Xinran Shen: Midterm Portfolio – #1 Captions

Project Description:

A character of Genshin Impact (Open World RPG Game produced by MiHoYo), Furina De Fontaine has won many players’ hearts since her debut in Q3, 2023. Her character demo is one of the most popular among all, not only showcasing Furina’s character personality and skills but also incorporating a variety of music styles including House, Jazz, Musical, Electrical, etc in its background music. In this project, I added captions to the sounds (including music, talking, sound effects…) of Furina’s character demo, trying to render the diversity and drama of this unique video.

Documentation:

Transcript:

(Disclaimer: GPT3.5 helped with grammar and a few parts of phrasing.)

On the spacious stage, Furina sits at a table, resting her chin in her hand, with a delicate little cake in front of her. She takes off her blue hat and covers half of her face with it. Then, she playfully stands up and takes a few steps with extravagant gestures. The camera zooms in, focusing on Furina’s elegant high heels, delicate white gloves, and graceful shorts suit.

Under a filter reminiscent of silent black-and-white films, Furina intercepts her vassal, Clorinde. She delivers her monologue: “My dear vassal! This is not a foe you can lightly handle. Fret not, it is I who shall dispose of such a foul being.” She then gracefully pirouettes, transitioning into a colorful filter, elegantly wielding her sword against the enemy. However, her opponent turns out to be an innocent seal pup. After a few strokes, she gracefully kneels to the seal pup, offering a respectful gesture. Clorinde and the seal pup both look at her with speechless expressions.

She summons her three water elemental members of Salon Solitaire, directing them to besiege a bewildered little crab, while she lounges with crossed legs on a wooden crate, leisurely observing. As the battle concludes, Fureena elegantly spins and curtsies on the water’s surface, then proceeds to introduce each member of the salon. First is Gentilhomme Usher, a small octopus, whom she affectionately embraces. Then, she warmly hugs Surinchindante Chevalmarin, a little seahorse. Finally, she plays rock-paper-scissors with Maidemoiselle Crabaletta, a small crab, which angers the latter as the crab’s pincers can only form scissors while she can form a rock.

Scene switches – Furina sits on a swing, laughs and throws money to audiences. The same scene repeats 4 times, each time imitating a specific archon of Teyvat and their people. A spotlight shines on the elegantly striding Furina on stage, with countless cameras aiming at her, firing away. Then, she transitions from the pneusia state to the ousia state. She performs a series of graceful maneuvers on the grass. The scene switches, and she is seen waving to Charlotte from behind the camera. In her footage, a variety of absurd stories unfold: Tartaglia is chased by three melusins. Neuvilette is captured by two of Navia’s attendants. Furina teases his hair. Lyney is trapped in a water tank while Lynette smiles, showcasing it all. Freminet’s head is stuck in a diving helmet, needing Furina’s help to be pulled out. Clorinde aims a gun at Riothesley.

The film reels whirl rapidly as Furina unleashes her luxurious Q skill, engulfing the entire square in a blue glow. All the characters mentioned before appear behind her, engaged in a melee. Furina sits leisurely on a bubble amidst the chaos. As the tumultuous scene concludes, everyone strikes their final pose. Furina excitedly waves around, and the curtain is drawn, leaving behind silhouettes of her and the three salon members.

 

Reflection questions: 

I chose to create captions for “All World’s a Stage”, which is the demo video for Furina, a playable character in the Chinese open-world RPG game Genshin Impact. Furina is a key character in Fontaine, a France-inspired map in the world setting of Genshin, and because of her cheerful personality yet painful behind-the-scene stories, this demo video perfectly portrays this to the audiences. The structure is stage-drama-like, involving Furina’s identity, skill module demos, interpersonal relationships, etc, all showcased alongside a fusion of different genres of music including jazz, classical (operatic), musical, funk, electric swings, house… I hope that my caption could show a similar vibe and convey such joyfulness and the light melancholy behind Furina’s smiles.

Because music is such a key part that shapes the storytelling of this character demo, I find it particularly difficult to render with captions. I find the emotions behind background music somewhat inexpressible, and I was careful with my word choices because involving technical terms about genre names might not work better than using adjectives that directly describe the vibe that the music is creating, like “sassy intro music”. After exporting the video, I realized that I could’ve done better in captioning other background sounds as well, like instead of saying “music with snaps”, I could just say “rhythmic music” which better conveys the vibe.

However, the modality of captions works particularly well for explaining ideas that might be hard to realize at the first time of watching this demo. I remembered having to watch it several times to understand the whole thing when this demo first came out last year because it encompasses so many details about the setting of Fontaine and the bloopers of its archon quest. I worried a bit that having too much information in the captions would bother the audience’s visual focus, but, like many character demos of Genshin Impact, this video is created for rewatching again and again (for player retention reasons, as well as capturing all kinds of details in the settings). So at last, I decided to caption everything I could while keeping words concise.

I think this video is potentially excluding those who are not native English speakers or cannot read things fast in English because some captions were there just for the blink of an eye (this demo has too much information…) I later realized that instead of captioning everything that is happening, I could’ve excluded some non-necessary parts like some sound effects, so that the viewer won’t be too busy processing all kinds of information.