Hideo Kojima released a few Death Stranding behind the scenes videos today that gives us some insight into modern game production. The amazing thing is how decidedly low tech the Death Stranding production was in the beginning days of Kojima Productions.
Each of the three videos (discussed over multiple tweets) show the Kojima Productions crew acting out iconic scenes from Death Stranding. At the time, the Kojima Productions offices were basically empty rooms with a few boxes lying around, so they made the best use of a massive open space and used it to act out their videos.
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Fans of the game have seen goodness knows how many trailers by now, and it’s really interesting to see just exactly how they planned everything out.
Crabs and Babies
The precious video from March 2016. I’ve been digging from archives as we’ll be celebrating the 4th anniversary on 12/16. While having few machines/staffs, we made this rough pre-visualizations to prep for upcoming Norman’s performance capture.Glove as
The first behind the scenes video shows off an iconic scene where the camera pans along a beach. Gloves are standing in for crabs, and some sticks with pieces of paper on them indicate where the black hands should be making their appearance in the video.
We then see the hands move up onto a dead body (played by one of the KojiPro staff), before they look down at the ground at a baby doll.
The Mads world of Death Stranding
The precious video from Aug 2016. When we finally found the office to rent with more staff. As there’s no hallway, kitchen or conference room we were able to shoot this image. Making this rough pre-visualization to prep for Mads’ performance capture. This was used for Mads’ ref. pic.twitter.com/joDxCBipHK
— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) November 27, 2019
The second video focuses on one of the more iconic scenes featuring Mads Mikkelsen. In one preview trailer, he is seen standing in the darkness in full military gear. He raises his goggles and commands four soldiers to go ahead of him before a bunch of strands detach from the soldiers he’s commanding.
Things looked a little different in the planning. Hideo Kojima stood in for Guillermo Del Toro at one point, and then we saw several staffers wielding toy guns and umbrellas in place of actual firearms for the iconic scene featuring Mads. What’s more, this particular video has a picture-in-picture element, comparing the mockup to the actual scene.
Panic set in
The previous video from April 2017. We expanded our space and it became the scanning room but before we use this empty space for practicing camera directions & its constructions. Here we’re filming the scene of CDT encountering BT w/the box as BB Pod & Lud played the corpse role. pic.twitter.com/5QYz2tVaTG
— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) November 27, 2019
The final video shown is another famous trailer leading up to the game’s released where the CDT encounters BT. Once again, Kojima himself is shown on camera and there’s a picture-in-picture element comparing it to the actual finished product.
Hideo Kojima elaborated on this scene in a subsequent tweet.
“This is the process of getting to know how much info can be included in the frame by testing with handy camera in order to visualize my image design,” he said in a tweet. “I write storyboard but skip the drawing and prioritize shooting to speed up and also we can share the ppl’s movement as well as the camera work. Based on this, we can expect how large room we need for the performance capture set, as well as large/‘small props. We also prepare for the CGI to be ready for the rehearsal and the shooting.”
This isn’t the first time Hideo Kojima used cheap props to plan out a game. The first Metal Gear Solid game’s levels were designed with LEGOs of all things. Sometimes, the simplest tools are enough to get the job done; why buy a prop gun when an umbrella will do?
