Final Frontier Crafts Rubber Hose Style Adventure Film for Honkai: Star Rail

Final Frontier produced the short film “Tick-Tock! Let’s Dream Together!” for the Space Fantasy video game Honkai: Star Rail developed by MiHoYo, the Chinese game developer and publishing company well-known for creating Honkai Impact 3rd and Genshin Impact games. 

To craft the visual narrative FINAL FRONTIER associated with Appetit Studio their production service company in Lyon, France, bringing in the Goya-Award winning director Salvador Simó, to create this adventure with a distinctive Rubber Hose style, on a production that intertwined China, France and Spain. 

The game’s plot follows the amnesiac “Trailblazer” travelling across worlds on the Astral Rail, resolving disasters caused by the “Stellaron.” Our story kicks off on Penacony, the 4th world, unfolding a tourism promo through the magic planet guided by our charismatic “Clock Boy”, a NPC that takes life in the animation, unveiling Penacony’s locations such as The Dreamville Hotel, the Oti Mall, and Clock Studios Theme Park.

We had the chance to talk with Final Frontier's EP, Juan Manuel Freire, who kindly shared with us some insights about the production, “We brought in Salvador Simó - with an outstanding background in features and short films and his latest experience directing “Dragonkeeper”, a co-production between China and Spain- being the perfect fit culturally, process-wise, and in terms of storytelling too. 

"To execute his vision, we worked with Appetit Studio, our sister company in Lyon, France. Due to the complexity of the animation, we knew they would be the perfect studio to achieve this 40s cartoon style. The execution level has been challenging, and the client was seeking a short film that could showcase state-of-the-art quality."

“We have the MiHoYo's team, with their unique culture and process: after working for the Chinese market for seven years, we knew how to manage the culture and process and make this intercontinental set up work. They are a great video game developer with high standards, that also helped us push ourselves further.”