I'm making a short film from Way of Kings. Thoughts on adaptations?

[David_Fonti he/him]

So I'm making a short film about the Way of Kings, book 1, chapter 13.
This is purely for the community, and I'll be posting the link up when it's complete. However, I'd like to know the community's thoughts on seeing this scene hit the screen.

How have adaptations let you down in the past? How have they lived up to your expectations?

Writing the screenplay, I realised that certain things that were described weren't physically possible, even with power armor haha. So there will be some minor changes.

I hope you will understand. But more importantly, I hope you're looking forward to it!

[Sand Master]

Looks cool. I always imagined a chasmfiend's head to be bigger, have more of a face rather than being mostly mouth. But other than that it looks pretty spot on. I like Elhokar in his golden Plate, though I think Sunraiser could be a bit longer. Aren't Shardblades usually around six feet long?

If I may ask, what kinds of things do you mean when you say, "certain things that were described weren't physically possible"?

All in all, I'm excited to see it. This was one of the coolest scenes from WoK, it will be interesting to see how it turns out.

[Darkness Ascendant he/him]

ur doing this on ur own?

Wow, that's amazing. Studio17 is gonna make an animated adaptation in a few years, would you like to join us? We are doing Warbreaker right now

[David_Fonti he/him]

4 hours ago, Sand Master said:

Looks cool. I always imagined a chasmfiend's head to be bigger, have more of a face rather than being mostly mouth. But other than that it looks pretty spot on. I like Elhokar in his golden Plate, though I think Sunraiser could be a bit longer. Aren't Shardblades usually around six feet long?

If I may ask, what kinds of things do you mean when you say, "certain things that were described weren't physically possible"?

All in all, I'm excited to see it. This was one of the coolest scenes from WoK, it will be interesting to see how it turns out.

I'm not 100% familiar with how to reply on this website, so I hope this works.

The Chasmfiend's design was taken straight from the sketch that appears in the books, by Ben McSweeney. I think once you see it with its mouth closed it may make more sense. And Sunraiser is indeed 6 feet long, though a lot of the hilt is hidden behind Elhokar's cloak.

So this was something that I actually messaged Peter Ahlstrom (Brandon's assistant) about. Once we had Dalinar's run set up in physical space, we found that with the distance he is traveling, and at a speed of 10 meters per second (olypics gold medal standardish) He would reach Elhokar within one swipe of the chasmfiend's foreclaw. In the book, there's 2 swipes. Unless we make the chasmfiend crazy big, with a huge reach, it just wouldn't work. So we changed up the choreography for that part.

After acknowledging my message about a few questions, I sent a big chunk of writing to Peter. I'm not surprised he never got back to me, I must have sounded like a crazed fan trying to pick apart the story. Certainly don't hold it against him.

[Sand Master]

7 hours ago, David_Fonti said:

we found that with the distance he is traveling, and at a speed of 10 meters per second (olypics gold medal standardish) He would reach Elhokar within one swipe of the chasmfiend's foreclaw. In the book, there's 2 swipes.

So Dalinar is actually moving too fast for the book to be accurate? I was thinking it was going to be the other way around. Could it have been that the two swipes were from separate claws in the book? I don't remember if that was specified or not, but if it was then that might account for the two swipes.

[BlackYeti he/him]

If I might make a couple of nitpicks to start off with.

1. The glyphpair on Elhokar’s cape is wrong. The crown and the tower that you've depicted are used by Dalinar, Elhokar instead uses the crown and the sword.

2. The chasmfiend’s mouth is wrong. It’s described in the book as being “full of barbed mandibles” (many rows of teeth in other words).

With that out of the way, let me just say: Wow. This is incredible. Having taken a course in 3D modelling & animation, I understand just how much work and effort must have gone into this and am a little bit in awe. If you don’t mind me asking, how big is the team that worked on this? And which software are you using; Blender, Maya, something else?

I’m really looking forward to seeing more of this. In fact it’s enough to make me want to try modelling some other Rosharan wildlife.

