Fortiche Production is a multi-award-winning animation studio who is especially famous for Arcane, the critically-acclaimed series based on the Riot Games’ IP League of Legends, with its innovative visual style. Fortiche came to the Annecy International Animation Film Festival and Mifa 2024 with two special programmes: “Studio Focus Fortiche” and “Making of Arcane”.
At the special conversation session “Making of Arcane”, Barthélémy Maunoury (Creative Director of Arcane season 2), Christine Ponzevera (Producer of Arcane season 2), Arnaud-Loris Baudry (Production Designer at Riot Games), and Amanda Overton (Scriptwriter for Arcane) talked about how they are developing Arcane season 2 comprehensively, such as its creative processes and methods, by focusing and analysing one scene from the second season of Arcane that was exclusively screened during the session. Arcane season 2 is set for release on Netflix in November 2024.
In this interview, we present the insight behind the innovative mega-hit animation series Arcane, as one of our two-part special interviews with Jérôme Combe (Co-founder of Fortiche), Hervé Dupont (Deputy CEO of Fortiche), and Amanda Overton (Scriptwriter for Arcane).
Interview with Jérôme Combe, Hervé Dupont, and Amanda Overton
Animationweek (AW): Why could Arcane attract such a large audience across the world? How did Arcane effectively become a household name?
Amanda Overton: When we were creating the story for Arcane, we just all worked together to write something we wanted to watch. We have been delighted and surprised to see how much other people have liked the same thing we liked. I think it just came from a place of true passion. How can we tell our version of a story that is different than anything we have seen before? How can we invert that trope or do something unique that we still want to watch? It started from a place of us creators being the biggest fans of the show and being the first people who wanted to watch it and love it. Other people liked it too, and we were just so happy for that.
Hervé Dupont: Of course, the League of Legends IP was huge. So, there was a huge initial spark with the community ignited by Riot Games. Christian Linke, the showrunner, really wanted to do the video game adaptation gamers deserve, and it was really important for him.
Amanda Overton: We all love video games, and are huge video game players. We just wanted to see a show that video game fans like us would want to see.
Hervé Dupont: And on the Fortiche side, we love movies. It was a huge chance for Fortiche to prove our love for movies and series. So, there was a love for the League of Legends IP and wanting to pay tribute to players, and the love of Fortiche for movies and filmmakers. It’s this blend of passion that works a lot.
I was amazed when I was looking at the socials. In the same way that I’m a Star Wars child, I felt like there are Arcane children. Like in how the characters were resonating so much to a new generation. And for the older generation, it was like new entertainment. So, it was all these ingredients, with the real passion at the center.
Jérôme Combe: And perhaps with the music video Get Jinxed we have done before Arcane, we understand the audience. We’ve got a lot of messages from young people who like the character. So, we thought that something is there.
AW: What aspect of Arcane do you especially like?
Jérôme Combe: Season two!
Amanda Overton: I think the most exciting thing about Arcane for me was everybody in the project was so passionate about it. But also, nothing is ever good enough for any of us. We’re always trying to push some boundary in terms of storytelling or what we can show visually. We always used to say that we’re trying to put ten pounds of stuff into a five-pound bag. How do we do that, visually, storytelling-wise, character-wise? You’re just never on a project as a storyteller. You get to always try something new. Maybe you succeed, maybe you don’t.
Hervé Dupont: And that’s where production came in and say “Please, deliver!”
I want to tell about my favorite part: the Jinx and Ekko fight. It was something that’s really important in the writing room. And also, when we were doing it, the directors wanted to really nail it. And so, we found ways to schedule an organization so they could work on it until the very last moment they could, in order to always push the boundaries. And at some point, we have to deliver. But at that point we haven’t been to where we wanted to get. In the end, it’s one of the audience’s favorite sequences. So, it’s funny.
Amanda Overton: And the producers are protecting us so we can push.
Hervé Dupont: And it’s a rare moment because the Jinx and Ekko fight is one of the moments when I had to say we have to deliver. The rest of the time, we are looking for ways to find times wherever we can to push the boundaries. But it’s funny because one of the sequences we had to deliver because of the schedule and everything. And the directors were not very sure about it. And it ended up being one of the favorites of the fans. I think it’s ironic and really great; it’s a great story.
Amanda Overton: It’s so fun to get to take risks as a creative person. Because these things cost so much money to do, people don’t like to take risks. And with Arcane and Riot Games, we got to just take so many risks, even into the second season. For the first season, we got to take even more risks because season one hadn’t come out yet, they let us just take as many risks as we wanted and push boundaries even further. You swing for the fences, you hit a lot of home runs, you strike out sometimes. But in the end, I think we got to something that we’re all proud of and happy with.
AW: So, born from your love to the original game and the story, it gives a push through that passion to create a much more higher-level series. And it’s one of the good things. It’s your favorite part of the development of the Arcane, right? It sounds like you are really huge fans, forgetting about more of the adult or business way of thinking. Because they really love these stories, these characters, and these visuals so much, they can push the creativity much more.
Hervé Dupont: It’s why you have creativeness. Arcane was starting like that. Just do something great that you love. And when we delivered the pilot, it was December 2017. And we just did something that we loved with Christian. And then Riot Games saw it and they thought it was very good. Then the business people came in and said that there’s a real potential here. So, then there has been a pause: let’s make sure we have great scripts, and we have our ducks in a row for production, budgets, schedules, etc.
Riot Games is like that. They’re pushing people to try things. And they don’t want to deliver bad things to their community. They take risks, and it’s paid off.
AW: How did you join Arcane, Amanda?
