Reiji Kuga's Monologue [Act 3]: The Reality of Production Taught by 'Crossroad'

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Hello, this is Reiji Kuga.

For this third act of 'Reiji Kuga's Monologue,' I'll be talking about the metaverse drama I'm working on, 'Crossroad'.

Last time, I talked about choosing a genre and team composition, but this time, I'd like to casually introduce some behind-the-scenes stories, struggles, and production episodes common to episodes 1 through 3.

Click here for the fourth act of Reiji Kuga's Monologue 💁

How 'Crossroad' came to be

The beginning of 'Crossroad' was around October 2022. I had done everything I could on stand.fm and was thinking, 'I want to do something new next.'

That's when I saw a movie theater in a cluster world and thought, 'I could do something interesting with this!'

Just around the end of the year, I was talking with team member Juri Aotsuki about 'doing something for a year-end party event,' and that's when the idea of 'maybe making a short drama would be fun!' came up.

I only had a smartphone at the time, but I decided I had to do it with that, and so it began.

Filming with only a smartphone

Filming in cluster was incredibly difficult with smartphone controls. The characters' limb movements were limited, and it was really hard to make them act naturally.

So, I decided to make full use of the 'emote function,' combining clapping, nodding, and dancing while filming.

Moreover, at the time, I didn't understand private world settings at all, so I was filming in public worlds where anyone could just walk in.

So, strangers would just wander onto the set and ask, 'What are you doing?', and there were a lot of unexpected incidents (laughs).

Production flow and points of struggle

Simultaneous scriptwriting and filming

The hardest part of making the drama was having to write the script, film, and edit all at the same time. Since it was my first time writing a script, I started by researching, 'How many characters do you need for a 15-minute drama?'

As a result, I found out that about 4,000 characters is the standard, but when you actually make it, it doesn't go that way. Before I knew it, episode 1 was 20 minutes long, and it just kept getting longer (laughs).

The story of how editing was hell

After filming, I use a video editing app to add audio, subtitles, sound effects, and BGM, but this subtitle work was truly painful.

I have to insert them manually while adjusting the timing and content, and this is tedious and takes an incredible amount of time. Plus, the AI's automatic subtitle function is full of typos, so in the end, I have no choice but to do it myself! It was honestly so exhausting (laughs).

Things I realized after making Episodes 1 through 3

The first episode was truly a challenge full of firsts. Filming with a smartphone, figuring out emotes, and manually adding subtitles—everything was a process of trial and error. But after doing it, I really felt how amazing professional production work is.

In particular, I keenly felt the difficulty of wrapping up a story within a limited time while making it compelling enough that people would want to watch the next one.

Reception and Future Prospects

When I released 'Crossroad' in January 2023, the response was greater than expected, and many people were surprised, saying, 'I didn't know you could do things like this in the metaverse!'

There were almost no drama works using cluster, so in that sense, I think I was able to take on a new challenge.

Next time, I'd like to talk about the behind-the-scenes stories of the production from Episode 4 onwards, as well as bloopers and making-of episodes!

In Conclusion

'Crossroad' is a work produced using a smartphone, but humans are greedy creatures.

I want to improve the quality even more... Once I started thinking that, there was no stopping me 😂

From Episode 4, I finally get my hands on VR equipment.
And so, I bid farewell to the slide-style drama format and began producing it as a full video, but...

Well, 'out of the frying pan and into the fire,' there really are all sorts of things 😂
In Episode 4, I will tell you about the new joys and struggles that came with switching to full video!

Click here for Act 1, Act 2, and Act 4 of Reiji Kuga's Monologue series ⬇️