Video Games have gone far beyond the early days, and now strong narratives and engaging backstories with amazing visuals are the order of the day! Plastic Wax pushes the boundaries to meet the industry’s hunger for ever-changing new forms of storytelling, cinematography and distinctive styles.

The video game industry keeps breaking records year after year. Globally the game market revenue reached AU$518 billion*, with the Australian sector alone generating over AU$284 million** a figure that’s predicted to grow even bigger in the years to come.

With this incentive comes greater investments in video game cinematics, with an emphasis on game trailers that play a delicate balance of cinematography and reflection of gameplay.

The trailers become their own works of art, calling fans old and new into this daily-evolving virtual world. But with the average game campaign lasting 8 hours, and the game’s lore running deeper into obscurity, how does one finesse that entire world into a two-minute trailer?

For over 25 years Plastic Wax have pushed the limits and expectations of what goes into creating cinematic video game trailers.  Similar to the way films come together, the process involves many stages of script writing, storyboarding, previz, animation, performance directing, the shoot (motion capture) and visual effects. Adding to this is the evolving technology behind the game engines themselves and this is where Plastic Wax has found themselves to be at the leading edge of their craft!

“We are a full turnkey studio providing services from script writing, right the way through to final pixels,”
– Felix Crawshaw, General Manager and Executive Producer, Plastic Wax 

“Producing game trailers is an artform. It combines a deep understanding of the game’s lore, mechanics, and its audience to position the trailer’s script, tone, and visual treatment correctly in the marketplace.
It’s about making something uniquely captivating and memorable, and oftentimes we start with a blank canvas.”
– Felix Crawshaw, General Manager and Executive Producer, Plastic Wax 

The team at Plastic Wax is a hybrid of artists with film, VFX and video game production backgrounds – a perfect harmony that comes together to create without boundaries. Alejandro Garrido, Plastic Wax’s Production Coordinator – knows the terrain all too well. Having worked in the VFX industry for nearly 20 years, he sees the similarities between what a film animation studio and Plastic Wax does. “What we do is on par with filmmaking – each year we see ourselves faced with new challenges in raising the quality bar of our work or creating something new to capture the audience’s attention. The solutions are exactly the same:

“Surround yourself with an outstanding team and support them whichever way you can; Iterate fast and strongly and the rest is just time to let it all come together.”
– Alejandro Garrido, Production Coordinator, Plastic Wax

Masters of Unreal Engine™ and all the latest tools in the field, and having worked on award-winning projects ranging from Mortal Kombat 11, Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Hogwarts Legacy, Gotham Knights and Game Of Thrones: Conquest, as well the recent Shrapnel Launch trailer in Unreal Engine 5, Plastic Wax are no strangers to working with the big leagues.

“Combining our skilled artists and tools in full real-time performance capture, VR remote directing, Naninte, Lumen, Metahumans, Live VFX, etc. allows us to visualize closer to final pixel from day one.”
– Nathan Maddams, CCO and Founder, Plastic Wax

“With that running into our custom pipeline, deploying to previz, real time cinematics or pre-rendered has now converged the lines of what’s possible. Coupled with the early adoption of AI augmented production, we can push those creative boundaries further without tech getting in the way of the art more fully than ever before!” Maddams adds

With the lines blurred between games and film, Plastic Wax has a perfectly unique footing in Australia’s VFX environment. And they’re only just getting started.

(*Source: Statista)
(**Source: Kotaku)

Reach out to Plastic Wax:
[email protected]
www.plasticwax.com