Amanda Overton: My agents knew that I was a big fan of video games, and they said they have this video game TV job. I went and I interviewed, and part of the interview was watching the pilot. And after I watched the pilot, I thought it was beautiful; it was nothing I’ve ever seen before.
Then they had read some project that I had done. And at the time, I had my head shaved, and they’re like, “she’s perfect”, because I looked exactly like Vi at the time! Then, Christian, Alex, and I just sparked, and our creative visions all seemed to align. We all liked the same but complementary things. It just ended up working out. But yeah, I got a job interview and got hired like anyone else.
AW: How did Fortiche’s scriptwriting team and Riot Games, most notably Christian Linke and Alex Yee, effectively communicate with each other to maximize creative synergy, and what was the most important aspect of that communication?
Amanda Overton: It was kind of different from season one to season two. For season one, Riot Games, Christian and Alex hired a writer’s room, and that’s how I got the job, I interviewed. They hired me as a writer on season one. We did a writer’s room. We wrote the scripts. We delivered those scripts to Fortiche, and they added their touch to them. And they interpreted them. They made the season.
In season two, it was a little bit different. We actually ended up collaborating with each other much earlier in the process. So, we would come up with ideas of where we wanted the episode or the season to go. We would pitch them to Fortiche, and the directors at Fortiche. Then they would pitch their ideas back. They’d create mood boards and come up with their own stories or iterations. And then we’d just kind of vibe together until we got to a place where we’re going to write the script. And then we’d go off and write the script and give them the script.
We actually did a lot more rewriting in the storyboard process, too. We would work together to create the best version of the story. They would say things like, “Oh, I think we can do this. We can say this in just a music video. Or we can say this in a shot or a montage.” We both worked together to shape that story in season two. Again, we swung through the fences a lot. It’s very dense, we’ve added a lot in there, and – it’s epic – we cover a lot of ground in a short amount of time. Again, it was much more collaborative in season two. And I think it brings out the best in both sides.
AW: What was the most important goal for you when writing for Arcane?
Amanda Overton: My most important goal is to make something that I would want to see. Something that I think the world hasn’t seen before. And I think for me that it sparks a lot in terms of representation. What versions of women have we not seen before on-screen? What different versions of race, ethnicity, sexuality? What kind of representations of that have we not seen on TV? Let’s put those versions out there. Let’s put those stories out there. And create something new that shows people a different side of something.
AW: The visual design and style of Arcane is very famous worldwide and attracting a lot of audiences from around the world, and it has become synonymous with the studio. How did the studio develop that unique visual style that consists of high-quality 3D CGI characters with a natural 2D look, and 2D backgrounds?
Jérôme Combe: We started a long time ago. Because it was expensive to do a good quality 3D CGI animation, it was difficult for us to be in front of Star Wars movies, because we didn’t have the money. So, we started to develop a style – A new style. And once again, we love anime, and we love western/Hollywood stuff also. We just wanted to do a mix, and we started like that. We just want to see something fresh and cool. We also wanted to have something done by hand in the image, so that’s why backgrounds are done with painting. I thought for young adults, a more mature audience, it’s more interesting to have something close to painting than 3D, which I think is more dedicated for children. We thought to be closer to comic books and stuff like that than 3D CGI.
AW: So, then for you, gradually, you’ve developed the current visual style for Arcane. Did you have any turning points where you notice that you are facing the correct direction, and developing quite a unique vision? Did you have any moments like that?
Jérôme Combe: Yes. We wanted to do something new; close to an illustration. When you search for something, and you say “okay, I’ll do it like that, I test it out”, and then you say “okay, it’s cool. It works.” If it works for us, it will be okay.
Hervé Dupont: It was an iterative process. Like we were putting La Gaviota in 2012, which was the first attempt. And then when we did Get Jinxed, that’s also where we thought about adding 2D animation effects. In Get Jinxed, the character’s texture was not like the style now. So, there was another movie where there have been work on the texture. So, it’s an incremental work through different movies.
AW: How did Fortiche Production and Riot Games work together to develop Arcane? Specifically, which parts in the entire production process of the series, including the pre-production stage, were each company responsible for or worked together on?
Hervé Dupont: So, just something important is that the relationship between Riot Games and Fortiche is, first of all, a creative relationship between Christian Linke, the showrunner, and Pascal, Armand and Jérôme, the creative directors at Fortiche. From a production standpoint, we try to organize things, the business and the production, around this creative relationship to make sure to preserve and enhance it. It was a new approach because usually you start from the business and then you find the right creative, and we really wanted to protect the creative relationship.
From the very concrete side of things, Riot Games was taking care of the writing. We’ve been working with Amanda and the writers, but of course, Fortiche’s directors were charming in writing. And they were also taking care of initial designs that were linked to the IP, to make sure that we were true to the IP on some iconic characters like Ekko or some designs that were really important for fans.
They also took care of all the sounds, including casting, voice recording, sound effects, and music, because Christian Linke is coming from a musical background, so he’s really keen on music, and Fortiche didn’t know the rest of that, meaning that all the work was on the image and staging. So, from when we received the scripts, as Amanda was explaining, there was not a back and forth on the script to find the right blend betweenthe words and the images to tell the story.
Then there were IP designs that were translated into Fortiche’s style because sometimes you’ve got characters from video game designs not blending so well into a movie that you want to be realistic. So, there was kind of an adaptation to fit into the style.
Fortiche then did the storyboard and all the steps until we have to be giving back the baby to Riot Games for the final packaging and broadcasting, and they were taking care of all the sound. And even the sound, for the casting, I remember Christian was sending some tests to Pascal and Arnaud, and for the music.
Fortiche had a voice, so whenever we were able to create alignment between creatives, we were trying to make room for that space to happen, for that moment to happen.
