Filmmaker Reacts: Baldur's Gate 3 Opening Cinematic

what's really significant about this is the human eye sees about a 50 millimeter lens it's that field of view it instantly evokes a familiar feeling this is not what the human eye uses as a lens this is more like a 70 millimeter a bit more of a portrait lens because instantly you know this is not from our perspective of our character just subconsciously and I think that's so smart uh for them to use those psychological cues you don't have to understand the language of film but it makes perfect sense just when he thought it couldn't get worse they brought us that caled oh no no no no that's not right take me home take me back good morning I'm Philip hartsorn I'm known for my filmmaking I've done in China today we're going to be reacting to Baldur's Gate 3 opening cinematic and analyzing The Cinematic language I've had a ton of fun with Baldur's Gate playing with Alia and my friend Sam as you guys saw on the stream the other day on Twitch absolute Madness uh absolute chaos and amazing it's a true role-playing DND experience and I really think it is a masterpiece uh but what I wanted to do is I wanted to look at the opening cinematic and really break it down and appreciate it make sure to check out my other videos on this channel if you want to see more breakdowns from various games and cinematics please let me know in the comments what kind of character did you roll in Ballers Gate 3 what class and give me all the details and let's get into it all right Larry and Studios let's see what you cooked up for us I love how they open with this sort of lore shot of the the people bowing down it's maybe the future that we'll see if the Mind players get their way and what what a set piece this is man I love the gray almost the blue gray and the Reds it just makes for such a Eerie set and this is creepy right off the bat is showing how powerful this creature is like just floats around of course we get our character introduction for Lazelle here um beautifully rendered beautifully rendered this is an underappreciated cinematic that's why I want to talk about this and I love it because from this perspective boom we switched to us so it was kind of cool in the beginning it's like you thought you might be her and I love the FPS here it gives the sense of eeriness and danger right because you see her tied up and you realize you're in the same position and there's just some great visual storytelling here you'll notice there's no dialogue it's very well done and this this is a great shot to the reaction because that reaction right off the bat uh with Lazelle here again they can't show our player character because we haven't made them yet right and this is pretty rendered is very smart to show danger you know that's not a good thing whatever that is and it brings this sense of kind of classic inevitability and just this anticipation uh and it's just like what is this thing you know and again this is our view which is very smart uh feeling the same fear as her being you know trapped as well in jail and like this is ah God really really good reaction work here and I think the Yankee is a really cool race that they included and it's just such a cool facial structure and everything but they did so well to show deep expressions in destruction look at even the teeth and everything incredibly well put together uh rendering of all this let's see what happens here of course super uncomfortable right ah God and just ah God you almost have to look away right it's so awful and they just closer pod right back up and then of course you know it's coming for you man uh it's it's just a really smart perspective to show it from and we'll talk more about this in a second but it's so cool uh sort of really creative gameplay integration with story which is really what gaming is um again not showing us yet because we haven't made the character you want to look away and it just shows again this is a powerful foe you know beyond beyond the horror of the situation behind the just sheered fear of what's Happening Here in the anticipation it's good visual storytelling these these beings are powerful you can't even look away they can just control your body and everything so uh it's kind of cool because it's setting up for later this is a powerful foe we're gonna have to gain power ourselves to to take them out because we can't resist yet ah and again after the only angle we didn't get before was the front of its mouth right so now you see that oh God right to the eye but again a great a great transition right there to show that oh we've lost Vision it's almost like we go into a dream right and now it's design your character yeah and this is just super smart way to uh kind of hook the audience to grip the audience is to have them go in and say okay now you can make your character choose your class and everything by the way one of the best uh one of the best character creators I've ever seen it was so much fun uh me and Aaliyah spent tons of time on it after the fact uh but yeah fantastically done I love all the options the guardian design too I'm not fully familiar with what the Guardians gonna mean later in the story but um awesome awesome anyways let's continue the intro cinematic here I love what they did there it's just such a cool way to to motivate you know to motivate gameplay to motivate character creation um again after you're already kind of interested in the story it's like whoa what's going on with