A Hybrid Documentary Feature
Now Seeking Investment Partners

The Rising

Based on the novel

An abandoned harpy eagle.
A life lived beneath its potential.
A rebirth that changes everything.
The origin of the phoenix — finally told.

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The Story

A new story about
the oldest myth on Earth.

An abandoned harpy eagle egg is discovered by a robin. She raises him as her own. He learns to live like a small bird. A vulture teaches him to scavenge. The world around him quietly tells him what he is — and what he is not.

He believes them.

Instead of becoming the apex predator he was born to be, he spends his life becoming smaller than his nature.

Then he dies.

And something impossible happens.

The Rising begins as a wildlife documentary and gradually reveals itself to be something else entirely: a myth about potential, identity, and the stories that shape who we become.

The Origin

The first story to really tell it.

The Rising is a movie about potential — and what happens when a creature spends its life becoming smaller than its nature.

The phoenix myth spans every major civilization — Egypt, Greece, China, Persia, Rome. It predates recorded religion. Every culture that has ever existed has told a version of this story. No one has ever asked where it came from.

The Rising tells the phoenix origin story through the life of a single bird — a harpy eagle raised wrong, caged by circumstance, and ultimately transformed. Its story is the story humanity has been repeating for five thousand years across many continents — before we even knew we were all telling the same one.

Until recently, a film like this was impossible at any budget. Photorealistic AI wildlife cinematography simply did not exist at feature quality. That changed. In 2026, a fully AI-generated 75-minute feature — Dreams of Violets — was accepted into the Tribeca Film Festival. The medium has arrived. The defining works of that medium have not been made yet.

5,000+
Years of Myth
The phoenix persists across every major civilization on Earth. No film has ever told its origin. Until now.
2026
The Window Opens
Dreams of Violets — a fully AI-generated feature — was accepted into Tribeca in May 2026. What was impossible a year ago is now festival-ready. The medium is here. Its defining works are not.
Hybrid
Production Model
AI for the Amazon wildlife sequences. Real production for the detention center scenes. Two worlds, one story.
Director's Vision

A film that changes
how you see yourself.

Much of the conversation around AI filmmaking focuses on efficiency: how to make existing kinds of movies faster or cheaper. The question that interests me is different. What new kinds of stories become possible?

The Rising is not an attempt to replace actors, animators, or traditional filmmaking. It is an attempt to explore a form of storytelling that would have been impossible to produce through any other means — not difficult, impossible. By combining documentary realism, mythic storytelling, and emerging production tools, the goal is not to imitate what already exists. It is to create something that has never existed before.

The frame that makes it land: the story is being read aloud to kids in a juvenile detention center. That's the human container. When the eagle rises as a phoenix, it rises for them. The mythic and the viscerally real collide — and that collision is what makes people leave the theater changed.

The production model is hybrid. Cutting edge AI tools will render the Amazon sequences with photorealistic wildlife cinematography that would cost millions through traditional means. The detention center scenes are shot practically for real. The contrast between those two worlds, visually and emotionally, is a feature, not a compromise.

BCW
Bryan C. Watkins
Writer / Director
Market Comparables

Proven audience.
Unoccupied territory.

Planet Earth III
BBC / Disney+ · 2023
Established that prestige nature documentary is a premium streaming tentpole. Global audience appetite for cinematic wildlife storytelling has never been larger.
100M+ streaming households
Fantastic Fungi
Theatrical / Netflix · 2019
Proof that nature docs with a transformational human thesis break through to crossover audiences willing to pay for the theatrical experience.
$4M+ theatrical gross / cult hit
My Octopus Teacher
Netflix · 2020
A nature documentary about transformation and connection wins Best Documentary Feature. The Academy and streaming audiences reward exactly this kind of story.
Academy Award Winner
The Proof of Concept
Dreams of Violets
Tribeca Film Festival · May 2026
A fully AI-generated 75-minute feature accepted into Tribeca. One year ago this was unthinkable. The medium has arrived. Its defining works — the ones people will study in film school — have not been made yet.
First AI feature at Tribeca
The Gap

None of these films had what The Rising has: a specific protagonist whose arc IS the phoenix myth, delivered through documentary realism, resolving in a juvenile detention center where the myth meets the people who need it most. The AI feature space just cracked open at Tribeca. The Academy now has guidelines for AI-assisted Oscar nominated films. This is becoming a real category of filmmaking. And nobody has claimed this ground yet. The audience already exists for every single element of this film. No one has combined them.

