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REALTIMERS: Cristina Bidiu, UE4 Auto Artist

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 Cristina, our UE4 Auto Artist, who loves Rick and Morty and became obsessed with the world of CGI in high school. 

Name & job title:  

Cristina Bidiu, UE4 Artist 

So, where do you fit in?  

I learned to be more of a generalist over the years, but I do have a soft spot for beautiful environments and automotive. 

How did you get your start in the industry? 

I came across the CGI industry for the first time when I was in high school, and I was mesmerised by it. It took me 8 years from that realisation to actually become a CGI Artist, but I can say it was worth it. I do love what I do. 

Your superpower?  

I never give up! 

What inspires you on the day-to-day? 

Being alive – I try to let myself be inspired every day by simple things, like the smell of winter when you open the window. 

Your desert island luxury: 

Rick and Morty and My Little Pony! 

Your soundtrack: 

Instrumental music. 

If you could work with anyone, who? 

I would have liked to work with the American astronomer Carl Sagan, and make beautiful CGI for Cosmos. 

If not this, then what?  

A teacher, probably. 

Why REALTIME? 

I like REALTIME because they treat me like a human and not a resource. REALTIME fulfils all my needs. 

People would be surprised that…  

I did bodybuilding in my youth! Haha. 

Advice you’d give yourself if you were just starting out? 

Be patient and keep going. You’ll get there. 

 

REALTIME conjures VFX magic for the final season of Sky’s A Discovery of Witches

“Collaborating with series VFX Supervisor Neil Riley and the team at Bad Wolf, this season brought us a whole new set of magic spells to visualise, from concepts and storyboards to intricate FX work.” (Jonathan Rawlinson, Executive Producer)

We were honoured to re-join Bad Wolf for the third season of Sky TV’s A Discovery of Witches, helping to bring to life magic performed by Diana Bishop (Teresa Palmer).

Following several sequences crafted for the second season (which saw us nominated for Best Visual Effects at the Broadcast Tech Innovation awards), our team was tasked with creating magical VFX that showcase how much Diana’s powers have grown. 

A Discovery of Witches is now streaming on Sky TV and Now TV in the UK, and Sundance Now, Shudder and AMC+ in the US.

FIFA 22 Team of the Year Trailer

It’s Team of the Year time! We were honoured to support EA SPORTS with range of in-engine shots for their FIFA 22 ‘Team of the Year trailer’, featuring Alex Scott.

REALTIME 2021 Showreel

We’re proud to showcase (& celebrate!) the wonderful work crafted by our team across the last year – including spellbinding VFX for TV, action-packed cinematics and epic trailers for video games, through to stunningly photorealistic automotive CGI.

We wish all of our team, clients and friends a wonderful new year. We can’t wait to see what 2022 has in store!

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: