Technologically speaking we would like to embrace and usher into the world of the narrative animated movie what we think is the new paradigm shift in 3D animation. To take what has previously been the province of large to midsize studios with multi-million dollar budgets and massive render farms, and put it into the hands of smaller teams like ours with limited budgets. Which in turn allows us to focus on storytelling.

The technology of today and tomorrow is narrative filmmaking in the hands of artists, getting real time feedback even with heavy scenes and massive amounts of assets and textures. Currently this is happening with a level of quality never seen before with real-time technology. Small to midsize studios are now able to make their passion projects and bring them to the world without having to sell their souls to Hollywood.

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Unreal Engine 5 and beyond is making this possible. It has already transformed our studio, and we have been reaping the benefits of Unreal Engine for a number of years now. With Thrive we are bringing years of diverse experience with asset creation, rigging and animation together with years of experience with Unreal Engine as a rendering pipeline.

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So why an Open Movie? Well for us, now, this just makes sense as the next logical step on our path as a studio, which is to be given the chance to show what we know we can do, to get us through the final production phases of our project.

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So, it just makes sense that if we are given the chance to show what we can do, that we will be more than happy to give back to the community in what way we can. To offer the film as Creative Commons and to also offer up all of the assets as Creative Commons to the community as a way to give back for this wonderful opportunity. Additionally we plan to add further value to the grant by offering training and documentation in 3D film workflows and in particular between Blender and Unreal Engine.

An important note is we have already invested the amount of money we are asking for, to bring the film this far. So we are in fact meeting the Epic Mega Grant half way and donating all of our own investment in the way of assets to the community as well. Essentially forfeiting any future profits from the film and considering that the opportunity to make and finish the film is far more valuable to us than money.

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We also feel there is a general need for more feature length, good natured, inspirational storytelling from studios using Unreal Engine. The level we are striving to reach is that of Pixar and DreamWorks et al. That is shooting high, but we believe we have to set the bar as high as possible to achieve anything good.

And for that we feel it would be a win/win for us and Epic. An example in the public eye showing that we can tell our passionate story with real-time technology over a full-length feature film, and do it well.

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And so I personally feel the story is an important component to this. And why I have shared the full story outline on our website, as well as the script and storyboard progress. After all, if no one wants to see the film, if it has no value as a work of art for entertainment then all is for not.

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It is a story that has come out of my personal experiences in life, dealing the loss in my family and overcoming grief in general and also in the pursuit of a life-long dream.

It is a story I feel passionate about and want to share with the world.

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It would be a dream come true for me me and to our studio to make this happen with an Epic Mega Grant.

For me this all started with "Set it Free". At that point, I thought. OK. Now we are talking. This is the future of cinema and the future for my studio. I have spent a good 8 years preparing for this, technologically, but a lifetime creatively. And now I am ready to make it happen!

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Richard Culver