The Method Behind the Madness
We build films the way great products are built - through rapid, agile visual prototyping, real audience insight, and a process that ensures the film works before a single frame is shot. This isn’t extra process, it’s the difference between films that struggle to find themselves on set and films that arrive already working. Our system gives directors clarity, gives crews purpose, and gives partners confidence - all before a single day of shooting.
Books have manuscripts. Stage shows have dress rehearsals. Comics have sketches. Films deserve the same level of preparation. Prototyping gives everyone a shared blueprint so production becomes focused execution, not expensive discovery.
How We Stay Ahead of Risk
Most production problems come from misalignment and late decision‑making. Many films are effectively improvised by the camera department on the day, with crews waiting while shots are "found" instead of executed. It’s the equivalent of asking actors to discover their lines on set.
A structured process eliminates this waste. It reduces reshoots, compresses schedules, and lets creatives take bigger swings because the fundamentals are already locked. By validating ideas early, we stop weak material and unclear sequences from burning time and money further down the pipeline.
Talent and Story Incubation: We actively seek out emerging talent and fresh ideas to shape and refine concepts. Through mentorship and close creative support, we help strengthen both quality and the commercial viability.
Pre-vis and Prototyping: We believe production choices should rely on proof, not precedent, so we use real data and audience validation to guide every story long before the cameras roll. We design full creative and technical prototypes using pre-visualisation, concept art, 3D graphics, and finance-ops modelling. This allows us to bring stories to life early and iterate on creative and commercial plans in real time.
R&D Movie Stacks: These mean buyers and partners aren’t gambling on a script. They’re backing pre-validated projects, already market-tested and primed for success. Buyers can option a stack, invest in co-production, or acquire a finished feature film.
| Altt R&D Movie Stack |
Industry Standard Pitch |
|
|---|---|---|
| Script | ✓ | ✓ |
| Lookbooks | ✓ | ✓ |
| Storyboards | ✓ | ✕ |
| Commercial Validation and Comps | ✓ | ✕ |
| Budget Plans | ✓ | ✕ |
| Creator PR Plan | ✓ | ✕ |
| Audience Testing Footage and Data | ✓ | ✕ |
| Full Feature Animatic | ✓ | ✕ |
| Early Promotional Support from Critics and Influencers | ✓ | ✕ |
Production: Once a project is validated, we move efficiently into production. Every department is scaled to match the story’s needs, not studio overhead expectations. Pre-vis feeds directly into the shoot, reducing time on set and eliminating unnecessary iterations, allowing more creative freedom and exploration.
→ Industry analysis shows 50–60% of major films require some form of reshoot or pickup signalling systemic misalignment and late discovery of problems.
→ When pre‑production is insufficient, production departments can account for 40–45% of total budget leakage through repeated setups and on‑the‑day experimentation.
→ Some studios report that up to 70% of a film may be structurally rewritten or reshot during production, a direct result of decisions being pushed too far downstream.
Productions that front‑load planning consistently report
20–30%
shorter shoot schedules.
Tension belongs on the screen, not behind the cameras
Every project moves through broad, predictable phases: discovery, development, visual prototyping, audience insight, and production readiness.
Early creative exploration helps us test concepts, establish tone, and identify whether a story truly works. Development sharpens narrative clarity and visual identity. Our agile visual prototyping ensures that blocking, pacing, scares, and camera language function before real resources are committed.
Previs isn’t limited to 3D animation. It includes photos, sketches, storyboards, animatics, recorded rehearsals, digital blocking, and anything that turns text into something you can see.
By production, the film has already proven it works creatively, visually, and with real audiences.
Some of the outstanding results our founding team have achieved for partners using the same principles we apply at Altt:
reduction in production times after process and comms optimisations
80%
70%
budget savings by testing smaller, iterative changes before production
reduced production costs while maintaining creative standards
£12.5M
30%
in added recurring revenue after team and process optimisations
The Power of Prototyping
Prototyping creates shared visual clarity early, so every department arrives aligned and ready to work. It reduces interpretation gaps and transforms abstract ideas into concrete understanding. Cast and crew arrive knowing the director’s intent, and that clarity fuels better decisions everywhere.
Previs & Technical Prototyping
Previs lets us test blocking, timing, lensing, and movement in a low‑cost, low‑risk environment. It’s where we refine lighting intention, spatial design, camera language, and fear mechanics with precision. It exposes problems early and keeps production lean.
Departments use previs as a visual contract. Instead of "finding the shot," they execute a known plan.
→ Pre‑planning reveals unnecessary scenes and wasted footage by up to 30%
Audience Testing & Iteration
We test previs and prototypes with controlled audiences to measure clarity, tension, pacing, and emotional response. We learn where viewers are confused, overwhelmed, or fully engaged.
This data creates fast, agile feedback loops that guide focused rewrites and refinements long before production, giving creatives a safe space to raise concerns, propose ideas, and eliminate risk.
HODs enter production aligned, confident, and ready to execute from day one. A tested blueprint makes the shoot calmer and more predictable, and every department knows exactly where their creative input has impact.
→ Audience response data used early can increase a film’s market alignment and projected ROI by double‑digit percentages, especially in genre work.
The Science of the Scare How We Design Fear With Intention
Horror is a system. Clarity, anticipation, timing, and controlled violation of expectation are not accidents, they are design choices.
We break fear into components such as cognitive clarity, physiological response, and narrative anxiety. Each one can be isolated, tested, and tuned. Our prototyping process prototypes threat signals, reveals, tension curves, and pacing long before a camera rolls. Audience testing shows exactly where the emotional load peaks, where attention drops, and where a scare misfires.
We use psychology frameworks, action-analysis tools, and our internal engine Clarice to score scenes by threat readability, anticipation windows, surprise delta, and audience confidence. It lets us chart how fear builds across a sequence and where it breaks.
The result is simple. We treat fear like a mechanic with measurable variables, not a mystery left to instinct.
Strengthening pipelines
Previs reduces reinterpretation cycles, eliminates broad reshoots, and catches unnecessary scenes before they’re ever shot. It also collapses the cost of fixing problems by solving them during the cheapest phase of production.
Once a project is proven, all validated work is compiled into a production‑ready blueprint that partners can use to keep their pipelines agile and fresh.
→ Investing as little as 10–20% of potential reshoot cost upfront routinely prevents productions from burning millions correcting avoidable issues.
→ The cost of fixing problems in post is 5–10x higher than fixing them in pre‑production.
Solutions for Every Story
Every project needs a different level of support, so we offer flexible engagement tracks that apply our methodology at any stage. From refining existing IP to delivering production ready features, each option gives partners clarity, proof, and predictable outcomes.
Agile Creative Consulting
Support for existing IP through rapid diagnosis, narrative refinement, and audience-informed decision making. Projects move through an agile cycle of clarification, prototyping, and testing so creative and commercial risks are reduced before major spend.
Ready-to-Produce Movie stacks
Original genre projects developed with previs, audience data, and early market positioning. Each stack arrives pre-tested and ready for greenlight, allowing production companies and multimedia distributors to keep pipelines full with lower risk and higher confidence.
Feature production
End-to-end production on an iterative model that protects budget and lifts creative quality. Projects move from concept to delivery through transparent workflows, rapid previs, and continuous audience feedback, ready for direct sale or distribution.
We’re on a mission to prove that film can be scaled as a repeatable, high-margin product, not just a one-off creative gamble
Think we should work together? Summon us at info@alttproductions.com