Graduate success: Giulia Federici launches gaming company ‘Singing Horses Ltd’

Congratulations to 2020 Graduate Giulia Federici; who has not only been busy playing Natasha Salvatore in web series ‘The Dead and us’ and featuring in the Tik Tok Commercial Campaign for ‘UEFA 2020’, she has also launched Gaming Company Singing Horses Ltd alongside her friends and team of creatives and concept artists 

 

Check out their 2D trailer below:

  

As an ICTheatre Graduate Giulia trained in performance, but she has found her training at ICTheatre invaluable in this video game production process, as the skills she learned have been transferable to this venture.

As well as performance, Giulia plays many different roles in Singing Horses Ltd; she is one of the Company Directors and Lead Content Creator – meaning she is the main scriptwriter and character developer.

She also plays a hand in editing videos, managing the social media account and aiding the creation of the soundtrack.  

Concept Art by Singing Horses LTD. 

 

Our student blogger Charley spoke to Giulia about her new project:

 I asked her how her training at ICTheatre had aided her with this project. “Definitely writing our own work and developing scripts, whether that’s for our solo shows or for essays such as re-contextualising a theatrical piece into a modern setting, helped me improve as a creator.

“ICTheatre really pushes you to be creative and create your own work, and that helped me build my skills and learn how to tell a story effectively – which has helped with writing the story of the game! In general, knowing how to be an actor and how to create characters has been hugely beneficial.”

“‘Character questions’ and other activities we do as actors to build our world when we perform have helped me in writing the characters for the game; understanding them and giving them life”

 

“I also now have a network of actors around me for when we head into that side of production – voice actors, people to use as reference images, people to aid us with motion capture. Knowing there are people available to work with who I know and trust makes physical production a lot smoother.”

“ICTheatre are building a motion capture studio, and Mia has said when the time comes we can use it for the game – this isn’t always available to smaller game production companies in their early stages, so this will be invaluable to us and what we are making. I wouldn’t have these connections without ICTheatre and the people I met during my training” 

 

ICTheatre has always been passionate about encouraging their students to pursue and explore all areas of the creative industries – from stand up comedy to motion capture. And when Giulia came to them with her video game designs, they were excited to see how they could help her in this venture.

Singing Horses Ltd is a company originally founded by ICTheatre 2020 Graduate Giulia Federici and her partner Simone D’Antonio. The two had created an online RPG to play with their friends on Facebook – not only did they enjoy it with their friends, but they gained attention from other people wanting to play the game with them.

They knew their ideas held potential, but without the time or resources to build the game into something more, they had to put their ideas to rest. Fast forward to lockdown, and the pair decided to use this newfound free time to revive their game and give it the attention they’d wanted to. Thus, ‘The Cursed Shadows’ was born.  

‘The Cursed Shadows’ will be an open-world dark fantasy video game that mixes our reality with the supernatural in ways not often seen in the video game world. The game will allow you to play as multiple characters while following the story, as well as completing side quests as you go. Not only will the game be unique for its use of multiple characters – allowing you to explore your definition of a hero or villain and choose characters accordingly – but it boasts considerable dynamic action and a storyline that can be played in various ways.

The company is working to create a world full of different cultures and traditions, to create a game that represents a wide demographic. Giulia and Simone – alongside the rest of the Singing Horses team – have been working hard to build characters, plot lines and concept art to bring this game to life, and the project is now preparing to enter the next phase of production.  

ICTheatre aims to encourage and aid their students when exploring new creative outlets, and when they heard about Giulia’s work, they were keen to help out in whatever ways they could. Creative Director Mia Bird and ICTheatre Patron Julian Stoneman introduced Giulia and her team to Dominic Penrice. He is a genius in the video game world and has provided Giulia and the team with invaluable insight and advice for bringing their game to life.

One of these pieces of advice was to launch themselves as a company. Giulia and Simone welcomed a number of people onto the project when they re-launched in lockdown, to bring their ideas to life, and they realised the team they’d created was capable of making this game a reality with their expertise. Which is how they founded Singing Horses Ltd, now a registered business with the capabilities of creating video games, TV shows and graphic novels in the future.  

‘The Cursed Shadows’ has grown with the team, and now has many aspects ready for creation. Numerous scripts have been written, with in-depth explorations of the characters created. Characters have been drawn up and created through 2D and 3D artwork, and a trailer is ready for release. The company programmers are starting to build a skeleton of the game, and the soundtrack is coming to  

life. Singing Horses Ltd are well on their way to making ‘The Cursed Shadows’ a reality, and their next step is finding the funding to take this project one step further.  

Not only are the company applying for numerous grants and following several funding avenues, but they are also preparing to launch a Kickstarter, which will introduce ‘The Cursed Shadows’ to the world, drum up interest for the game and get funders on board with the project. Feedback from test audiences is already extremely positive, and the team are confident they will find their target market when the game is introduced to audiences. They are at an exciting moment in their career progression, and we cannot wait to see where they will go next.  

The work the Singing Horses Ltd team are creating is so exciting, and we hope the funding they need becomes available to them so the game can enter its next phase of production smoothly. Giulia is putting so many of her skills to use in a new and exciting way, and it’s inspiring how she applies her ICTheatre knowledge to her work. Follow the story on the companies’ Instagram, @_singing_horses_ltd_ to find out what’s happening next, and keep your eyes peeled for that Kickstarter.