When the average person on the street in Jo’burg doesn’t know what “Concept Art” or “Entertainment Design” is, you know you’re going to have a tough time trying to explain to them why you love designing, drawing and painting worlds, characters and creatures. It’s true, this is a niche career path, and widely unknown in SA, but at DAS we want to change all that. For years we’ve had people making local films, making local games, animations and more, but many times something seemed to be missing. That something was high-level pre-visualization art that informed the overall look and feel of the production.
We want people to know what entertainment design is, what conceptual design is, why it matters and how it affects our world. From the products we buy to the films we watch and the games we play, thousands of artists have worked to ensure products look good, vehicles make sense, and virtual environments are epic and breathtaking. It’s almost like there has been a missing link in the production pipeline, and that missing link has been entertainment design. The key role that previsualization plays in media production pipelines cannot be ignored, but sadly has been in SA.
At DAS both our dream, and goal, is to grow the foundations of South Africa’s entertainment design industry – and in doing so, be able to seed the creative forces behind blockbuster films and video games, made in South Africa. At the same time we want to train students to the highest possible level of art and design, using core fundamentals, so that they can work in the international entertainment design industry too.
We hope you’d like to see the growth of this exciting and deeply creative industry in South Africa as much as we do!
Spread the word.
