The Treehouse Story
In 2006 childhood friends Pete and Chris set about making a feature film with no budget but big ambition. They wanted to use green screen, miniatures and other VFX that challenged the boundaries of zero budget, guerrilla filmmaking at the time. Pete joined forces with Natalie who helped shape the film’s story and when they finally reached post production Tom came on board. The team sold the movie at Cannes Film Festival and Treehouse began to grow.
Cut to several years later and the foursome were embarking on a new short film called Litterbugs. At the same time, Paul was leaving the Navy and his old school-friend Pete suggested he could invest in a new business: making movies! Paul was immediately in and together the five friends created a test shot for the short film using VFX and SFX techniques normally reserved for ‘Hollywood’. They successfully secured finance and support from BFI and Creative England, and in 2016, Litterbugs went on to win an array of accolades and awards, including Oscar and BAFTA qualification. Treehouse was putting down some strong roots!
Over the next couple of years, the company provided content for several clients including Crypt TV for whom they created Shelley, a successful Young Adult web series. At the same time, they kept a finger firmly on the tech pulse and in 2020, when the Covid pandemic struck, the company decided to reshape the business, pivoting into Virtual Production. They were awarded an Epic Games Megagrant which enabled the shift.
Treehouse partnered with an LED company and during this time serviced many high-end TV and Film productions. The support from Epic Games also made it possible for Treehouse to fund their own real-time animation short, The Well. It was an experimental project but a great success on the festival circuit and proved to the team that this was a creative space where they could make some noise.
In 2022, the Directors committed the company to focussing 100% on Unreal Engine creation. The Treehouse expanded and the team landed their first major feature in real-time animation. They are very proud to be the sole provider for all the imagery and animation in a first of its kind in Hollywood. They continue to push boundaries, just as they did on their first film.