Forza Motorsports 6: Apex

The 12 cinematic sequences produced for the game Forza Motorsport 6: Apex truly capitalises on the diversity of Jumbla’s talent pool - that’s no accident. Both the publishers of the game, Microsoft Studios, and our partners on the job, Axis Animation, wanted us to make each sequence look as stylistically unique as possible. We handpicked six animators from across the Jumbla team, asking each to devise two completely original cinematics. Our creative director, Cal, oversaw production to further strengthen and refine each idea, and to ensure the strength and essence of the Forza brand was maintained throughout. The result was exactly what the client was after: 12 high-adrenaline cinematics in which no two look alike. One is inspired by futuristic blueprints, another by 1950s posters. One takes inspiration from comic books – using grainy textures and stuttering frame rates – while another employs 3D animation to reveal detailed and sleek racecar interiors. This 90-second compilation gives just a taste for the breadth of styles we assembled for this project. Our work on Apex was high-speed in more ways than one - we delivered the suite of cinematics in just 12 weeks. Achieving something so visually ambitious in this timeframe took a consolidated effort from the entire team. It’s a testament to the foresight of our producers, who were able to coordinate production, and to the talent of our animators, who who knew exactly how to manifest their ideas swiftly and incorporate client feedback on the go. The bulk of the work was done in After Effects, using a mix of 2D and 3D animation. For the latter, files of the car were provided to us as 3D Max files which we then retextured to our desired styles before remodelling them using the Element 3D plug-in. Creative director Cal Woolcock said the project was a joy to work on. “To be honest, we were so surprised at the extent to which the client embraced some of our less-than-conventional ideas,” he said.“It was a privilege for all of us to actively seek our own individual stamps in interpreting this brief, knowing it would end up forming such a critical aspect of a popular video game.”