Realtime Hits the Big Time

RealtimeUK is an animation studio directed and guided by some of the industry’s most creative producers and directors from the games and television industry.

Just 12 years ago Tony Prosser set up RealtimeUK from the bedroom in his Lytham home and he had great aspirations for the future. The company grew at a remarkable pace and today the Lancashire based firm is one of the UK’s largest CG animation studios.

As a lifelong Star Wars fan, Tony was inspired to create his studio by his love of the film. After taking a degree in technical and information illustration at Blackpool College, he set up RealtimeUK after graduating. “I started out in 1996, but the business very quickly took off and grew to where we are today, an internationally successful, bespoke CG animation studio in the heart of the Lancashire countryside, employing 26 people and still expanding dramatically,” explains Tony.

He’s naturally proud of his achievements, and this month those endeavours are also being recognised by regional screen agency Northwest Vision and Media, which works on behalf of the region’s film, TV, radio and digital content industries. RealtimeUK has been awarded the accolade of becoming Facility of the Month, in recognition of its success. It’s a success which Tony puts down to one single, over-riding ambition.

“Right from the start I had a very clear vision to always focus on producing high quality work for high profile jobs. That’s why we quickly got a reputation for offering exceptional work, produced by quality creatives. More and more clients came to us wanting that expertise,” he explains.

All of RealtimeUK’s clients are household names, with Sony, Microsoft, Jaguar, Disney Interactive Studios and Audi just a tiny selection of the many companies who go to the Lancashire studio for support.

“We produce animations for digital advertising campaigns and for the games industry – both in product development and marketing,” explains Tony.

RealtimeUK recently produced the launch animation for the new Audi R8 super car, and also created the race footage within the MotorStorm 2 debut trailer for Evolution Studios and have produced all 8 intro animations for SCEE’s Buzz! franchise. RealtimeUK’s track record and impressive client list has enabled then to win some of the most exciting contracts in the industry.

But Tony has plans to expand even more. The business is currently recruiting more animators and digital artists, in order to pursue his ambition to move further within the games industry.

“We would certainly like to expand into other areas now, especially within the broadcast industry,” he confides. “It’s early stages at the moment, but we are in discussion with a major London production company about two projects that combine life-like CG animation with live footage. We’ve also got two very large games projects in production, although I can’t say too much about them at the moment,” he adds.

Whatever his plans for the future though, there’s one element to RealtimeUK that Tony doesn’t want to change. “We’re determined to stay in Lancashire,” he says. “The region is a great place to work and coupled with that we have state-of-the-art facilities,” says Tony, who is convinced his studio offers a very attractive alternative for world class talent to work on world class projects within an attractive and affordable part of the country.