Wikidata:Property proposal/creative director

‎creative director

Originally proposed at Wikidata:Property proposal/Creative work

   Done: ‎creative director (P12617) (Talk and documentation)

Description	person who makes high-level creative decisions, oversees the creation of creative assets such as adverts, products, events or logos and guides and directs the creative people who create the end result
Represents	creative director (Q667982)
Data type	Item
Template parameter	"creative_director" in en:Template:Infobox television
Domain	work (Q386724)
Allowed values	human (Q5)
Example 1	Gravity Falls (Q550555)→Mike Rianda (Q104835180)
Example 2	Hey Arnold! (Q832054)→Tuck Tucker (Q3541837)
Example 3	Teen Wolf (Q607960)→Chris Cuddington (Q5106318)
See also	director (P57), art director (P3174), production designer (P2554)
Wikidata project	WikiProject Film (Q8485793), WikiProject Video games (Q8485882)

Motivation

A widely used position within the television production, graphic design, film, music, video game, fashion, advertising, media, or entertainment industries which now has no exact equivalent among properties. Solidest (talk) 16:49, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Linked uses on enwiki: [1]. Solidest (talk) 16:58, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

•  Support, an important property for cinematography.--Arbnos (talk) 13:21, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
•  Comment Speaking only for video games − the roles are I think a bit fuzzier. Games are stated to have directors (« BGE was directed by Ancel ») and creative directors (« Désilets was creative director on PoP:SoT »), but I think it’s rare that there is both at the same time. So far the practice, I think, was to cover both with P57, and there are some example of using object of statement has role (P3831) to clarify. [1] Jean-Fred (talk) 08:36, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

(We've already talked about this in the video game project chat, but it will be useful to summarise it here too:) the "director" position is a tricky one regarding video games. When credits have "creative director" and "game director" at the same time, then I suppose it would mean that "game director" is rather a production lead position (cinema's en:unit production manager equivalent), than everything-at-once position or unspecified team leader as it usually is. Using two roles at the same time is not as common, but it still happens in some projects: 1, 2, 3, 4. MobyGames, in their documentation, describe "Game Director" within Production section next to "Project Leader/Manager" and "Production Manager", while "Creative Director" within Design positions among "Created by" and "Original Concept/Idea". I find such categorisation generally correct (while the current use of the Game Director/Team Lead position is not quite accurate as a shared position with a film/cinema director in this sense in my opinion). This looks handy as a general approach in an attempt to systematise things, but is unlikely to have 100% compliance, as it is likely that the responsibilities of the game director position vary from project to project and from person to person. It probably wouldn't be unreasonable to create a separate property for this in my opinion. As for "creative director", it seems to me that this is a much more specific position than "game director", and it would be fine if it would be specified in some video games instead of "director" if that's how it's listed in the credits. The enwiki infobox documentation currently specifies that "director" and "creative director" share the same parameter: en:Template:Infobox video game#Syntax guide – сombining two entries for the purpose of compactness is the prerogative of Wikipedia, and on Wikidata it is better to be precise with the data. Solidest (talk) 15:36, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

I just landed (by accident) on the Référentiel des métiers du Jeu Vidéo (="reference guide for Video Game professions") published by the French industry trade union Q3508526. The headlines are mostly in English, with French aliases in each section. It lists 6 "XYZ director" positions: “Creative director” and “game director” (under Design), “Audio director” and “Art director” (under Image/Sound), “Technical director” (under Technology), “Marketing director” (under Support). “Game director” is aliased to the French “Réalisateur”, which is what is also used for a (movie) director.

(Also, “Executive producer” is aliased to “directeur de production, directeur opérationnel, directeur du studio”)

So, given this new source which clarified things a lot (in my head at least), I would  Support this property.

P.S. If you Ctrl-F through the document, more "director" pop-up:

• headline: “in game cutscenes director” (=réalisateur de cinématiques), “analytics director”, “business development director”,
• in the "n+1" sections: directeur monétisation, UX director

Jean-Fred (talk) 09:36, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

• @Solidest:, could you please clarify the comments above by @Jean-Frédéric:. Regards, ZI Jony ^(Talk) 13:22, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

  I don’t think there’s much to clarify :) I was initially skeptical of Solidest’s proposal ; but I came across a new source that disproved my concerns, and I now  Support this :) Jean-Fred (talk) 17:25, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

  Yeah, I think Jean-Fred has confirmed my vision with the source. "Creative director" is the head of design and the mind behind product ideas, while "game director" in different sources and in different situations is a more comprehensive position - usually it's just a team leader, while in some cases it can share functions of creative director, technical director, game designer, PR manager, producer, etc. (And that's why it seems to me that for video games it would be right to make a separate property for "game director", because it's not really the same as film/TV director.) And it's certainly not the same as "creative director" - the document also lists their different specific responsibilities. And as for "creative director" - it's basically a similarly defined position in different fields that can be equally used in video games or film/television and so on. Solidest (talk) 17:44, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

  @Solidest: (a bit off topic: turns out this document has had 4 different versions − I have indexed them under Q125453812.

  • In the first edition, there was no game director.
  • in the 2nd edition, “game director” is a management position, reporting to the “Executive producer”
  • in the 3rd edition, it’s a design position, at the same level than “creative director” (both under the CEO, above the art director)
  • in the 4th edition, it’s still a design position, but now under the “creative director”

  Oh well :) ) Jean-Fred (talk) 20:37, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Queries

[1]

SELECT ?video_game ?video_gameLabel ?director ?directorLabel ?qualifierproperty ?qualifierpropertyLabel ?directorqualifier ?directorqualifierLabel WHERE {
  SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "[AUTO_LANGUAGE],en". }
  ?video_game (wdt:P31/(wdt:P279*)) wd:Q7889;
    p:P57 ?directorStatement.
  ?directorStatement ps:P57 ?director;
    ?qualifier ?directorqualifier.
  ?qualifierproperty wikibase:qualifier ?qualifier.
}

Try it!

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• @Solidest, Arbnos, Jean-Frédéric:  Done: ‎creative director (P12617). Regards Kirilloparma (talk) 03:10, 16 April 2024 (UTC)