Screenwriting : How IP Design can help Creatives?! by Yalla Bava

Someone asked me in the comments how IP Design is helpful for Creatives. Here are some points that might help some of you to understand more about IP Design (intentional creation: holistic worldbuilding across all creative elements) and Creative Direction.

My personal interpretation of an IP Designer is similar to the creative director, but goes beyond that and is also someone who understand elements of production design, cinematography and sound to create an overall direction of how the movie/world could/would feel like. This can not only help your own vision but is also helpful for creating a first pitch deck. Especially very valuable when it comes to pitch decks. 

If you ask about how IP Design can help the writer (creative), then it really depends on how the writer involves the creative director and at which stage. If you have a tight back and forth relation, then the creative director can also help reshaping the story within the writing process. For example Hans Zimmer and Nolan. However, my main intention with a draft1 ip design is to find an overall direction and help the writer feel how the movie could look like by adding some visual and audio life to something that is yet on paper.

If you asking about the visual department (Creatives), then the IP Design can become a worldbuilding guideline of the written logline, synapsis which helps other departments like screenplay writing cinematography, production design, sound design,....to stay on track / sticking to the overall visual and audio direction.

I do have an understanding for multiple elements that we use to build worlds, since I'm into music production, design and writing, so my goal is to help the writer(not only writers) to learn more about how a final version of an idea could feel like.

Many people, who havnt worked with creative directors before, are mistaking the role of an creative director with other expert roles. The goal is not to deliver a finished product but to put things in a certain "direction"/perspective/perception which then gets transformed into a polished final version by experts. This expert can sometimes be the creative director himself, depending on the area of a certain task. 

Creative Direction is a very visionary step, where the writer or initial creator of an idea, inspires the creative director to receive visions ("head cinema"). Many people skip this part (in multiple industries), because of financial reasons or simply not knowing about it, but it can help sticking to an "direction", finding hooks or filtering key elements when the thoughts of the initial creator are all over the project. Speaking from personal experience as an creator who loves concept art, which often leads to losing yourself in thoughts. I guess every creative person experienced this before.

On the other hand, you also have people with a very clear vision, where the creative director plays more of an assisting role or is being used for mirroring and double checking how someone else perceives your vision and if it's matching with what you see. This is very important to understand, because creation can be very ego driven. Of course, most creators would say without a doubt that they see visions, especially writers, but only very few people, like John carpenter or David Lynch for example, cover knowledge and especially specific, often nerdy tastes in certain areas. Understanding this, even an expert of ancient Egypt could be involved in creative direction, when the movie is about ancient Egypt for example. He probably knows way more about how this ancient world would feel and look like than the creative director himself. 

That last part is defintly directed towards fellow creative directors and clients, cause I know how difficult it is to avoid clashing perspectives between director and possible clients with an very clear vision, if you are not already surrounded by an environment of clients with understanding for creative direction.

A good comparison for the perception of people who havnt worked with creative directors or don't know much about the process, is the public perception of music producers. You often here things like "this dude havnt even made one beat on this album", "producer lol pressing one button". Yes, the producer isn't the beatmaker and ip design isn't the polished final visual but it will help set key elements apart, like the producer who turns up one button by +2db to give you that impactful moment on the 2nd last track of a concept album which end consumers then perceive as "climax".

I hope this explanation helps some people to understand more about the role of creative directors, first IP Designs and more.

Last words:

In a world of AI and ego driven self expectations caused by social media, where everyone becomes a "one house studio creator", people love skipping creative direction, IP design,....but it can and often is that one step that can set you apart from other Creatives who are on the same level like you, which is also why many writers set their budgets up way too high and it minimize chances.

Like Robert Rodriguez once said:

Don't make the idea Big

Make the movie Big

Happy August