“Animation, lighting, layout, camera, sound, effects… all of it contributes to how you as an audience member feel over the course of the piece,” he says. The development process for new Overwatch shorts begins with setting up the foundation of the story they intend to tell, which Chamberlain dubs “the most brutal and rewarding part of the process.” Once they’ve found that perfect hook, the artists begin sculpting the evocative moments and character arcs inherent to each cinematic. The team’s “north star,” says Chamberlain, is their desire to tell emotionally engaging, character-driven stories that resonate with audiences. We try to dig into what each character’s specific needs are and build a story around that.” Ultimately, this comes down to characters and their relationship to others and the world around them. “It’s important to try and maximize the heart and soul of the piece into what we’re making. Overwatch cinematics only last a few minutes’ time, which means the luxury of telling a long-form story is something the team, according to Hill, just doesn’t have. Getting that desired emotional connection to viewers while telling a gripping story in a condensed amount of time requires a delicate touch-a talent that visual developers have spent years refining.
It doesn’t hurt that we have exceptionally talented artists who come up with fantastic ideas along the way.” My goal is to work with the visual development team and find the best options possible.
“There are countless ways to evoke an emotional connection to a piece through color or framing, in addition to what a character is doing. “When working on cinematics, we’ll collaborate with our concept team to explore options for both character design and environment looks,” says Hill. We caught up with some members of these teams to discuss what goes into developing cinematic visuals and music.įrom concept sketches and storyboards to final renders featuring the rich, living animation and bold art style that have become hallmarks of the Overwatch universe, the collaborative journey of the visual development process for a number of cinematics is chronicled in the newly-released Cinematic Art of Overwatch: Volume 2.įor creative director Jeff Chamberlain and cinematic director Jason Hill, each cinematic undertaking has been largely driven by the emotions captured in animated form and aroused in the game’s worldwide audience. Together, The Cinematic Art of Overwatch: Volume 2 and the Overwatch: Animated Shorts soundtrack chronicle the hard work and talent of the teams behind the Overwatch shorts. This first animated short-and the many that would follow it-was a marriage of visual and musical passion crafted by the artists and composers whose work on the many Overwatch cinematics has now been compiled into a second artbook and an album. For the first time, we saw the soldiers, scientists, adventurers, and oddities that comprise the ranks of the international task force we would come to know as Overwatch. A world teetering on the brink of anarchy.īut, then, the music segued into a swell of triumphant trumpets. Global devastation wrought by malevolent, seemingly unstoppable robotic entities. As the screen flashed to an image of a frigid Russian warfront littered gun-toting militants and arachnid-like omnics, the music surged into a crescendo of heavy horns and distressed violins while a disembodied voice uttered a single word: Conflict. In 2014, the introduction to the world of Overwatch began with the fervent beat of a drum.
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