Cinematic Director, Unannounced Game | Irvine, CA

Job Title

Cinematic Director, Star Craft | Irvine, CA

Star Craft

R028113

Blizzard Entertainment is assembling a team to build the next chapter of Star Craft, returning to a universe forged in interstellar war. This mission offers something new: crafting an original story-driven, open-world shooter while honoring the legacy of one of Blizzard's most beloved games.

We are here to reignite this universe alongside you. We are here to make Star Craft, and it's about damn time.

We are looking for a Cinematic Director to help craft this new game for Blizzard. As a key member of the development team you will lead a team to execute on the vision, development, and delivery of cinematic work, partnering closely with the game team, production leadership, and the executive producer. As the product owner of the cinema tics team, you will lead the team, set priorities, align creative direction, and help deliver compelling storytelling that supports the overall vision of the game.

This role offers a hybrid work week, with a mix of work-from-home and on-site days, based out of our Irvine studio.

Priorities can often change in a fast-paced environment like ours, so this role includes, but is not limited to, the following responsibilities:

• Lead the creative development and execution of cinematic work for a new, Star Craft game, ensuring alignment with overall vision, tone, and player experience.
• Guide cinematic work from early concepting and pitching through animatics, iteration, implementation, and final delivery.
• Personally author, block, and iterate cinematic sequences within a real-time engine (e.g., Unreal Sequencer), not solely through delegation.
• Establish and uphold a high bar for cinematic storytelling, including pacing, staging, camera language, performance, emotional clarity, and overall quality.
• Partner with audio, music, and voice-over teams to help shape performances and ensure cinematic moments land with clarity, emotion, and impact.
• Present work clearly and confidently to stakeholders, synthesizing feedback while maintaining creative clarity and momentum.
• Partner closely with the creative director, project leadership, and cross-functional teams (design, narrative, animation, audio, art, production) to drive alignment and deliver compelling cinematic storytelling.
• Balance the project’s creative ambition with production realities, making thoughtful trade-offs across scope, timelines, resources, and team capacity.
• Act as the product owner for the cinema tics team, setting priorities, aligning work to project goals and milestones, and focusing the team on the highest-impact opportunities.
• Serve as the people manager for the cinema tics team, providing coaching, feedback, performance management, and support for growth and development.
• Help define effective workflows, review rhythms, and team practices that support strong collaboration and predictable execution.
• Collaborate with external partners when needed, providing clear creative direction and feedback to ensure work meets project expectations.

• 10+ years of professional experience in cinema tics, game development, animation, film, television, or other narrative visual media.
• 2+ years of direct people-management experience, including coaching, feedback, and performance management.
• Proven hands-on ownership of cinematic sequences from previs through final in-engine implementation, including camera, staging, pacing, and polish.
• Ability to step in at any stage of production to resolve creative or technical blockers with minimal overhead.
• Deep working knowledge of real-time cinematic pipelines, including animation integration, lighting, layout, and runtime constraints.
• Practical experience with industry-standard tools such as Unreal Engine, Maya/Motion Builder, and performance capture workflows, with the ability to prototype and iterate directly in tool.
• Experience diagnosing and resolving pipeline inefficiencies and bridging gaps between cinematic, animation, and engineering teams.
• Hands-on experience directing performance capture sessions, with the ability to translate narrative intent into actionable direction for actors and technical teams.
• Strong understanding of capture limitations and downstream implications to ensure performance translates effectively in engine.
• Demonstrated ability to adapt creative direction based on engine constraints, memory budgets, and runtime performance targets while maintaining narrative…