Axis goes off the rails!
Axis Press Release - Thrillville: Off the Rails
For Immediate Release
Axis re-established their long standing relationship with Frontier Developments by working working on the Cambridge based developer's new title Thrillville: Off the Rails. Following the success of theme park game Thrillville, which featured a series of cutscenes created by Axis and was the number one original family game in the USA in 2006, Frontier asked the UK-based studio to bring the main character Uncle Mortimer back for more and produce over six minutes of cutscenes for the new title.
Directed by Dana Dorian, the cutscenes follow Uncle Mortimer as he guides and supports you through the new theme park environments. In a similar vein to the original game there is plenty of slapstick humour, gags and the odd experiment that goes wrong.
'I had been involved in the first Thrillville project but not as director so it was great to get to grips with a character who I felt I already knew well' said Dorian. 'I had the chance to work directly with the team at Frontier and be involved in the development of the scripts and also input into the dialogue record, it's great to be included in a project that early and at that level.'
The challenge for Axis was providing a balance between the explanations for the next stage of the game play and continuing to entertain and engage the player with a performance that makes them laugh.
'We knew that Frontier loved what we had done with the cutscenes in Thrillville and this time we got to up the ante by bringing in some new characters' said Axis producer Debbie Ross. 'We added a series of robotic characters who appear in the opening cutscene as rollercoaster crash test dummies but then appear every so often throughout the other shots, you have to watch closely to see their hilarious antics' continued Ross.
These secondary performances are what added more charm and additional comedy to the sequences and it is something Dana Dorian and the team of animators are proud of doing so well.
'It is always great to take a script and develop visual gags around a lot of what is in there and I am delighted with the performances we pulled off for all the characters' said Dorian.
Frontier Managing Director David Walsh said of the project 'We've worked with Axis on several projects now and they have added real value to our collaborations, both during the creative process and in the final quality of their output. We look forward to working with them again in future.'
End.
Note: these images are available at print resolution
About Axis Animation
Axis is an award winning animation studio, based in Glasgow, Scotland, dedicated to creating the best in animation and visual effects for commercials, broadcast, film and interactive entertainment. Recent credits include BAFTA winning Colin and Cumberland for the BBC, D&AD nominated Codehunters short film for MTV Asia and the Colin McRae DiRT trailer for Codemasters.
+44 (0) 141 572 2802
Contact: Richard Scott
More information on Axis can be found at www.axisanimation.com
About Frontier Developments
Frontier is based in Cambridge, UK and is one of the games industry's leading independent developers, having built upon the innovative creations of founder David Braben; co-author of the seminal 'Elite'.
Frontier works with a number of top publishers and is currently developing for all major platforms including PlayStation®2, PlayStation® Portable (PSP), Xbox®, Windows PC, Nintendo Wii, Xbox®360 and PlayStation®3.
More information on Frontier can be found at www.frontier.co.uk