Project Brief: Cinematic Cutscene Artist for Cleared Hot

Cleared Hot is a nostalgic isometric helicopter shooter. It blends chaotic physics-driven gameplay with a late-80s/early-90s action movie aesthetic, irreverent humor, and a surprising amount of heart.

Cutscene Approach

We're creating semi-animated, high-detail cutscenes presented in an animatic style:

• Fully illustrated frames with layered elements for subtle parallax and movement
• Minimal animation: think camera pans, lighting effects, and isolated character motion (e.g., blinking, gestures, smoke, wind). Keyframes only, no tweening.
• Designed to integrate with voiceover, sound design, and music
• Consistent visual language across cinematic sequences and pop-up dialogue portraits
• The goal is to create cinematics that, like the game itself, feel both nostalgic and new. The limited motion cutscenes of your childhood favorites, with a level of detail and quality that the consoles of your childhood couldn’t pull off.

Visual Style

We’ve arrived at a style we’re calling VHS Pulp. It blends the high-drama poster aesthetic of 80s action films with retro-futurist detail and stylized realism. Think:

• Drew Struzan movie poster-style compositions with strong character lighting and expressive faces
• Airbrushed realism with saturated color palettes
• Action-forward framing and dynamic lighting evocative of 80s key art, arcade cabinets, and pulp covers

References

Drew Struzan’s dramatic, nostalgic compositions and lighting is a big reference. We want this to feel like a classic big action/adventure movie.

Our existing key art by Luna Ridgeway. Still a good reference for what we’re going for.

Below are some ai visualizations to test the style in motion. I like these, directionally.