The reel
Four originals · four genres · produced without a shoot
The Sincere Kindness of Complete Strangers
How it works
Script in · cut outSend the script
A screenplay, a treatment, or a logline and a deck. If it's enough to pitch with, it's enough to start with.
Choose the finish
Hand-drawn boards, finished generated frames, or both. Every shot starts as a drawing either way; you decide what the room sees, and you sign off before anything is rendered.
You get the cut
A review link in days, not weeks. Two rounds of notes are included. Then it's yours to take into the room.
Every shot starts by hand
Artist using a machine > machine creating the art.
Hover or tap either side. Same shots, same director, your call on the finish.
Hover a board to watch the shot it became.
Not just talking heads
Spectacle is the jobDoes your story call for creatures? Robots? Whole universes? Good. That's the part of the business I've spent fifteen years in.
Creatures
Four seasons in the Upside Down and an Emmy for Special Visual Effects. If your story has something with teeth in it, it's in good hands.
Robots & hardware
Vehicles, weapons, armor and machines designed from the modeler's chair, so they read like they were engineered, not dreamed.
Universes
Galaxies, scale and awe, with the science kept honest. Worlds that hold up to the widest shot you can imagine.
Period & place
Small towns, big weather, back roads and the wrong decade. The texture that makes a world feel lived in before anyone speaks.
Animation
Painted worlds and graphic styles. Not every pitch should look like a photograph, and the ones that shouldn't are often the most fun.
Titles & logos
Every title card and logo on this page was designed by hand by a Guild graphic designer with ten years in the chair. None were generated.
Genre, scale and spectacle aren't upcharges here. They're the reason this exists.
Rate card
Fixed price · fixed scope · no change ordersTone Reel
For when you need the look before you need the cut. The world, the palette and the faces, on one page a producer can scroll in thirty seconds.
Start a tone reelAnimatic
The whole story in motion before anyone commits to footage. Reads as a film, cuts like a film, costs a fraction of one. Available entirely hand-drawn for buyers who want nothing generated.
Start an animaticProof-of-Concept Trailer
A directed trailer built to be judged as a trailer first. The one you attach talent and money with. Everything on this page's reel is this tier.
Start a trailerEvery tier includes two revision rounds; a third is billed by the hour. Delivered as a private review link and a download master. Music is licensed for your pitch use. Title design is part of every tier that has titles. Look books, standalone concept art, previs, logo and key-art design, larger scopes, series sizzles and rush delivery are quoted on request.
The footage is generated. The trailer is directed.
Every project is run the way a shoot is run. The beats come out of the script, chosen by someone who has directed episodic television and knows which sixty seconds sell a story. Shots are designed, not prompted. Hero frames are drawn by hand. The cut is made by a person with a point of view, and the dozens of takes that didn't earn their place get thrown out.
- Direction and shot design by a working director
- Boards and key frames drawn by a working storyboard artist and senior concept illustrator
- Voice synthetic, with no real person's voice cloned
- Titles and logos designed by hand, by a Guild graphic designer
- Music licensed, never temp-tracked
- The cut made by hand, by someone who has done it for broadcast
AI is one tool on the bench. The judgment is the product.
Maher Jr.
“Michael is our secret weapon.”
The Duffer Brothers · Creators of Stranger Things
Emmy winner for Special Visual Effects on Stranger Things season five, and a four-time nominee. Director, VFX supervisor, storyboard artist, writer and editor. Union senior concept illustrator and graphic designer, Art Directors Guild.
Fifteen years of making things look real for a living, now pointed at the part of the business that usually runs on a logline and a prayer. Pitch Machine exists so the next room you walk into sees the movie before you say a word.
Send a logline.
Put the logline in the subject line. Attach the script or the deck if you have one. You'll hear back within two business days with a yes, a question, or a better idea.
[email protected]
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