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Category: Visual Effects

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:

 

 

 

Finalists at the Broadcast Tech Awards!

We are delighted to have been shortlisted as a finalist at The Broadcast Tech Innovation Awards 2021 for our work on A Discovery of Witches, Season 2. The awards celebrate the role technology plays in creating and broadcasting the most outstanding productions of the past year.

Congratulations to our amazing team, our wonderful clients at Bad Wolf and Sky TV, and the rest of the nominees.

The full shortlist is below:

Best VFX Project

A Discovery of Witches (REALTIME)

Intergalactic (Milk Visual Effects)

Lisey’s Story (MPC Episodic)

The Irregulars (BlueBolt)

The Lost Pirate Kingdom (Stone Soup)

The Third Day (IMG VFX, Freefolk, MPC Episodic)

 

REALTIME @ Manchester Animation Festival

We are super excited to be an official sponsor of this year’s Manchester Animation Festival.

Our animation and recruitment team will be on hand to answer all your questions about a career in CG animation at the MAF Market Place. We’ll also be available to review portfolios.

Stay tuned for details on how to sign up.

New trailer for Ridley Road

A buzz has been building around the new BBC four-part thriller Ridley Road, featuring VFX by the REALTIME team and which premieres in October. The series is set in the summer of 1962, when far-right fascism was rapidly rising in London. Based on the critically acclaimed 2014 novel of the same name by author Jo Bloom, award-winning writer and actor Sarah Solemani has adapted the novel for television.

 

 

CGI Studio REALTIME adds new ops director

We are very pleased to announce that we have appointed Libby Behrens as Operations Director.

Libby, who has more than a decade’s experience in media production in London, LA and New Zealand, joins the team from sports app Zwift, where she managed the implementation of new production processes as Live Operations Producer. Previously, Libby was Head of Operations at LA-based Electric Theatre Collective. Her credits include Virgin Media’s animated Ussain Bolt TV Campaign and Massive Attack’s Voodoo in my Blood

She will oversee the introduction of new technology, IT, resourcing, and staff and skills development at REALTIME.

Says Libby, “I dipped out of the VFX world to experience the realm of game production but when the opportunity presented itself to come and join REALTIME, I just couldn’t resist. REALTIME has recently delved into more areas of the VFX arena, and I am really looking forward to working with the talented team on all things operations to support their massive growth.”

Tony Prosser, Managing Director of REALTIME, says “This role is very much a holistic appointment to support our team in this exciting period of growth. Libby joins us at a pivotal moment in the business to securely navigate our further expansion and help us to continue delivering innovative and quality work for our partners at a time we’re working on our biggest productions yet.”