Dead Island
The story behind the trailer that everyone's talking about.
Dead Island is a survival horror title coming to PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 in 2011 and is set in the tropical paradise gone wrong, Banoi. The entire island is over run by zombies and the player is drawn into the mysterious and dramatic scenario.
The trailer, which was directed by Axis owner and director Stuart Aitken, was released virally and has built up a massive buzz across the online community with over 2.5 million YouTube plays.
“When we were initially approached by Deep Silver about Dead Island we were really excited about the idea of getting to grips with zombies.” said Axis Executive Producer Richard Scott.
“As we started to collaborate with the Deep Silver team on the story ideas and creative treatments we felt that there was something else special about this opportunity.” Scott continues.
Aitken and Axis Producer Andrew Pearce worked with the Deep Silver brand team who had a very clear message that they wanted to project for the game. Dead Island is not just another zombie shoot ‘em up, it is going to be more real, more visceral.
“Deep Silver were really keen to create something different, something that would really stand out and when they put forward the initial idea for the ‘reverse’ sequence I saw the seed of something great there.” said Axis director Stuart Aitken.
Aitken went on to take that seed and evolve it into a complex trailer that conveys not only the horror and brutality that comes from the human nature of zombies but captured an emotional thread not normally expected in video games. It is this emotion that is key to the trailers success.
“Working with the Deep Silver team has been fantastic.” continued Aitken. They put a huge amount of faith and trust in me and the rest of the team and it has paid off for everyone.”
“We set out to create a rather unique trailer concept that would focus on delivering emotion and atmosphere while transporting the key elements and features of Dead Island. With the help of Axis and the great collaboration between our cinematic Director, Anton Borkel and his team and Axis’ own Stuart Aitken, we ended up creating something that was a breathtaking combination of pictures, story and music which formed an atmosphere of intensity that - for us - was beyond words.” said Global Business Development Director and acting producer on the project Malte Wagener of Deep Silver.
Technology and sound also play a big part in the trailers success. The Axis team brought in motion capture experts Audiomotion and Dimensional Imaging to capture the character performances and Savalas for music composition and sound design.
“We are blown away by the reaction to the trailer and look forward to continuing the strong relationship with Dead Island and Deep Silver.” said Axis Producer Andrew Pearce.
“Axis exceeded all our high expectations and then some on this project and really hit this one out of the park.” said Global Business Development Director and acting producer on the project Malte Wagener of Deep Silver.
© 2011 Deep Silver © 2011 Techland.
About Axis Animation
Axis is an award winning animation studio, based in Glasgow, Scotland, UK, 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 video game trailers for Crackdown 2, Pirates of the Caribbean Armada of the Damned, Singularity, Heavenly Sword, Crysis, Mass Effect 2, Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions and Killzone 2.
Contact: Richard Scott +44 (0) 141 572 2802
More information on Axis can be found at www.axisanimation.com