DORI ARAZI:
Executing a no-cut camera.
I thought it was impossible
when I read the script.
I thought it was impossible
when I looked at our equipment.
I thought it was impossible when
I looked at the reality of our
production pipelines.
But it's possible.
It's just
incredibly challenging.
Hi. I'm Dori Arazi, director of
photography on God of War,
and this is how we build a
cinematic experience
on God of War in a single shot.
Every cinematic style
delivers a story in its own way.
It imparts a kind of
subconscious flavor to how you
experience the
overall storyline.
When you read a script, the way
things are mostly delivered is
what's call the AV shot.
So you shoot this
guy; you shoot that guy;
you shoot this guy;
you shoot that guy.
And when you see a really
complex narrative dialogue
delivered without cuts that
doesn't look like the camera's
swinging back and forth and
actually everything is just
flowing organic, it's
incredibly gratifying.
KRATOS: It does not attack.
DORI ARAZI: When you combine
sense of documentary with a
camera that doesn't cut,
you get a very empathetic point
of view to the character.
It's such an immersive way to
experience the hero's journey.
I don't think the player would
have experienced anything like
this before.
ATREUS: What are we hunting?
KRATOS: You are hunting deer.
DORI ARAZI: So I was
running around with a camera,
and we had to shoot it
in one take perfectly.
The actors had to deliver
their performance perfectly,
their dialogue
perfectly, move perfectly,
hit their marks perfectly.
I had to hit my marks
perfectly, no errors.
That was on one side.
Then on the other
side was, okay,
now we have a single-shot
camera for our cinematics.
How do we get that to blend
seamlessly in and out of the
actually gameplay?
It was a herculean
effort in communication.
You had a bunch of
technical teams,
visual teams, and cinematic
teams having to work perfectly
together to know exactly who's
doing what and when to make sure
the player will do
exactly the right thing.
The scene from our 2016 E3 demo
where Kratos walks up to his son
right after he shot the deer,
it was a very somber moment
juxtaposed with a lot of combat,
so we wanted to carry into that
shot very smoothly
to land that emotion.
We work with level designers and
with our camera designers and
with the cinematic team.
The experience was seamless.
You walked into this open
environment and suddenly Kratos
walks into this
beautiful evocative cinematic,
and I think that's when I
started feeling
that we can do this.
We can nail this.
It was visually
climbing Mount Everest.
And seeing it succeed
was incredibly rewarding.
ATREUS: This way.
DORI ARAZI: Cut.
Preorder and get three
shield skins for in-game.
