All images from Inspired 3D Short Film Production by Jeremy Cantor and Pepe Valencia, series edited by Kyle Clark and Michael Ford. Reprinted with permission.

This is the last of four installments on art direction. Read Art Direction — Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

Art Direction Progression
If the mood, climate, and intensity level of your story progresses and evolves over time either gradually or abruptly, it is usually appropriate for the details of your visual elements to change as well.

You can modify art direction from scene to scene to help indicate a change in locale, mood, climate, activity, or perhaps danger level. Your violent fight scene might have crazy camera angles, diagonal and jagged design elements, flying sparks, angular lightning bolts, and bold colors with lots of contrast. The subsequent aftermath might have more traditional camera angles, horizontal design components and arrangements, wispy smoke trails with gentle curves, and more subtle grays or pastel colors.

[Figure 40] Your plot progression may require modifications to the look of subsequent scenes to match the current mood or locale of your story. However, it is generally good practice to only change details such as color and lighting, while keeping overall style and design consistent.

Keeping design elements consistent but adjusting color and lighting can help indicate a change in season, locale, time of day, or mood. When night falls in Supinfocom’s Kami, everything becomes different shades of blue. At the end of Mathias Schreck’s Insight, the scenario dramatically changes from dark shades of gray and brown to bright blues and greens, which not only reveals a new setting, but also creates an entirely different mood. Thelvin Cabezas’ Poor Bogo changes mood, locale, and temperature to match the progress of the story narration by way of rather extreme but appealing modifications in color and lighting (see Figure 40). Despite the significant visual modifications, all of these film examples maintain world consistency because only colors and lights change, while overall style and design remain the same.