Week Seven - Art Directors, yes they now use them in the game industry too

So this week’s task is about art directors and what effects they have on the final product. The art director is effectively in charge of the overall vision of the game, although they may not be directly involved in creating the graphics, it is them who will lay the law on the people below. The job role is the same as that in films, it’s the person who sits in that chair and shouts orders at people, while everyone whispers to each other, what exactly is his job again. Hmm, I’ll have to look into this, apparently it’s very important.

One of the links is a diary of events on an art director’s day, and all be it not the most interesting read in the world, it gives you an idea of a typical day. From the sounds of it I’m not too sure I would like to be an art director, apart from the fact all the pressure is placed upon you and if something’s wrong you're to blame, there doesn’t seem to be much chance for hands on crafts, but maybe after so many years in the industry it would be more desirable to boss people round, and I suppose the game will end up how you want it to look which is something most game artist don’t have any control over.

You can tell if a game has had a good art director, if you’re playing through a game and question the graphics, not just the whole game (although sometimes maybe the case), but certain areas that just don’t fit in at all, that’s where the art director probably had a day off and didn’t get his input in.

One of the questions to answer was ‘do you think it’s a creative role?’ and for some reason my first thought was no, as I said before, person sit in chair, shouts orders, whispering, etc... but after actually finding out about the game industry, and having the numerous lecturers come in and say how they hate the industry, but it’s the best thing ever (yes…) I’ve realised that art directors are the only one’s with the creativity, and the rest are just drones that do what the man in the chair wants. (Yet still I want to go into to industry, madness I tell you!).

Actually after writing this I think it would be a even harder job than I first imagined, I said earlier that there might not be enough hands on modelling, and at times this maybe true, but you have to ensure that everybody’s modelling is up to the same standard and style, and to do that you would have had to set the style and look and feel of most of the game, meaning you have loads of work to do and if you fell behind the whole department would, then the game gets delayed, and before I start thinking too much of oh god I don’t want to ever be that person, I’ll stop and just say well done to all the art directors, aww what a nice way to end this post.