Axis of upheaval

Yet, despite being among the “top ten” teams worldwide for computer game-cinematic productions, the animation firm found itself stuck in a niche that it found difficult to escape from.

Not that it really wanted to escape, though. No way. Over the recent year, Axis has worked on productions for the biggest names in gaming – for the likes of Electronic Arts, Sony Computer Entertainment, Sega Europe, Codemasters, Disney Interactive Studios, Frontier Developments and Guerilla Games – generating stunning promo films that have been viewed excitedly by millions of keen gamers, awaiting the next big game to be released.

For Axis, its commercial split saw these productions take around 70 percent of its studio time. Obviously an important proportion of business, in a niche that it has spent almost a decade building a reputation in.

However, Axis has, in more recent years, also been building a name for itself in TV commercials. This focus was helped with the appointment of Paula Lacerda. Prior to joining Axis Animation, Lacerda worked as an agency producer at Glasgow ad agency The Bridge. She joined Axis in 2005 as a senior producer at the animation firm.

problem

Axis’ foray into this market proved successful, producing a raft of TV adverts for local advertising agencies – and some further a field too – recent examples include work for RTE (Cawley NeaTBWA), A. Vogel and The One (both Merle), ScottishPower (Newhaven), Renault Clio (Fred Films in Italy and Saatchi & Saatchi), Kinder Maxi King (Forchets, Milan), and Scotrail (The Leith Agency).

The problem was how to continue building on this success. To change a successful formula to favour advertising would be risky, and might affect the games clients. To form a new brand seemed the better strategy.

The strategy culminated this month in the launch of Flaunt – a new digital production house representing a raft of animation directors.

“Flaunt is an opportunity that builds on what we have already got,” says Richard Scott, co-founder of the Glasgow-based animation firm.

“We look at lots of work that other people are doing – everyone in the creative industries does. Sometimes you think ‘I wish we had done that’, or ‘I wish we’d had the opportunity to do that’. But often we knew that we wouldn’t even have the opportunity because we are in this niche. Axis is a CG company – we are great at what we do, but want to break out of that.

“Flaunt is a natural progression for Axis. We have been involved in making commercials for the last five years and have been doing some interesting work with our own in house directors. Looking to the future, however, we wanted to be able to offer agencies and creatives a wider range of styles of animation and offer more creative opportunities across different media.

“Creating Flaunt allows us to bring together a range of directors, designers, animators and producers with diverse backgrounds and skillsets who can bring fresh creative leadership to any project.”

Having already secured a roster of seven directors – Axis co-founder, Dana Dorian; Wiek Luijken; David McCue; Iain Gardner; Selina Wagner - her work won the Chairman’s Award at the Scottish Ad Awards for Story’s Corryvreckan film for Aardberg; Stephen & Dave; and Brazilian trio Buraco de Bala – Lacerda, who will head up the new production arm, claims that Flaunt will add to the industry in Scotland – not just offering something new to its advertising agencies, but also helping to push talent that might have otherwise remained undiscovered.

Exposed

“There are so many talented and creative people in Scotland who don’t get exposed to the commercial world as a result of not being represented by a known ‘company’. We want Flaunt to give clients access to those people.

“There are several production companies up here in Scotland and they all have their own roster of directors. For animation, there isn’t a great deal of representation. There are plenty of freelance animators and directors, and some agencies make use of them... But what are the chances that they would have been on the look out for new, upcoming talent?

“If you are an individual that just wants to make films, you don’t have the time or the resource to market your skills. You don’t know who to contact or, often, how to contact them. As such, a lot of talent is under-exposed. We aim to change that.”

As well as representing Scotland’s up and coming names, Flaunt is aiming to attract other top talent from abroad too. And it has already signed up London-based rep agency The Roster, covering England, Amsterdam and Shanghai, as well as representation in Italy and the Middle East.

It was Lacerda’s Brazilian roots that led her to one of the more exotic names on Flaunt’s roster. Lacerda made a connection with Buraco de Bala – a team of three design-led animators based in Brazil’s capital city, Brasilia. Having worked with WWF, Nike and MTV, Buraco de Bala (Bullet Hole) was looking for representation in the UK.

“I always think that Axis, in terms of animators in Scotland, has always been viewed as quite a commercial team,” says Scott. “We’re the hardcore. The money grabbers. Well, at least compared to the more ‘artistic’ members of the animation world,” he quickly quantifies.

“But we are a business. And that’s what makes it hard for individuals – they aren’t always able to operate as businesses.”

And it is as a business that Flaunt will now set about the market, as it looks to expose its directors to creatives’ scripts. However, he admits it won’t be a simple task.

“Many clients don’t realise the different experience you have with animation. You need so much more pre-production and you need to lock things off early on. You don’t get to see things tangibly for quite a long time, which makes people quite nervous,” Scott adds.

“You have to put faith in the production team and the director. That sometimes makes it difficult to commit to animation. Especially if you haven’t commissioned it before. But that’s what makes the previous work of the director so important.”

Perhaps, then, animation is for a more informed client? Or is it perhaps, in this current climate, for a client that is looking to save on budget? After all, there are no actors, sets, foreign travel or even crew catering to account for.

Scott interrupts this question quickly: “There is a misconception that animation is cheap. Animation can be cheap. So can live action. It is just a different way of thinking. There is a lot of man power involved in animation, which can eat up budgets... But, at the end of the day, it is about telling a story and communicating a message. And the budget depends on how you communicate that message and the scale of the task at hand.

“There is an education process, but I think that Flaunt, having the backing of Paula’s experience both agency side and on the production side through Axis, will allow us to take people through the process, confident in what we can deliver.”

So, with Flaunt ready to, erm, flaunt itself, its parent business Axis can now continue to do what it’s always done. Video games. Yet, despite a period of “consolidation”, there are other exciting plans afoot too.

“Video games are still huge for us – they are still our biggest market,” says Scott. “We are also now involved in developing a TV series, though. A show that we originally did for BBC in 2005 – Colin and Cumberland – is now being developed into a kids TV show. That was our first foray into getting intellectual property off the ground, having managed to extract the rights from the BBC.

“We took it to Cartoon Forum, Europe’s biggest animation event, which is attended by funders, broadcasters and distributors, from which we got a really good response.

“We are also going to be producing a short film with Iain Gardner (one of the Flaunt directors),” adds Scott. “We are just trying to branch out a little bit. It is all part of trying to break that mould of being these super-technical CG guys, which is often how people view us.”