Have you journeyed to Mêlée Island yet?
It was an honour to have worked with Rare and Lucasfilm Games on the announcement trailer for Rare Ltd’s Sea of Thieves: The Legend of Monkey Island. Unveiled during the Xbox Showcase, this iconic crossover brings characters from the beloved Monkey Island series into the world of Sea of Thieves for the ultimate pirate adventure!
We’re thrilled to see Dance Monsters has been nominated for the 2023 PGA Innovation Award, which recognises exceptional distinctiveness, inventiveness, and the impact in expanding the conventions of program format, content, audience interaction, production technique and delivery.
Huge congrats to our friends at Lime Pictures, IMS & Mo-Sys; We loved working with you guys on this incredible project.
https://producersguild.org/nominees-for-the-pga-innovation-award-announced/
We are thrilled to announce our involvement in Netflix’s upcoming visual spectacle, Dance Monsters.
The first three episodes premiere on Dec. 16, exclusively on Netflix.
“The phrase “dance like nobody’s watching” is turned on its head in the first-of-its-kind competition show Dance Monsters. A panel of famous judges, a live audience and viewers at home will be watching daring performances — but the dancers themselves won’t be onstage.
The show’s human contestants are each given a monster alter ego to dance as. With the help of advanced CGI technology, they’ll bust their moves off-camera while their monsters boogie down for the world. You won’t be able to see the real people behind each CGI beast, but throughout the series’ eight episodes, you’ll get to know their stories and their struggles; and witness them overcome the physical and mental obstacles that have been holding them back from living out their dreams of dancing professionally. Here’s everything you need to know about the feel-good and fun Dance Monsters.”
https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/81094767
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.
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.
Lukasz is our In-Engine Generalist, who joined REALTIME fresh out of university and dreams of one day collaborating with id Software on a new DOOM game.
Name & job title
Lukasz Kyc, In-Engine Generalist.
Where do you fit in?
I get to do a little bit of everything inside the engines we use, I most frequently use Unreal Engine and recently picked up the Frostbite engine for our EA projects. Being a generalist means I rarely do the same thing day to day which I really enjoy! One day I might be setting up cameras and blocking out an environment for a shot and the next day I could be lighting or fixing a technical issue we may be having – it never gets boring.
How did you get your start in the industry?
I got an internship here at REALTIME right out of doing a games design course at university, and after a few months got a full-time position here.
Your superpower?
Learning new skills – I find that I pick up things really quickly and love learning new skills inside and outside of work.
What inspires you on the day-to-day?
I think just the fact that I get to work in an industry that I’m really passionate about, and where I’m excited to go to work every day.
My desert island TV show?
Either South Park or Hells Kitchen, I already watch both of those shows multiple times a year
Your soundtrack whilst working:
I usually like to listen to something that is related to the project that I’m working on, as a recent example whilst working on the NFS Unbound trailer, I listened to a lot of rap which fit the type of game that I was working on. I also frequently listen to a lot of video game and film soundtracks and sometimes switch up to some metal such as Metallica and Slipknot. I get bored quickly so I like to switch it up.
If you could work with anyone who?
I would love to work with Feng Zhu, I always found his work super inspiring and he’s the one that got me interested in this industry in the first place.
If not this, then what?
I’ve always loved the DOOM games and I really like the direction they have taken the game with the recent releases, so getting to work with the id Software team on a new DOOM game would be a dream job for me.
Why REALTIME?
I like the variety of projects, the different styles and genres keep the job very interesting and the fact that we get to work in smaller teams means that we get to work very closely together, and can all make a big impact on the projects we work on.
People would be surprised that…
I’m Polish, I don’t have an accent so people always assume that I’m English, until they see my name.
Advice you’d give yourself if you were just starting out?
To do more research into Universities / Art schools before applying, as I personally just applied to the closest one I could find and found that they were teaching some very outdated workflows, and if I just did a bit more research I could have gotten a lot more out of it than I did.