Design

The work exists.
Before a dollar is spent.

Talon — the harpy eagle at the center of The Rising — has a fully locked visual identity. Character bibles covering head detail, physical reference, and flight mechanics are complete. This film is not a pitch for an idea. The groundwork is already laid.

Talon Head Detail Bible
Character Bible — Head Detail
Facial structure, eye color lock, beak geometry, texture notes
Talon Body Reference Bible
Character Bible — Physical Reference
Perched and standing silhouettes, talon detail, juvenile proportions
Talon Flight Reference Bible
Character Bible — Flight Mechanics
11 flight positions, canopy weave, wing position summary, tail shape reference

Full production materials available upon request

Complete character bibles, scene breakdowns, visual tests, and festival strategy available to qualified investors.

The Team

Built to execute.

BCW
Bryan C. Watkins
Writer / Director
Independent writer and director with two feature film credits, including screenings at Hong Kong, Montreal, Cannes, and Moscow Film Festivals. His last film was released on over 70 screens worldwide. Full creative control and deep commitment to the vision.
SS
Steven Sims
Producing Partner
Co-Created Media. Experienced producing partner whose film The Novice won the Tribeca Film Festival. He brings industry relationships, infrastructure, and the operational expertise to take this film from vision to screen — and a proven track record of doing exactly that.
VFX
VFX Artists
Visual Effects Team
Industry restructuring — including over 1,000 Marvel VFX artists laid off this month — has made world-class visual effects talent available at independent film terms. Artists whose work you've seen on the biggest screens in the world are accessible to projects like this one right now. We are positioned to bring them in.
WRC
Wildlife Reference Consultant
To Be Confirmed
Providing scientific accuracy and behavioral authenticity for Amazonian species — ensuring the film earns its National Geographic register and holds up to scrutiny.
♩
Composer
To Be Confirmed
An original score built to carry the film from documentary realism through mythic transformation — the emotional architecture beneath the image.
VD
Visual Development Consultant
To Be Confirmed
Guiding the visual language and AI production methodology — ensuring consistency, cinematic quality, and a coherent aesthetic across every generated frame.
Investment

A scalable production.
A singular story.

Production Approaches
Proof-of-Concept / Festival Cut $35,000
  • Feature film — fully AI-driven production
  • 3-month production timeline: development through finished edit
  • Amazon sequences generated using advanced AI workflows
  • Original score
  • Sound design
  • Festival submission package
Hybrid Production Recommended $75,000
  • Feature film — hybrid AI and live-action production
  • 4-month production timeline: development through finished edit
  • AI-generated Amazon sequences
  • Live-action juvenile detention center framing story
  • Professional sound mix
  • Original score
  • Festival strategy and promotion
Enhanced Hybrid Production $95,000
  • Feature film — premium hybrid production
  • 4-month production timeline: development through finished edit
  • Additional visual development support
  • Industry-experienced concept and VFX artists
  • Expanded post-production
  • Festival campaign
Why Now
Until recently, this film was impossible — not at this budget, not at any budget. Photorealistic AI wildlife cinematography at feature quality simply did not exist. That changed in 2026. Dreams of Violets, a fully AI-generated feature, was accepted into Tribeca. The medium has arrived.
The hybrid model keeps costs lean: AI renders the Amazon, real production shoots the detention center. The contrast between those two worlds, visually and emotionally, is a feature, not a compromise.
Production Technology
  • AI-assisted visual production
  • Custom character consistency workflows
  • Image-to-video generation pipeline
  • Traditional editorial, sound, and scoring
The Ask
The defining works of AI cinema are being made right now. We are seeking partners who want to be part of the first one that matters — a film about what it means to rise, made at the exact moment rising became possible.
Get In Touch

Ready to
invest in The Rising?

We'd love to tell you more. Reach out to discuss the project, the vision, and what partnership looks like.

bryancwatkins@gmail.com
bryancwatkins.com