us you know they don't just start with character creator before the the intro they kind of split it up I thought it was very smart um and there's a there's a deceased mind player there okay so some interesting visual storytelling again I think this is getting into the Mind players way of reproduction has to do with this and it would seem that they maybe they have a short life cycle like there's a lot of questions here I like how they include that for later you know getting you thinking along those lines um and again they're going to explain some of that I think this ship design is one of the coolest things man the squid aesthetic throughout the whole thing again showing the power of these guys uh being a living ship it's like oh this is this is one of their number you know the ship itself and of course we get the first reveal of the city itself Baldur's Gate yeah iconic City looks awesome uh amazing amazing reveal here and I think it's cool that we start within the ship we already have the stakes rid of the stakes of the story we already have the the character attachment and then we're realizing kind of the scope of the story what's happening you know we're just caught in the ship so far it's claustrophobic trapped in this cage and then it's like oh okay these guys got bigger plans than us they're attacking the city and I love this uh idea of the Bell Tower where you're like this guy's trying to run up there and it's so hard to get up there you know oh look at that just just instantly deletes me and there you go again visual storytelling it's so well done it's like oh I guess that's how we got there right so it's just kind of answering that question um very very well storyboarded God and like these these creatures are powerful man they just again another dead deceased mind flayer uh telling us they need Replacements right they need vessels what a cool shot this is man again the cityscape the background Vista and then of course there's another uh player about to enter onto the onto the tabletop board here check it out Boom the dragons show up and I believe yeah I believe they get Yankee manned dragons it's just like what an epic idea man we have dragons attacking this alien looking ship in a fantasy City just really cool officially like what a what a combination of visual just spectacle man and they're attacking this living ship awesome awesome this is this is fantastic he's falling he's falling what's gonna happen of course the dragon saves him beautiful beautiful shot there foreign these dragons are enormous and they're just roasting this thing I love it very well done it's really smart to to again have that gray blue then when it gets lit by the fire you can see in the next scene when you're running around it gives such a cool visual to add in all those Reds and oranges and that's just such a cool concept man where you pull this thing and you teleports like and who knows where we are now I'm not familiar if you guys know if you uh DND experts know please tell me the location oh man I love it again more red versus that gray blue really smart on the coloration aspect oh I love this so she's you know we're we're in that room and they can't show us still but it's it's amazing that they're adding the drama to the scene there's so much happening at once like we're trying to break free we're trying to get a a moment to escape so it's like I want the dragons to burn the ship but not all the way just enough for me to get out you know awesome nice close-up there this is so cool man that that idea of ignition where the Flames are just creeping up enough to light it up such a cool idea and it's such a cool concept to see visually look at that town that dragon's mod or just just amazingly done and of course this is us we are waking up and again we get the FPS what's really really cool what's really significant about this is the human eye sees about a 50 millimeter lens uh equivalent of what you would use lensing for a camera it's 50 millimeter so what I've done here in this FPS is it's it's that it's that field of view and I think that's really cool because you know to us it instantly evokes a familiar feeling of a lensing and to give a comparison like this is not what the human eye uses as a lens this is more like a 70 millimeter a bit more of a portrait lens maybe an 80 millimeter so that's the cool thing is instantly you know this is not from our perspective of our character just subconsciously and I think that's so smart uh for them to use those kind of subtle psychological cues you don't have to understand the language of film but it makes perfect sense it's just awesome that's the beauty of it all that's the beauty of being able to use these tools to tell stories now this the cool thing about this is that shot could have been from our perspective unclear right but it could have worked and I love this shot is just scale that pull out was so cool because it's C like okay she's this big that ship is enormous again the dragons are enormous that's just so cool those are really good it's a really good thing I don't know what these big spikes are I have absolutely no idea but that's awesome too okay so this I think is a third party that's attacking and correct me if I'm wrong that's what appears to be um I don't think they're in yeah these guys are not in lead with the Mind players because I know we fight them on the ship yeah but here we are and again this is where I I was talking about the set design and to have the fire added into that coloration is so cool and of course this would be if you chose vampire boy himself you would have this character come out but it's cool because that would be the first reveal uh again so at this point you're just gaining control of your character and you are fully invested in what's going on you have a great understanding of what's going on and it's cool because from an art design standpoint they would have planned for the set to have the fire in it and to give that cool little orange punch to it to bring out the rest of the colors but you know of course we didn't know that in this in the opening sequence but anyways I just want to say it's it's amazingly real it's amazingly well done we'll go back and look at it a little bit more in detail and but I absolutely loved it uh the game is masterful like I said shout out to larion Studios whoever worked on this amazing work amazing work uh everything from the shot selection to the lensing like I said it's just very well thought out including the shot which we talked about but it's great I love it guys make sure to subscribe if you want to see more like this also follow on Twitch like I mentioned but let's let's take a closer look let's go back um there's a few shots that I really wanted to kind of talk about more again this this whole intro is awesome and I want to talk a little bit more about the FPS or excuse me not the FPS the uh the lensing thing I was discussing so as I mentioned this again is a little bit closer to probably like a 70 millimeter portrait but then this is our view right so that they've they've pulled back out a little bit to a little bit closer with the human eye sees and you have the blinking vignette too which is a really cool effect again is that they're telling us without a doubt this is from your perspective I love it it's interesting because the mind flares like they almost have this uh solemnity to what they're doing these Fallen Brethren are around them and everything uh but man what a brutal and awful way to kind of reproduce makes me wonder like how do they get to this level of Technology the Mind flares you know from their culture and everything it's unbelievable God and look to make that thing translucent too is so smart yeah this shot is just brutal again but look at you know look at the the sort of sophistication of lighting here we have this amazing little kiss light from the red behind her and everything you can see on her hair as well ah good and they made it they made it such a believable reaction you know because you'd be not wanting to look of course and close your eye but there's also this creature on your face you don't want to look away from it threatening oh God just goes right in terrible then again back to that same view so it's cool because they've they've reached a consistency with the lensing so it's okay this is gonna be the the 50 millimeter yeah and that's what's cool is because you know uh a lot of people would have thought oh let's let's open up the angles go wider angle to show more but no because they're keeping it from what the human eye sees you get that claustrophobic feeling where it's he's right in your face like ah it's uncomfortable and that's what they wanted right it's uncomfortable get it out of my face I can't even see uh it's in my eye you know it's really really smart again for those reasons and it adds that feeling of being trapped like you can't escape so that was really cool again amazing character creator we could talk about that all day yeah back to the set and there he is that's just such a cool reveal too like come on you know it's just it's super interesting that with no dialogue in this so much is conveyed and again that's a that's a shout out beautiful again just visualization and movement even the sound design there is very nice it's kind of like horn-blowing sound very eerie sound through a lot of this and I think it's well done yeah this poor guy too it's like ah man I wish I was a little bit closer to that bill not that it would have helped that much but you're a Madness I'm really excited too because I haven't gotten far enough in the game to where I've been inside Baldur's Gate the city itself so I'm really excited to get to that point oof that's rough man they just they grab all these people so they have a they have a surplus of bodies here but if anyone knows the the lifespan of a mind player love to hear that this shot is the one I wanted to talk about so this is an amazing shot again notice the camera movement here it's been very smooth throughout there's actually a little bit of shaking in this shot in a good way all it does is it makes it feel like you're running away and you're looking behind you like oh oh God you know ah what's that over there like uh as if you're the first the one that escaped and you see all these people get taken like oh God it's right in front of me they added that little Shake see that just those last couple frames if we go frame by frame there you can see it yeah it's a little bit of momentum and there it is you know they chose to show that shot to get you to start asking questions like why are they capturing these people interesting you know and then there's that reveal I love how the whole Sky changes color too with this this is interesting because it's it's so cool to there's a lot of sci-fi in this uh or I should say a lot of like higher technology seeming visuals in this it's like we have a portal showing up which typically you think of sci-fi stuff of portal or like futuristic uh Aesthetics and everything but dragons come out of it right that's such a cool clash and we have this ship that you know even though it's a squid living Suite it looks quite futuristic it looks like a spaceship almost even though it's a squid so you've pretty much just dragons versus a spaceship it's just such a crazy crazy intro and I remember seeing this in like the first trailer just a few seconds that they showed and being like wow what a what a crazy Clash you know that's just such a cool shot there really nice sound design on that ripping open the ship geez it's interesting too like I have so many questions you know how to how far can they teleport that's why I said like how did they get to such a high technology and then how did the dragons know to go here like there's so many questions right that was a great shot there I mean damn these Dragon Riders are the geethianki are highly uh proficient at Riding Dragons they don't even have like a saddle or anything this is this whole sequence is great too like there's so much happening that's very you know movement oriented and movement motivated like for example boom there's this huge crash we see the stuff falling down he gets hit the Dragon Goes Down it shows the danger of it we crashed into the thing and we show the thing burst open and everything like it's just I guess what I'm saying is a lot's happening but you understand it visually because of the movement of the camera and the sound design you tell exactly what's happening and it adds dangerous like oh now there's a rock slide or there's a mountain falling down and there's dragons and there's fire and this ship could crash and everything it's just like man the stakes are high in this rescue is it a rescue I assume because they're their fellows in there they're trying to get her out you know but I love that they add the drama too of the Mind player trying to Pilot this thing and he's like oh because you know at that point you don't like him he put this bug inside your face but you don't want to crash either because you're on the ship all right so it's kind of cool you're almost like rooting for him it's because you're in there and yeah he lights up that uh that like tadpole pool crazy yeah and that is just such a powerful shot I love that kind of Victorious Victorious Roar and that's that's what's cool about the next scene when you start playing it's like we gotta get off the ship we want the dragons to help us but we can't eat another dragon fire hit either the ship's gonna be destroyed we gotta get off so I think that's what's really cool about it it's ironic that you end up falling off the ship because it's like you could have just jumped or something right away oh yeah amazing amazingly done and back to that like I said the kind of human look yeah and it was cool that they they saw um they actually included the shot here where she looks at you because this is important for later she notices that you've also been you know tadpoled whatever you want to call it um until later she actually attacks you and is like oh are you one of them and everything so it's cool that they included that it's just nice attention to detail you know it wasn't needed also really smart if you notice this is us over here right that's us but they use a really shallow depth of field here to make sure we're out of focus love that because you know can't have our character in a pre-rendered scene and she falls right down yeah and there's that beautiful beautiful scale shot lovely and look at this place just that miserable place like rivers of red and that looks like Caleb my God um just yeah just when he thought it couldn't get worse they brought us the caled oh no no no no that's not right take me home take me back and then there's this hordes of like these little freaks coming at you it's just very well done but uh yeah I have nothing but good things to say about it we could we could continue breaking it down maybe we'll do more uh look at more cinematics later but I am just super impressed with this I would love to hear what you guys think as well uh everybody's talking about the gameplay on this game so I did want to come back here and really appreciate this intro it's very well done uh from a cinematic standpoint so I hope you guys enjoyed it as much as I did um I hope you had fun looking at the the details of it like me are with me rather and please like I said I'd love to hear about your games man I'd love to hear about everything you guys are doing um how far you are in the game and everything like I said I'm pretty early on uh but I cannot wait to to play more and stream more with you guys we're also working on Final Fantasy 16 over on Twitch so this will be uh some cool programming for you guys to check out and like I said we got a wealth of videos on this channel if you're new coming over for Baldur's Gate uh check some of those out as well all right guys have a great day and I'll talk to you very soon

Channel: Philip Hartshorn Gaming

Views: 22,042

Keywords: baldur's gate 3, baldur's gate 3 reaction, baldur's gate 3 opening cinematic, baldur's gate 3 gameplay, baldur's gate 3 trailer, baldur's gate 3 review, baldur's gate opening reaction, baldur's gate cinematic, baldur's gate 3 cinematic, baldur's gate 3 narrator, baldur's gate 3 romance, baldur's gate 3 character creation

Id: Pdn53EpIeDQ

Length: 23min 59sec (1439 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 12 2023