PATRICK MEEGAN

A speculative world building project for the American Society of Civil Engineers. This educational video game presents a deeply researched experience of what cities may look like in the year 2070.

2016
Director and VR Producer.

Conservation International wanted to bring people closer to the Amazon rainforest in order to illustrate both its beauty and vital importance to all of humanity. I proposed a journey that took you from the sky above the canopy, down through the layers of the epic trees to the forest floor where you would meet an indigenous guide who would lead you through the forest revealing its secrets.

Working at the forefront of cinematic virtual reality we faced challenges and unknowns at every phase of the production. The month long production moved by plane, canoe, and foot across various locations throughout the Amazon. We set out to create an impossible “walk” through the forest using cable-cam setups, drones, and never before used rope and pulley systems designed by expert tree climbers. Custom camera triggers were designed in order to capture imagery of illusive wildlife. The indigenous people of the areas we filmed became our key collaborators in both the story and production, creating a virtual reality “back lot” out of the forest resources.

Under The Canopy debuted at the UN Climate Change Conference in 2016 and has screened at festivals and conferences globally since.

2016
VR Producer and Cinematographer

Working with director Lynette Wallworth to tell the story of Nyarri Morgan, an elder of the Madu tribe in Western Australia, we created a virtual reality experience that brings audiences on a journey into a remote landscape, a distinct mindset, and a transformative memory as Nyarri describes his encounter with an atomic bomb in the 1950s.

As a key collaborator on the project I served as cinematographer and VR producer overseeing all post-production. The project featured spherical time-lapse photography, advanced compositing techniques, and CG animation.

The VR film debuted at the World Economic Forum in a 100 person synchronized screening, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and went on to win an Emmy award for Outstanding New Approaches: Documentary.

2015
VR Producer and Cinematographer

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia creator Rob McElheney wanted to create a VR experience that would place viewers inside the show, and take them on a wild ride that was both comedic and thrilling. The script involved a motorcycle jump off of a pier and into the ocean.

In order to achieve the stunt in stereoscopic spherical video I led the design and prototyping of one of the first underwater 3D VR cameras. We designed a custom motorcycle body, complete with dummy body, and used “spider-cam” cable systems to achieve much of the movement.

Performance is key to comedy, so I worked with Rob and the actors to rehearse and block the performances so that we could complete the production in a single day, while dealing with the inevitable technical difficulties that come with first of their kind productions.

2018 ongoing
Creative Director

Noisevision is an ongoing prototyping project that looks at large scale augmented reality storytelling through the audiovisual aesthetics of underground electronic music. The experience begins with a phone call from a strange creature trapped in an alternate dimension. You follow the “noisewalkers” who worship a giant emoji named Dan. Finally you find the creature that called you and after dancing with her you become one with the noise.

Developed initially to take advantage of ARKit and the iPhone X, the project embraces a surreal story and aesthetic, focusing on the potential for movement, embodiment, and shared experience the immersive platforms.

2014
Creator

A year long exploration into the potentials of stereoscopic video in real-time game space, Video Volume used the ritual of the seance to illustrate the transformative potential of virtual reality. Created as my MFA thesis at USC, the final product was a custom camera system, an original play, and a 10 minute mixed reality experience. Given the state of technology at the time, the experience leveraged the inherent artifacts of its production within the ghostly, surreal nature of the story.

2010
Writer and Director

A poetic triptych film paints the portrait of an individual as he deals with moments of loss and connection through his encounters with the ocean. The film uses highly subjective framings and internal monologues to depict the evolving nature of consciousness from boyhood to older man.

2013
Creator

We Bring Fire is a navigable, nodal story inspired by coyote myths of the American west. Working with the Rich Interactive Narrative team at Microsoft research we set out to push multimedia technology and storytelling by incorporating all photographic and video production techniques available to us. A series of super-slowmotion vignettes branch into panoramas, text, and traditional videos following four trickster characters’ misadventures around Seattle. (Screencapture of interactive experience coming soon).

2010 onward

An ongoing interest in first person narratives and video as an interactive and malleable medium is ultimately what led me to immersive mediums like virtual reality. Developing custom camera rigs and working with full-motion video in real-time game engines remains a part of my professional and independent artistic practice. These are a just a few of the experimental projects I’ve created over the years.

