Greg’s Initial Concepts

Concept 1: Animated Series Pilot w/ Pitch Deck

Content

The pitch deck would include:

1. Pilot Episode
2. Sample Episode Ideas
3. Descriptions of show and characters
4. Concept Artwork
5. Contact Info

Preface

In order to explain this any further, I have to preface that my idea of creating a feature film for my thesis project has, unfortunately, become too overwhelming for me to continue. This is mostly due to a lack of resources/crew; there’s only so much I can self-fund (I’ve already spent thousands) and do myself.

However, it is my plan to use many of the resources I now possess, or the “spare parts” if you will.

Story & Genre

Though I can’t be certain of the exact story of my show at this time, I can say definitively that the genre will be sci-fi/cyberpunk. The reason for this is mostly cathartic. Taking the concepts, tangible assets, and overall entire plan to create a film in this genre that are now just in empty space, and turning them into something still real and useful would do well to soften the blow of not being able to do something more ambitious with the film itself.

Style/Animation

The show would be entirely animated. More specifically, it will use photorealistic characters and environments coupled with advanced V-Ray rendering techniques like raytraced global illumination/ambient occlusion/screen space shadows/reflections. Essentially anything you’d expect to see in gaming for the next 10 years with the benefit of being pre-rendered with production-level quality.

Please refer to the following link for a short demo of what I mean:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1h8gsUnObBDjypSx2PSFWpeG5hLPC158P/view?usp=sharing

Software used:

Final Draft 11

Toon Boom Storyboard Pro

Katana

Photoshop

Illustrator

After Effects

Daz Studio

ZBrush

Marvelous Designer

Ipi Motion Capture Recorder & Studio

Maya

V-Ray Renderer

Unreal Engine

Nuke

Houdini

Dynamixyz

TrueSKY

Substance Painter

Substance Designer

What happens after? Once completed, I’ll take the pilot to every major conference/film festival worth submitting to. At the very least, this will showcase my creativity and production management skills, as well as my technical and software proficiency, and can be used to great extent in order to afford me a job as an animator.

Concept 2: Virtual Reality Amusement Park

This is an interesting one that I’ve had in the back of my mind for a long time, and to be perfectly frank I don’t think I’d make this the “main idea” for quite some time, but rather something I’d build on the side.

The reason I wouldn’t do this in the here and now is that I’d center this amusement park around the works of my studio, Greg Patten Animation Studios, but at this time I simply don’t have enough recognition for my films (understandably) to make this even a little bit practical from a “paying the bills” perspective. This would be a hobby project for a long time until my audience reaches a substantial improvement and it could turn a profit. This isn’t Concept 3 because someday I do think this is possible and even a pathway to employment for myself or “park staff”. I think while Disney is busy making it’s twelfth or thirteenth live action remake, by then I’d hope to be in a place to work on this more seriously.

One of my plans once I have a full staff at a studio is to take my existing short films and create feature films around their stories, expanding and improving upon them. As something of a jumping off point, within the next year I plan to have 8 short films completed (3 that I made previously, 5 in the works incl. my thesis). This may seem improbable but with 4 Campus Movie Fest events next year, I’d make a different animated short for each, and at this point I’m grateful to have such an efficient pipeline that these 4 films can each be made over the course of a week. The genres/settings for these films of past present and future vary from western, fantasy, sci-fi, samurai, viking, art deco/retrofuturist. With that being said, I can think of many very interesting ways to incorporate these settings into an amusement park. I’m a huge fan of the Blizzard World map in Overwatch, and have always really enjoyed the idea of creating places and rides that guests can interact with based on multiple existing franchises sharing a common space.

Concept 3: Rock n’ Roll Album Production

Despite being a musician for most of my life, following through with the dream of being a rock star falls into the very full cabinet of personal ideas that are a little too impractical to take seriously, though it is fun to think about. I’ve thought about music for a while as a career of some kind, but the most obvious safe path, being a music teacher/professor, just doesn’t interest me at all. This was the primary reason for me to focus on animation/filmmaking as a career. Though it’s certainly more risky than being a teacher (tenure? lol) there is a clear day job happiness I would get from simply animating, and the grandiose studio owner idea can always be the bottom line end goal that I constantly build and work toward. As mentioned, I’ve had many “I’m going to be a rockstar and risk everything” moments of my life, but I’m very grateful to now be walking a comfortable line between radically taking giant risks and working toward a day job that is equally as fulfilling.

For anyone interested in my previous or upcoming work, check out my website: pattenanimation.com