I've been posting some FF8 retrospective thoughts to tumblr recently, adding one new entry every day or so. I'd repost it here if anyone is interested
http://sheilaknight.tumblr.com/tagged/heartilly
(click on "notes" to expand)
Huh. Never thought of it this way. This is succinct:
Rinoa's tumblr said:
The use of motion actors and stunt performers was nothing new to the PSX era at the time. However, Yasuko Yokoyama (Rinoa’s dancer) and Wataru Hirano (Squall’s dancer) humanized the interactions between the two CG characters more than any regular pantomiming could ever do. There is a universal expression that dancers convey through their gestures and body language. Players knew exactly what Squall and Rinoa are thinking or feeling, whether they’re from Asia, America or Europe. Contrast this with the regular motion acting in the other CG movies, where certain expressions are either hard to interpret or don’t convey much of anything at all.
For some reason, I keep forgetting that that scene was mo-capped. In that respect, even though I don't really care much for CG/cutscenes, this post highlights the sort of thing I wish more cutscenes had: better animations and no dialogue/text to accompany what's being expressed. People can express far more through facial expressions and body language than they can with words, and this is generally what I like in games (which is why I often end up talking about Suikoden II's wonderful sprite animations, the innovations in FF6's sprite animations, Ghost Trick's animations, some of Mother 3's animations, fighting sprite animations (hell, let's just give the award away to SNK), some of Catherine's facial animations, etc.).
Scenes emphasizing body language more than relying on lexical matter just seem to go faster than the dialogue-based scenes and I still feel like I understand the characters far more than I could with reams of text or lots of spoken dialogue (because semantically, ambiguity can be introduced into the speech stream). Rather than making the body language supplement the dialogue (ie: in a reactive way), it should take precedence over the dialogue, imo, and tell the characters' story.
It's just like being in a room with someone else, and even though you're silent, you still understand each other because nothing needs to be said as it'll be redundant. Your expressions, gestures, and other body language tell the other person how you feel or what you want.