2017
Executive Producer

As Microsoft prepared to launch its Windows Mixed Reality platform they needed an experience that would appeal to audiences beyond the hardcore gamer. In particular they wanted to invite more women into the joy of mixed reality. Working with director Nicole McDonald we proposed an experience in which you would be a giant standing over a small town, picking up street lights and blowing the embers of light into the air to fill the night sky with stars.

Working with a tight deadline and on a hardware/software platform that was evolving by the minute we were able to create an artistic experience that is at once meditative, thrilling, somber and hopeful.

Launched alongside WMR on both mobile and desktop processors, Free The Night debuted at the Future of Storytelling conference in New York.

2016
VR Producer

Invited by Lucas Film to visit the set of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, I documented one of the incredible set-pieces from the film and later interviewed director Gareth Edwards about process of working within this incredible universe.

Who better to take a trip to Cuba with? We followed Shaqille O’neil on a cultural diplomacy trip.

2017
Director and Creative Director

Working with the LA2024 Olympic Committee and 72andSunny, we created an informational immersive experience that allowed the IOC to see first hand how ideal UCLA is and will be as the Olympic Village. Shot in a single day, the production featured cablecam setups, R/C rovers, drones, and underwater camera arrays, in order to create a dynamic tour of UCLA athletics.

2018
Director and Creative Director

Diageo wanted to create a public service announcement that would illustrate the dangers of binge drinking, and draw attention to the issue by pushing the boundaries of technology and entertainment, creating something truly one of a kind. I proposed an interactive cinematic virtual reality story that would allow you to switch between the points-of-view of the attendees of a party, witnessing first hand what can go wrong when alcohol is abused.

The concept of simultaneous parallel storylines presents many challenges from scripting to production and performance, all the way into distribution and streaming. We designed a unique audio monitoring system for the actors allowing them to “reperform” each scene in perfect synchronization as we shot the various POVs, and we used professional dancers as our POV camera operators in order to hit marks and hand gestures based on a click track. In post production we designed a variety of image treatments and audio effects that would simulate the perceptual effects of intoxication. And I worked closely with Jaunt’s core engineering team to optimize streaming and playback to allow for lagless switching between the four stereoscopic 4K streams of video at any point in the experience.

By bringing interactivity to this devastating narrative we engage audiences more deeply by involving them in the authoring of their experience. We simulate the fragmented cognitive experience of a being drunk at a party as audiences switch between POVs gleaning bits and pieces of the narrative which pushes on relentlessly no matter whose shoes you are in. We also give audiences the option to escape certain traumatic moments of the experience if it is simply too much for them to bear.

This project opens up a range of future storytelling potential by taking advantage of some of virtual reality’s key affordances: the empathy of first person experiences and the narrative agency of interactivity. For Jaunt, it led to the development of new technology products that could be leveraged across the company’s businesses.

Creative Director

Malibu Rum wanted to create a new attraction for their summer beach house promotional parties. Given the fact that most of the party attendees would be new to virtual reality, we set out to create something that would be intuitive and magical while speaking to the Malibu brand. Underwater Badminton was the obvious solution!

The two player game for HTC Vive featured networked physics of the “shuttle-kelp” that allowed for competitive play at all skill levels. Players could speak to each other through the VR headsets and erupt into an underwater dance routine while spectators watched the scene on external monitors.

2015
Director and VR Producer

Created for 7 For All Mankind, this short experience transports viewers into the aesthetic spirit of the brand. The cinematic VR video was an early example of the potential for editorial and visual effects to transform live-action virtual reality videos into malleable canvases for dreamlike expression.

2014
Creative Director

Led by designer Alex McDowell, the World Building Media Lab began its work at USC working with Intel Research and author Scott Westerfeld to bring to life the world of the YA book series Leviathan. After many experiments in transmedia storytelling, I led a small team of students in the creation of an Augmented Reality experience that featured flying whale piloted by gesture, interactive flying jellyfish, and the incorporation of practical lighting with augmented environments. The project was chosen by Intel to be featured during its 2014 keynote address at CES.

2008 - 2009
Director

No budget productions for the band volcano! began on a rainy afternoon in Brooklyn. Shooting in a frenetic style with only an umbrella and a gallon of milk for props we created a comedic romp through prospect park that brought a light-hearted touch to the bands cerebral style. Following the success of the video on YouTube we received a small budget from the Leaf Label to produce a second video. After coming up with the metaphor of a band as a single unit at odds with its individual selves, something I called the “nanopus,” the band wrote a new song around the theme and we shot the story of this multi-faceted beast around the bands’ local hangouts in Chicago.