Nexus, Oscar Winner Patrick Osborne Craft Time Travel Epic with Unreal Engine

Today, Nexus Studios, the BAFTA-winning studio behind the animated genre-bending horror-comedy The House and Grammy-nominated music feature Happier Than Ever: A Love Letter to Los Angeles starring Billie Eilish, revealed the teaser for their new animated production in development: This Tape Deck Is a Time Machine, from Oscar- and Emmy-winning director Patrick Osborne. The teaser showcases a distinctive graphic 2D style created entirely with real-time technology.

Conceived and directed by Osborne and produced at Nexus Studios using Unreal Engine, this coming-of-age adventure follows a time-jumping teen who is transported into moments of other people’s lives by songs played on an old tape deck. At its heart, This Tape Deck is a Time Machine is an impossible tale of friendship and love centered around soulmates born generations apart. The cast are a diverse group of misfits, inspired by Patrick’s band of friends through his adolescent years.

Osborne led a team of expert real-time artists and creators at Nexus Studios, who embraced the unique challenge of crafting the Tape Deck world with a refined 2D aesthetic, created entirely in the Unreal Engine with no compositing. The team developed bespoke shading techniques to achieve the painterly and naturalistic quality, leveraging the visual potential of the engine to make high quality stylized animation.

“This is a project that breaks new ground both creatively and technically. It’s an animated production with music at its core, told with a strong graphic sensibility, pushing animation to new audiences while simultaneously innovating the very way it’s made,” said Chris O’Reilly, Co-Founder & Executive Creative Director, Nexus Studios.

This Tape Deck Is a Time Machine

Harnessing the benefits of Epic Games’ Unreal Engine in this way provides a multitude of advantages, including the ability to render images almost instantly and enables multiple inputs into one scene simultaneously. This allows for more creative freedom and iterative autonomy for Directors who will be able to manipulate animated scenes in a similar style to shooting live action.

As a recipient of an Epic MegaGrant, Nexus Studios was able to continue its long-standing collaboration with Epic Games. Innovating and building on top of the existing capabilities of the Unreal Engines’ strengths, the real-time division at Nexus Studios were able to adopt an agile and more iterative approach to linear animated filmmaking at the highest quality.

This Tape Deck Is a Time Machine

“Unreal Engine puts artists in control and gives them unprecedented creative freedom. By supporting filmmakers through our various programs and initiatives, including Epic MegaGrants, we’re able to accelerate their efforts and gain invaluable feedback, opening the door for invention and discovery,” noted Karen Dufilho, Executive Producer, Content Partnerships, Epic Games. “What Patrick and Nexus Studios have achieved exemplifies the way modern storytellers want to work — collaboratively, spontaneously, and quickly — combining their existing expertise in animation with the real-time power of Unreal to craft new worlds and stories that will engage audiences for years to come.”

Nexus Studios | Epic MegaGrants

This Tape Deck Is a Time Machine