Services Spotlight: Axis

Glasgow-based firm Axis works with a number of games developers and publishers on creating animation and VFX content for cutscenes, trailers and commercials.

The company deals with all areas of production: from idea and script creation to the direction, design and concept to the animation, rendering and post-production.

Once most famous for the Dead Island trailer in 2011, Axis’ portfolio now consists of numerous high profile projects such as the trailers for Crackdown on Xbox One, Dead Island 2 and the trailer and in-engine
cutscenes for Alien: Isolation. The latter saw Axis involved in casting, script editing, directing duties, camera work and editing.

“Clients can come to Axis with an already established script or a loose concept idea, it doesn’t matter,” says Axis MD Richard Scott.

“A versatile team of directors, art directors and concept artists will take any brief on board and pull together original proposals. 

“We back up the solid creative team with a dedicated R&D department that develops our pipeline and are constantlylooking for ways to improve the quality of our execution, efficiency and offer tighter technical integration with clients.”

He adds: “Whether it is in a game’s cutscenes or a trailer for E3, our goal is to tell the best story and engage the audience. This is what we feel is important for developers and publishers, our perspective on your story and our ability to create compelling characters with great performances in amazing worlds that viewers will watch and share.”

 Most recently, Axis worked with studios Six Foot and Petroglyph on the launch trailer for strategy game Grey Goo, as well as more than twenty minutes of narrative cutscenes.

"It was our collaboration with Six Foot on the cutscene sequences and the great relationship that we struck up together that led to the creation of the trailer," explains director Dana Dorian. "With a number of the required characters already built, voices cast and animation techniques honed, we knew we could put our creative efforts into producing an epic action-packed trailer that would put the new game firmly on the map."

And you can check out the aforementioned trailer below: 

As well as its core services, Axis expanded its offerings with the launch of digital production company Flaunt in 2009. More recently, in 2013 it created a new branch called AxisVFX, which caters for high-end CGI and visual effects projects for live action in TV, film and commercials.

And the firm is keen to continue building on its services in future.

“We are currently developing new tools and technologies for more efficient integration into real-time game engine technologies,” says Scott.

“This is focused on Unreal and Unity and is designed to utilise as much of our current pipeline as possible. We are really excited about the future possibilities of this for our video games clients.”