Lauren Brady, Author at REALTIME

CIIE 2021 with Apollo Automobil

We are delighted to have produced a bespoke marketing film to showcase at CIIE, in Shanghai, to introduce Apollo‘s EVision S Sportscar to the world.

With a new generation of drivers and passengers in mind, the Apollo experience represents a bridge between digital and analogue lifestyles. Our promotional film sets the car against a hyper modern environment to showcase the innovative, unique design and ethos of the sportscar.

“To support our presence at CIIE 2021, in Shanghai, we needed to partner with a studio to help us to deliver our statement of intent to our audience; to produce for us a movie to showcase the spectacular Project EVO Hypercar in action and to introduce the EVision S Sportscar concept to the world and all that this means to us as Apollo Future Mobility Group.

The team at REALTIME has met and exceeded all our requirements and in a hugely compressed timescale. It was a great pleasure to work with this hugely enthusiastic, flexible and talented team.” Matthew Knott, Chief Marketing Officer, Apollo Future Mobility Group.

At REALTIME, we are dedicated to being the sort of CGI partner that collaborates with you to deliver the best work, using our knowledge of the automotive industry – and that of the TV and video game industries – to create cutting-edge solutions. If you would like to find out more, get in touch with me at [email protected].

We support Safe in our world for our 2021 Christmas charity

We are proud to support Safe in Our World for our Christmas charity this year.The charity works to foster positive mental health wellbeing and deliver support not only for players but also developers, publishers, retailers and the other incredible folk and teams who make up the video games industry. As well as donating, we’ll be working with them further as an industry partner in the new year.

We wish all our clients, friends and partners a wonderful festive season and look forward to working with you in the new year!

Our 25th Birthday Party!

Last night our team enjoyed an evening out at Manchester’s Flight Club, with drinks and darts to celebrate our 25th anniversary. It was a brilliant night, and so good to (finally) see everyone in person again. Here’s to the next 25 years!

REALTIME celebrates 25 years in the business

We are celebrating 25 years of REALTIME – a major milestone for an independent studio in the VFX and animation space.

Launched in 1996, we started out in Archvis and CG imagery and animation for the automotive sector for clients including McLaren, Audi, and Ford. We soon found a new niche in creating award-winning video game trailers and in-game cinematics for clients across the globe, including Rare, Codemasters, Disney Interactive and Microsoft Game Studios. Our speciality in story-telling and character animation can be seen in viral trailers including SMITE: To Hell & Back, Game of Thrones: Winter is Coming and, more recently, Subnautica: Below Zero.

In the last few years, we’ve made the move into the broadcast sector, crafting photorealistic VFX and animated characters for shows including BBC’s The War of the Worlds and Sky TV’s A Discovery of Witches. We established a TV VFX department to further support this effort, expanding the size of the studio by 60% in 2021.

Says Tony Prosser, CEO: “It is an extremely exciting time to be in the CG space, as we are seeing a huge growth in the demand for high-quality content across the automotive, games and broadcast sectors. Being a local home-grown company from the North-West, we are hugely proud of our history and legacy.

The focus for the next few years will be nurturing fresh talent that can benefit from the well-seasoned experts that we already have at REALTIME. Remote working is key to growing our team and during the pandemic we’ve proven, to ourselves and to our clients, that we can produce world class productions when we’re not all in the same room.”

In our 25th year, we are also celebrating several award wins and nominations: our work on the second season of A Discovery of Witches is a finalist for Best VFX at the Broadcast Tech Innovation Awards and the viral trailer for Unknown Entertainment’s Subnautica: Below Zero won the Vega Digital Award for Best Animation. Both projects were awarded a ‘special merit’ at the AEAF awards earlier this year.

Watch the below reel to find out more about how the studio started and our plans for the coming years:

Five Develop: Brighton events you don’t want to miss

This year I’m looking forward to Develop:Brighton more than ever. When I head down there next week, it’ll be the first in-person games conference I’ve attended since before COVID. I’ve missed the parties, the chats, bumping into old friends, meeting new ones and the inspiration that comes from walking around and seeing what incredible things people are doing in games at the moment. Things you can’t replicate working at home in your kitchen, no matter how hard you try.

Alongside my colleague Ethan, Talent Acquisition Specialist at REALTIME, we’ve put together a list of the things we’re most looking forward to at Develop this year. Let us know what makes your list.

The Expo Indie Showcase

Sponsored by TALENTHOUSE MEDIA FOUNDRY, the Expo indie showcase demo’s some of the best independently developed projects around – we can’t wait to try our hands at playing them and learning more about their development.

Spill the Tea by the Sea with OMG!

We love the chance to chat over a cuppa and a slice of cake, so you’ll catch us at Out Making Games’ event on the seafront. OMG welcomes LGBTQIA+ games workers and allies to their Develop:Brighton queer tea party to network, mingle and connect by the sea.

The Spirit of Independence: Challenges and Inspiration from Three Decades at the Top

Debbie Bestwick MBE co-founder of Team17 and one of the only female founders of a games listed company in the world today, will be a keynote speaker on the ‘Spirit of Independence,’: covering everything from signing amazing games, building franchises, and transforming a business. We can’t wait to hear what she has to say about helping to build the studios of tomorrow and taking the UK stock market by storm.

Running a 21st Century Games Studio

The final keynote ‘Running a 21st Centruy Games Studio‘ boasts a panel of who’s who in the UK games industry: Jonathan Smith (TT Games), Alex Grimonpont (Hi-Rez Studios), Sally Blake (Silent Games), Rami Ismail and Maria Sayans (ustwo games). The panellists will be discussing the challenges facing their studios today, how they navigated the pandemic and what the future holds.

#RaiseTheGame Knowledge Drop Meet-Up with Women Making Games

As #RaiseTheGame pledge partners, we know how important talking about Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) issues and sharing knowledge between studios can be to drive change. We’re super excited to hear from Women Making Games and to be able to network with like-minded people.

REALTIME is an award-winning CG studio that works with video game creators to produce amazing creative that excites and engages their audience. If you’re heading down to Brighton next week and want to catch up over coffee or a beer, drop me a line. We’re looking forward to hearing about your upcoming game releases and marketing plans.