervous face. I also intentionally sandwiched her between the silhouettes to make her seem closed in–though she doesn't want to be here right now, she can't escape.
Face Off
While A Tithe in Blood also has portions that contain ordinary sprites-facing-each-other segments, sometimes I arrange a shot so that it seems as if two characters are right in front of each other, regardless of where they might actually be spatially (with their actual spot in the space visible behind their portion of the screen). The intent here is twofold–you get to see their expressions as clear as they can be while they talk, and it gives a sense of confrontation or full attention on each other.
In this screenshot, Honoka and a mysterious woman (whose name you know if you've been keeping up with your daily trailer rewatch regimen) are having a very normal conversation. This very normal conversation is intense, intentionally initiated by the woman to talk about something very important with Honoka. The face off is used here to amplify that intensity and make the player feel just as nervous as our protagonist. Additionally, since this game is in English and being read left to right the whole time, your eyes also naturally view this shot from left to right–so the mysterious woman feels a bit like she's coming in for an attack.
Cut-ins
When establishing a location change or focusing on another part of the space that isn't in the current camera angle, I like to utilize cut-ins. They're a useful way to convey information when you can't exactly get the full shot–bringing in just a slice rather than switching the camera angle is great when I'm trying not to be too jarring with a full cut. For location changes, I often like to use cut-ins to give a close-up of the space before showing the full thing, especially when the setting is being introduced in the story for the first time.
For this part, the forest clearing is already a location that's been visited, so its purpose isn't an initial establishing slice. Rather, I used a slice to represent that Honoka is currently walking through the forest, but hasn't actually "reached" the destination in the forest she's headed to (the full forest clearing background). This is another use for showing a different part of the space: by only showing a rather tree-dense part of the background, I can create a sense of travel without the team having to make an entirely new asset for this one part.
Point-of-View
Occasionally, A Tithe in Blood will switch to a first person perspective. The reason is often very simple: by viewing the world through the speaker's eyes, you get a sense of what they see–and what they don't see. As this is ordinarily a third person game with a visible protagonist sprite, such a POV change grabs your attention and very heavily directs your focus by virtue of it being first person.
Explaining this screenshot fully will be a little too spoilery, but here, this first person POV shot is used to both show what Honoka's focusing on in real time as well as conceal her face.
Abstract Representations of Thought
Like I mentioned before, A Tithe in Blood has a lot of introspection. Thoughts will sometimes be represented in an abstract manner on the screen. Not only does this make for a visually interesting backdrop while you're reading the associated dialogue, but it also, well...shows you what a character is thinking about! I try to come up with a lot of creative ways to do this, especially since Honoka is in her own head very often.
Here, Honoka is thinking about the times Yasue has used her magic as she looks at her. She's more focused on her thoughts about Yasue than Yasue herself, though, so Yasue's sprite is dimmed as the CGs slowly pan in opposite directions behind her. Since Honoka is thinking about these events as frozen moments in the past, the images have been desaturated.
That's all I have for this post. Who knows, maybe I'll write another post featuring more ATiB direction infodumping and force Studio Élan to post it on their Patreon for my amusement. In the meantime, are you an interested straggler who hasn't yet wishlisted the game? Go over to A Tithe in Blood's Steam page and hit that wishlist button right now! (But if you prefer Itch.io, that's fine too.)
