How Steamroller is forging a new path with “Spice Frontier”

As the Steamroller Animation team worked to bring their ambitious animated story “Spice Frontier” to life, they knew it would be a challenge. The fierce competition for online eyeballs has become a fight that all companies must engage in.

But they pushed through because it was a story they thought they just had to tell, born from an innate desire to create and a deep belief that its sincerity would resonate with audiences.

“As a creator, you just have to create,” said Josh Carroll, head of creative at the studio. “We are artists who innately find pleasure and fulfillment through the act of creating stories. It’s a sense of self-satisfaction to create something you resonate with and put a piece of yourself out there.”

The company debuted “Spice Frontier” on its YouTube channel on May 21. The animated feature relied heavily on tools in Unreal Engine, which has become a highly sought-out tool for animation businesses.

Steamroller Animation is Mount Dora-based Steamroller Studios’ animation branch, which sits alongside Steamroller Technologies, which builds immersive experiences.

The team has collaborated with industry giants like Epic Games and Blizzard Entertainment on work for games like “Fortnite” and “Overwatch 2.”

The independent vision

As an independent studio working on its own intellectual property, the team had the flexibility to craft the “Spice Frontier” world as it saw fit.

To Carroll, that flexibility bolstered his creativity.

“It’s every creator’s dream to be let loose on a property that belongs entirely to their studio or company,” he said. “There are no approvals needed to change designs or story points. That’s incredibly freeing.”

Steamroller’s leadership team is made up of longtime industry veterans with credits in major film and video games who launched the company from the back of a T-shirt shop in 2014.

Their deep experience has helped land work on high-profile intellectual property.

Now, however, the company has created its own.

Carroll said that ability and ambition to do that was what first appealed to him when he arrived in February 2021.

“I love the idea of being at a place that has the guts to truly go for it,” he said.

Innovation and resilience in production

By working in Unreal, the team could remain relatively small until it was absolutely necessary to expand.

Adopting the technology, Carroll said, meant an efficient workflow that helped meet deadlines.

Still, as with most animated features, challenges popped up regularly.

At one point, the full scope of the effort was daunting. After all, it’s not every day you build a studio while creating a full episode. But the experience of the team pushed them forward.

“Over time, you build relationships and a belief in the project itself,” Carroll said.

The hurdles Steamroller faced certainly brought the team closer during the animation stages.

But the ultimate team-building experience has been the positive feedback following release, Carroll said.

“It’s like you’ve birthed a child, and now the world sees it and you hope you’re not the only one who thinks your child is pretty,” he said. “It’s been very encouraging to see people that we really trust and respect say, ‘Yeah, you guys did well.'”