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Tag: TV Production

REALTIME Appointed Lead VFX Vendor on ITV X Historical Drama, ‘The Winter King’

Following on from our wonderful collaboration on Sky’s ‘A Discovery of Witches’, REALTIME are teaming up once again with Bad Wolf as the lead VFX vendor on ITV’s upcoming Historical Drama, ‘The Winter King’.   

Jonathan Rawlinson, executive producer at REALTIME, said: “We are delighted to be working again with Bad Wolf on ‘The Winter King’ as the sole vendor on the series. We have provided on-set VFX Supervision and Production support and we are creating a wide range of VFX to help bring to life this exciting re-imagining of the Arthurian Legends” 

Based on Bernard Cornwell’s Warlord Chronicles, THE WINTER KING is an epic but intimate 10-part returning series which will shoot in Wales and the West Country in 2022. Portraying a revisionist take on the well-loved Arthurian legends, the series follows Arthur Pendragon as he evolves from outcast son to legendary warrior and leader. The Winter King is set in the 5th century, long before Britain was united, in a land of warring factions and tribes when the world was brutal and lives were often fleeting.  

Produced by Bad Wolf in association with One Big Picture and distributed by Sony Pictures Television, The Winter King has been commissioned for ITVX by Head of Drama, Polly Hill. Polly will oversee the commission on behalf of the channel. Kate Brooke and Ed Whitmore will adapt Bernard Cornwell’s Warlord Chronicles and Executive Produce alongside Otto Bathurst who will be the lead director and Executive Produce with Toby Leslie.  Executive Producers are Julie Gardner, Lachlan MacKinnon, Sherry Marsh, Shelley Browning and Kenneth Browning and the drama is produced by Catrin Lewis Defis. 

https://bad-wolf.com/bad-wolf-to-produce-epic-10-part-historical-drama-the-winter-king/ 

 

REALTIMERS: Sam Taylor, Head of Skills & Development

If there’s one thing we love more than VFX, it’s our team. In our new series, REALTIMERS, we are showcasing the people behind the pixels to see what makes them tick.

Meet Sam, our Head of Skills and Development, who has re-joined REALTIME recently to help build a brand new training programme for VFX graduates and also help the development of our existing artists. 

Name & job title:
Sam Taylor – Head of Skills and Development

Where do you fit in?
I sit across a few areas at the studio and I am primarily in charge of internal training and development for staff. I also reach out to universities and training programmes to support, guide and build strong connections, whilst working with our recruitment team to identify and hire talented artists that are new to the industry. Additionally, I help out on production as a generalist to ensure that our training always matches the current pipeline at REALTIME.

How did you get your start in the industry?
At REALTIME! So, I started my career at REALTIME as a junior generalist with an emphasis on FX after meeting Tony Prosser when he visited the university I was studying at. I worked my way up to a VFX generalist role at REALTIME over a few years before getting into teaching VFX at university and continuing as a freelance VFX generalist on various movies and TV projects.

Your superpower?
I’m pretty good at picking up new things like sports/hobbies quickly. I don’t think it’s because I’m naturally good at them, I think it’s more a force of me being so determined not to be bad at it that I just will myself to do ok pretty quickly (it will probably end up in me getting hurt one day). So, I guess that would make the superpower: Super Strong Willed.

What inspires you on the day-to-day?
This is going to sound super cliché for the field that I’m in, but learning new stuff and being surrounded with people that are excited to learn or share their knowledge and experience.

My desert island film TV show?
I am a big stand-up comedy fan, and Taskmaster is one of my favourite TV shows for seeing some of the funniest comedians solve ridiculous situations in hilarious ways. So, a box set of every series of Taskmaster, please.

Your soundtrack whilst working:
I have a very broad music taste so depending on my mood my work soundtrack can range from: Rock, Metal, Electronic, Pop, and I have a soft spot for cheesy pop from the 80s+.

If you could work with anyone who?
Growing up I have always loved Pixar and the stories they tell. Sadly, I live on the wrong continent!

If not this, then what?
Growing up, I was very much into electronics before I discovered my love for VFX, so probably something in robotics.

Why REALTIME?
REALTIME works on such a range of cool projects across different platforms, so there is always something new to learn and explore. Also, the team is full of friendly and incredibly talented people.

People would be surprised that…
I am not an 8th Italian…

Advice you’d give yourself if you were just starting out?
Always remember to stay excited about the work that you do, because working in VFX is awesome! We get to make all sorts of weird and wonderful things that some people can only imagine.

REALTIMERS: Sue Land, VFX Supervisor

If there’s one thing we love more than VFX, it’s our team. In our new series, REALTIMERS, we are showcasing the people behind the pixels to see what makes them tick.

This month it’s Sue, who loves a good script and has a photographic memory (which must come in very handy!) 

Name & job title:
Sue Land, VFX Supervisor.

Where do you fit in? 
As a VFX Supe, I am the creative glue between our client and our inhouse crew.

How did you get your start in the industry?
I was offered a 6 week freelance contract on leaving Art School as an Assistant Graphic Designer at Thames TV. I nearly turned it down as I wanted a staff position, but fortunately decided to take it. At the end of the contract I was made staff and stayed nearly 7 years, learning an important life lesson – take every opportunity that comes your way, you never know where it will lead you.

Your superpower? 
I can eat my body weight in chocolate. I wasn’t a natural, it took years of practice.

What inspires you on the day-to-day?
Good scripts and my crew.

My desert island film is:
Apollo 13. I must have seen it 100 times. The VFX have stood the test of time, and if I was stuck on a desert island it would remind me to never give up.

Your soundtrack whilst working:
Apart from the slow tick tock of an ever approaching deadline, that depends on what I am doing. When I am getting into the mindset of a project – silence. Once in the swing of things anything related to the project I am on, sad I know but it keeps me on topic.

If you could work with anyone who? 
Fred Moore and Ub Iwerks. Why? Google them and you will know why.

If not this, then what? 
This was it. No plan B.

Why REALTIME? 
The opportunity to work again with some old friends who love what they do and that shines through in everything they do.

People would be surprised that… 
I have a photographic memory, mainly with numbers. Now everyone is going to be testing me!!

Advice you’d give yourself if you were just starting out?
Don’t think about what you can’t do, do what you can do and do it very well.

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: