I found a new video snippet to obsess over for a week. It's a good opportunity to jot down thoughts on things I find lacking in a lot of animation I see -
setup and
focus / pace.
Like a lot of pieces I discuss, this one is so full of material that I can dig in seconds by seconds here, yet it's still relaxed, mellow, and free instead of being rushed and noisy. Its willingness to set up ideas helps, as does it ensuring a real pace - things can happen quickly, but they get their own focus in turn and with breaks and exhales, instead of being jammed together.
This is the opening to The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. I encourage you to watch it yourself and then see what I have to say.
Spirit Tracks explains its gimmicks quickly, but in a methodical sequence, such that you can process each one individually to build up the composite picture.
First, we know a train will be important. It dominates the frame, huge and not competing with anything for attention. Trains are not a huge part of Zelda, but one is huge here, so it makes sense to highlight the train while giving us a moment to focus on it. Similarly, the audio only holds the whirr of the train. That whirr will be continual guiding tempo or percussion beat to this scene - quick motion, but steady - and a unifying element of it all, alongside the train.
We smoothly transition, with the mouth of the tunnel growing to prepare us. Clearly, once the train comes out of the tunnel, something else important will come out the other side. The mouth light fades the scene to white, and all at once,
We're somewhere completely different, both visually and musically. The train is still central, but the outside reveals a lovely green meadow with mountains rising and clear blue skies. The train's whirr is still there, but the adventuresome music kicks in as well.
Now, the train remains important, but the beauty of the natural wild is too. Trains and industry are often framed as enemies of the natural world, but there's clearly a different idea here. The quick mechanical train and the unchanging, unmoving nature coexist, and we're establishing a positive, cheerful mood. Even with the new train, the traditional Zelda focus on natural beauty and adventure will remain. One might wonder, how will the game bring these ideas together?
Note also the simplicity of the natural world. There's only one departure from a perfectly normal green field and sky - the mountains, which themselves are simple and easily recognizable shapes, and they help the composition by framing the grasslands and incoming train. By choosing not to add anything else in this basic world that would distract or draw our attention, like trees or characters,
the game tells us that this simple natural world worthy of care and attention on its own.
A character is appearing in a second or two, Link, but he unintrusively pops up in the far bottom corner.
Just like you, he's drinking in the beauty of the natural world as it is. He's also a conductor now? That's cute! Don't worry that you'll miss a detail, though - the scene gently and slowly pans away, with no cuts, showing him in greater detail.
This pan is great. Now is a natural time for an exhale. We've gained the basic premise of the game, and a second to digest that information and get ready to move on is fantastic. The full, shining sun is a perfect note to continue our joyful, even triumphant tone and adventure, as it gently draws further along Link's face.
Oh, that music cue is suggesting a new melody! Does the game have something else important to establish?
Some
one in fact! It looks like Zelda is joining us for this adventure! Zelda's presence here, even this individual frame, establishes a pretty thoughtful center to found her dynamic with Link. She's equally
important, and that equality comes through a series of
trade-offs that help differentiate her from Link.
She's sitting
higher, closer to the center of the frame, a position of power, but also further to the
back of the train, away from the front and its control. She's some kind of ghost or spirit, which probably lets her do things Link can't – like reasonably sit on top of a clipping train, but that also implies she died, which is not advantageous usually. Her visual design helps here, showing that she's probably some kind of physically weakened spirit with her paler colors, but still herself as Zelda, as her design is blooming with color and style even with its fading.
We also learn that Zelda is playful here, not just with her seat choice, but also how she "sneaks" into the scene and into Link's slightly surprised – but happy and not worried – view.
That's a lot of information - our second character, a foundation for her personality and plot situation, and a foundation on her dynamic with Link. Trains and nature coexisting, the living and dead coexisting... it seems like we're building up to a broader theme on how seeming opposites can thrive together. That's cool! But it's probably time to slow down again. Zelda's a ghost! What's going on there! Lots to process.
The scene gets it, and from now on, while we're keeping up the cheer, there's no big transitions or information pieces. We're 15 seconds in, and for the next 25, it's Link, Zelda, the train, and the wilderness hanging out together, doing small incremental buildups of their established ideas. With that slow incremental building, we can just process and drink it all in. We get to see Zelda doing her cool ghost things, with some beautiful personality touches in her flight. There's just one more moment I want to focus on.
It's great and cool how Link watches Zelda fly in wonder – he clearly likes and cares for her a lot. But this just takes the cake.
As Zelda chooses
herself to fly down his way, how he's just so genuinely beaming and happy to see her. It warms my heart. I found the best snippet I could, but the developing animation really seals it here. Link clearly loves his position as the conductor, and from a place of zero desire to lord over that type of control. He's lit up like a Christmas tree as first he makes space
for her, and then gestures with his arm to give a conductor's welcome for his adored passenger to board.
Zelda gracefully sits down with him, with a more human seating arrangement than before, and doubles up with him to eagerly see where their new train adventure is taking them. Seeing the two of them together there... maybe these seeming opposites aren't so different after all.