Incantaro is an experimental visual study and outlook on the 2002 rendition of the Harry Potter universe found within the GameCube port of 'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets'.

Developed by Eurocom and Published by EA in November of 2002, Incantaro is my very first console-based machinima project and sheds light on a game that is considered for many, myself included, a hidden gem, somewhat underrated and a highly personal favorite. The name Incantaro is a word-play on the word incantatum, which is quite fitting for a film taking place inside of the Harry Potter universe.

The film was recorded solely inside of the Dolphin emulator, a piece of software that allows users to play Nintendo GameCube and Nintendo Wii games on a computers. While doing so, the user is able to enjoy various quality-of-life improvements, such as higher rendering resolutions, graphical updates, anti-aliasing and custom controller mapping. Furthermore, what makes the Dolphin emulator highly interesting for filmmaking are their ‘custom texture’ and ‘free look camera’ functions.

Production commended in March of 2023 and was concluded in May of that same year. Footage was captured by using the free-look camera and the texture manipulation options within Dolphin and the well-known capture software OBS. The film’s production process embraced the at this point well-known feeling and interpretation approach that I often use for post-production. However, this time I decided to use it for both production and post-production. I created an overview of all the maps found within the game and used a number of developer debug menus to swap between the various maps (credits to fellow HP-enthusiast Angel Sandro for bringing back the developer debug menu with a cheat code). Once the map was loaded, I used the F&I approach to move about around the map, and record footage until I was simply convinced there was nothing left to capture in terms of footage and perspectives.

Once production concluded, I conducted a rough sweep of the recorded footage by checking every piece of footage and deleting pieces of footage that did not meet expectations at that time. All the footage was categorized in folders during post-production based on the map where they were recorded. Shots were selected randomly and based on feeling.

Once a rough offline edit was completed around and near the end of the summer, the runtime clocked in at around 20 minutes. The slow pace, which I initially used in AR3NA and Regression 4 and was found to be very fitting within these projects, simply did not fit Incantaro for some reason. I changed this by implementing a higher tempo in the edit, which decreased the total runtime to approximately 7.5 minutes. While doing so, I took the opportunity to critically look at the selected shots once more and deleted another number of them that were found to be redundant or their surroundings/arena too overly present within the general ‘balance’ of the film. I found this newly decreased runtime to be more fitting, bite-sized and digestible in terms of overall experience and consumption. The amount of shots will perhaps be a lot to take in all at once, but I found the idea of ‘burst consumption’ pretty interesting for this new machinima installment and thus decided to give it a try.

The audio track was solely created with sound effects found in the game in combination with a number of experimental drone/ambient tracks composed by Serat. While in production, I turned off the game’s music completely in order to only allow the sound effects to be recorded. During the audio post-production process, I, again, used the same F&I approach to layer various background sounds and sound effects in order to generate a whole new soundscape on a shot-to-shot basis. Afterwards, the experimental drone-type tracks composed by Serat were added to compliment and complete the established soundscape.

Incantaro serves as a definitive visual study and experimental point of view towards a classic game and the many personal memories attached to it. Enjoy.

A film made by Jordy Veenstra

Produced by A Pixelated Point of View

Incantaro contain tracks composed by Serat. All tracks have been obtained from freeMusicArchive.org with a CC-BY 4.0 License. The film score also contains sound effects obtained from the game 'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets'. Composed by Eurocom Entertainment Software

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) - Developed by Eurocom Entertainment Software. Published by Electronic Arts

Dolphin, Dolphin Free Look Camera, Dolphin Custom Texture Feature by Dolphin Emulator Project

© Jordy Veenstra 2024

© A Pixelated Point of View 2009 - 2024