Game Design: Art Director

Art Directors within video games have one of the most essential roles. They are in charge of the aesthetics of the game, from everything to the style, props, characters, level designs, pretty much all the visual parts of the game.  They are also in charge of giving orders to other art divisions to ensure that all parts of the games elements maintain the same visual elements. This means they have to be able to lead a large number of people effectively.

Art Direction is a very creative role, using many different artistic skills in order to portray an idea. The style of the game and understanding how colours can effect the mood can drastically change the feel of a level and how the player portrays it. They must make decisions on the style of the game, deciding between realism to very cartoon visuals. Of course this does depend as well on what genre of game it will be, but they need to have the knowledge to know which style will work best. Being able to understand such things takes a lot of skill and experience as a art director.

Film Art Directors and Game Art Directors have similar roles in both their fields. They are both in charge of the main visual elements. Yet for films the art director mainly works on story boards, set design and the specifics of how a scene should be shot to convey the correct messages to the audience. With games this is very similar yet they have to create the sets but in interesting ways in which the player can explore and lose themselves in. This means games have to have much more designs as there are much larger areas and levels that a player will explore than that someone will have to see in sets in a film. Along with game limitations its much more difficult to add in a the subtle visuals and in a way that works within a level which may be ignored and not noticed.

During my A level Spanish I studied the film Director Pedro Almodovar. In his films he uses colour to show certain themes such as love and death through the colour red. In so many scenes the lead would either be wearing elements of red and in the background there would always be a red object. Even subtle things such as the colour of the car or bus they drive in are red. All these subtle elements that you don't even think about when watching his film surprised me when i had to analyse it. His attention to detail was insane but set the mood of the film perfectly. Being able to understand how colours effect the mood, the camera angles, and the way he filmed the scene gave the exact impression he wanted and hinted to a more subtle undertone.

In order for me to become an art director I am going to need to look at how visual elements can be used to portray the mood of a scene and how colour and lighting can effect the scene. Another very important job is to communicate your ideas to other members of the team in charge of different elements. For this I need to work on my communication to be able to clearly get across my ideas.



http://www.discoverit.org/art_director_game_design.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_director
http://www.creativeskillset.org/film/jobs/productiondesign/article_4669_1.asp