The world of Zootopia is defined not only by unique characters and locations, but also through its rich visual presentation. As a reflection of our own contemporary world, Zootopia can accommodate a wide range of cinematic styles and tropes, from action flick to thriller. To help make order from the chaos, we developed a visual language that would track Judy and Nick throughout their emotional journey. The structure includes three primary visual looks: Zootopia Standard, Genre-Driven, and Emotionally-Driven. We can vary these three looks from scene to scene to best support what’s happening in the story.

This is our comfy space. With naturalistic colors and bright lighting, Zootopia Standard is meant to evoke the familiar warmth of the first film. It captures an inner sense of confidence and optimism that our characters have as our story begins. We will return to this look at the end of the film to create a sense of resolution and finality.

As Judy and Nick are pulled deeper into unknown and uncomfortable situations, we shift into more Genre-Driven scenes. This look allows for a more cinematic image, with exaggerated staging and lighting that echoes familiar movie genres from our own world. It also creates a clear delineation from the familiar feeling of Zootopia Standard, so the audience can experience the same sense of novelty as our characters.

When our heroes finally encounter their deepest personal truths, we arrive at Emotionally-Driven. This look strips away the complexity of previous scenes, using singular bold colors and limited value ranges to emphasize the clarity of an emotional reckoning. A little bit goes a long way, so we use it sparingly throughout the third act to create maximum visual impact.

With an understanding of color, contrast, and lighting design, Lighting Artists compose the final lighting of the scene, and assemble the elements of a shot into a complete composite to match the vision of the Director and Production Designer, Director of Cinematography, Lighting, and Lighting Supervisors.

Working from color keys from Visual Development Artists, Lighting Artists draw the audience's eyes and enhance the story though color and light.