Axis Group announce launch of Axis Studios and upcoming art book
This past week saw animation and VFX collective Axis Group announce the official launch of Axis Studios, uniting their three main UK branches – Axis Animation, Flaunt Productions (Glasgow) and axisVFX (Bristol) – under one identity.
Based in the UK, Axis – whose recent projects include Shaun the Sheep: The Movie (Aardman), the RTS-nominated VFX for Doctor Who (BBC) and the Emmy Award-winning Lost In Oz (Amazon) – boast a global clientele as well as one of the largest CGI production staffs in the country.
Having recently expanded their in-house crews to a combined 230 creative professionals, the three brands will be aiming to collaborate further and allow Axis Studios to take more ambitious, larger-scale projects across all sectors of the entertainment industry. Axis Group’s central studio Axis London, which specialises in pre-production for all manner of TV, feature and video games projects, will also be planning to relocate to new premises later this summer.
Axis Studios bolsters our ability to be involved in the most creatively challenging areas of the entertainment industry. Whatever the demands of the project, Axis Studios can look across three companies and locations to select the optimum creative approach, production workflow and culture. We’re not beholden to one set template. Collaboration is at the core of Axis Studios, ensuring every project is tailored to its requirements.
-Richard Scott, CEO at Axis Studios
With Axis Glasgow having recently doubled its physical space in its Skypark HQ, Bristol’s axisVFX’s has also seen an expansion at their base of operations The Bottle Yard Film Studios. With plans to grow their 2D and 3D teams, future axisVFX projects include work on several TV drama productions and the upcoming Aardman feature Early Man.
The Axis Studios expansion gives us access to a deeper pool of creative talent across all three locations. The artists in each of our studios have different but very complementary skillsets. It is so important for us to nurture, develop and work collaboratively with the best talent as they are the backbone to realising our future ambitions.
-Debbie Ross, Executive Producer at Axis Studios
Accompanying this announcement, the Axis Studios team also plan on releasing an art book “detailing the fantastic work created behind the scenes at all three Axis Studios locations. From sci-fi to fantasy, from traditional to digital, the art book contains an abundance of imagination committed to paper”.
Concept and production art are the maps that lead us to fantastic treasures. Audiences don’t get to see the reams of work created during the pre-production and production stages of a project; we wanted to shine a spotlight on a number of the incredible artists who help us explore and define our characters, worlds and stories. We hope that readers enjoy the bounty that this treasure chest holds as much as we enjoy being able to share it.
-Jon Beeston, Head of Art at Axis Studios
Follow the work of Axis at axisanimation.com