[The One Who Connects he/him]

3 hours ago, Sand Master said:

So Dalinar is actually moving too fast for the book to be accurate? I was thinking it was going to be the other way around. Could it have been that the two swipes were from separate claws in the book? I don't remember if that was specified or not, but if it was then that might account for the two swipes.

I believe that it specified as different claws, but that might have been when Dalinar was dodging the swipes. On that same subject, I feel like the swipes were too close together to be the same claw.

[David_Fonti he/him]

3 hours ago, BlackYeti said:

If I might make a couple of nitpicks to start off with.

1. The glyphpair on Elhokar’s cape is wrong. The crown and the tower that you've depicted are used by Dalinar, Elhokar instead uses the crown and the sword.

2. The chasmfiend’s mouth is wrong. It’s described in the book as being “full of barbed mandibles” (many rows of teeth in other words).

With that out of the way, let me just say: Wow. This is incredible. Having taken a course in 3D modelling & animation, I understand just how much work and effort must have gone into this and am a little bit in awe. If you don’t mind me asking, how big is the team that worked on this? And which software are you using; Blender, Maya, something else?

I’m really looking forward to seeing more of this. In fact it’s enough to make me want to try modelling some other Rosharan wildlife.

Nitpicks are exactly what I'm after! Thanks for letting me know. I've done my best to get the small details right, but I was afraid there were some things that I missed. I'll change that today. I'll do my best with the Chasmfiend too.

Our team is 7 people in total, though as some members are also a part of other teams, we usually have about 5 working on this at the one time. We're all students, and we are making this as a final class assignment.
We're using Maya, with the Renderman render engine. In addition, we are also using 3D coat, Substance Painter, Nuke, Photoshop, Illustrator and Premiere pro

[Eki]

If you want some really nitpicky things, the arrows probably wouldn't stick in the ground, since there is no soil. Anything loose gets swept off in a highstorm. Makes for a more interesting scenery if they do stick in the ground though.

Also, if the archers are all to one side (I don't know if the scene says, but it would make sense. Otherwise they would risk hitting each other), the arrows in the ground would point in approximately the same direction. Unless they bounce off of the chasmfiend I guess...

[Sand Master]

As for the chasmfiend's mouth, I think it's pretty accurate. At least, it looks very similar to Shallan's sketch of it, which has pretty good detail of the mouth.

[David_Fonti he/him]

3 hours ago, Eki said:

If you want some really nitpicky things, the arrows probably wouldn't stick in the ground, since there is no soil. Anything loose gets swept off in a highstorm. Makes for a more interesting scenery if they do stick in the ground though.

Also, if the archers are all to one side (I don't know if the scene says, but it would make sense. Otherwise they would risk hitting each other), the arrows in the ground would point in approximately the same direction. Unless they bounce off of the chasmfiend I guess...

Yeah I decided to go with a bit of suspension of disbelief with the arrows. It just looks so much better with them in the ground hahaha. 
It's hard to notice, but there are more arrows on the right of screen than the left. So there's definitely a direction. I did have them all on the same angle sticking into the ground, but it looked a little... uniform? They needed a little more chaos. Just a bit.

[Eki]

4 minutes ago, David_Fonti said:

Yeah I decided to go with a bit of suspension of disbelief with the arrows. It just looks so much better with them in the ground hahaha. 
It's hard to notice, but there are more arrows on the right of screen than the left. So there's definitely a direction. I did have them all on the same angle sticking into the ground, but it looked a little... uniform? They needed a little more chaos. Just a bit.

Definitely understandable!

About the direction of the arrows, I was mostly thinking about the second arrow from the right, which looks like it was fired from the left. I guess you could explain it in other ways though.

[Darkness Ascendant he/him]

And wouldn't the arrows in the chasmfiend have bounced out.

[Djarskublar he/him]

First reaction.... Floored. Second reaction: upvote. Third reaction: where are Dalinar and Adolin? Sure no Sadeas cuz he is in the back shooting big arrows, but you should be able to see at least one of the other two. They were chopping up limbs then, right? I will have to reread. I am willing to suspend disbelief for the impact of one shardbearer facing down a chasmfiend, though.