From Theatre to Video Games: How To Be a Good Art Director with Saïd Abitar
What makes a good art director? Tales of Us caught up with Saïd Abitar, a multi-award winning theatre art director to find out what it takes to manage the aesthetic of a creative project, and how these skills can transfer into the unlikely world of video games…
In theatre and film, the most important thing to remember is to ‘return to the text’. This means that whenever you’re about to make a creative decision, you must first look to your script and ask yourself whether it is really relevant.
For instance, if a character is told to exit through a door stage left, you’re going to need to put an exit there. And if your play is set in 1920s Berlin, you’ll probably want to reflect that in your costume and prop choices.
It’s the same for lighting, sound, art design, and promotional materials. Simply put, follow this rule, and you’re far less likely to veer off course, and to have to go back to the drawing board months (or even years) later to work out exactly what it is you were trying to achieve. This is a common pitfall for creatives who get swept up in the latest trends and politics of the moment. Don’t be one of them.
So how does this apply to video games and World of Us?
Well, before all of the creatives on this project went gallivanting off in a thousand and one directions, we needed to check back in with the text, Congo Tales, which carefully documents so many beautiful myths.
Congo Tales has plenty of different characters and stories that offer a great starting point for any video game, such as The Sorcerer, The Sun, or The Snake.
Of course, when going down the animal route, it’s important to think carefully about whether or not to use anthropomorphism — making animals seem like humans. Because while Disney’s talking teapots and magic carpets are pretty compelling, it’s also a fairly Westernised concept.
By comparison, in different African cultures, man is not necessarily above everything else in the hierarchy. And so perhaps there should be less of a drive to personify creatures in our games. Not to mention other problems that anthropomorphism can throw up — take the blues-singing King of the Apes in the Jungle Book, for example.
So, how do we do anthropomorphism in the right way? And if we’re not going to go there, then how can we find ways to give objects, or animals, a spirit but without giving them human hands, and voices?
These are the sorts of questions that you’ll want to be asking yourself.
Next up, where do you want your game to be set? African countries are often depicted in games and movies as if they’re solely the savanna or rainforest. So, this could be a great opportunity to do some proper research into cities and specific communities. It will be more accurate, and more impactful. Keep asking yourself, am I being respectful?
Or, what about the genre of game you’d like to create? Perhaps you’re drawn to a fighter game, or a race? Perhaps you’re more into brain-teasers, or you like dancing games. If you don’t know yet, then have a think about who your audience is, and do some research into the games they already like to play.
We want to create a game for kids ages 8–12. We know that kids that age love games where they ‘collect’ items, whether points or coins. One idea that jumped to mind after reading Congo Tales was based on the story of the Rainbow Snake. The idea is that you must collect the seven colours of the rainbow to give to the snake before the sun sets.
The game could start in black and white, but as it progresses, and you collect each colour, those are introduced one by one into the game. To see the full majesty of the rainforest in full colour, you must reach the end.
By starting from the text, we aren’t just copying other games. Instead, we are keeping true to our original concept and coming up with something new.
Video games (and art) through time
Video games have come a long way over the decades, from the pixelated arcade games of the 90s, to the super sharp AAA games of today. And so there are literally thousands of different artistic styles that we could look at.
So where to begin?
Much of our work is focused on traditions and mythologies that have been passed down through time. And so it could be fun to try and visualise this lineage through art. I love how Pixar did this with the credits for Wall-e, showing the history of man represented through different artistic styles and eras.
We could play with everything from pygmy art, to cubism (as inspired by Congolese art in France — e.g. the African masks in Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon), to the watercolour style of our Akesi story in Tales@Home. This would be a good way of piquing adults’ interest and offering the opportunity to teach their children about art too.
A new hybrid format of game and cinema
Tales of Us is a company that started in cinema. It’s what we know, and what we’re good at. So it makes logical sense for us to build on the skills that we already have.
So taking this idea further…
Matrix. Jumanji. Tron. All of these movies all incorporate video games. So, how else can movies and games come together?
In Groundhog day, Bill Murray wants to date a girl and must relive each day in a videogame-like process of ‘failure and rebirth/ restarting’. Each time Murray lives through the day, he learns a little bit more about what to do right next time, learning from his past failures. It’s how we learn and grow in everything we do, and teaches that the act of doing, and the journey, is crucial for the end result.
One way to combine this idea of cinema and film could be if you were one of the rangers in Odzala national park, protecting the gorillas. As with Groundhog Day, your character would replay the same situation again and again. Perhaps the first time you play, you choose to turn left and something falls on you. You’d then ‘die’ and start from the beginning again. Each time you ‘die’ you’d have an almost out of body experience, represented by André Bazin’s famed editing style. This is where the view goes from first person, to suddenly a wide angle shot, where you can see the full picture of what tasks are ahead of you and the trials you’ve already passed.
We take this idea even further, by introducing a short documentary before each level.
Next steps in terms of workflow
Once you’ve come up with your game idea and aesthetic, you’ll need to work out how to bring it all together. One option could be for the Art Director to create a storyboard of initial sketches. This is how Disney, or South Park, or the Simpsons creators work, coming together to bounce ideas off one another while looking at the visual stimulus.
These sketches can then be reworked, reshuffled and removed quickly, so the creative process doesn’t lose momentum.
It’s a wrap
There are so many moving parts to take into account when creating a video game. And while we’re very new to this area, we believe that visuals should be considered from early on in the process. Because there is no such thing as “simple” or “timeless.” All design has gone through a rigorous selection process at some point or other. While Cinderella and Anna from Frozen are both princesses and have a very similar colour palette, they send very different messages to the audience. This means you’ll need to have a constant feedback loop about specific visuals throughout the process; a feedback loop that asks your audience what they want to see, consults your research, and of course, keeps going back to the text.
