YouSaid · the spoken record

Frank Patterson

lines on the record: 27
first: 2025-05-29
most recent: 2025-05-29
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“24 watts. It's a kids' company. By the way, 24 watts is the amount of energy the human brain expends when you're feeling inspired. That is one of the smartest human beings in the world. He didn't know how he's going to succeed. So no one knows. Just keep pivoting until you get that product market fit or whatever it is that you're trying to do. And it's always scary and there's really tough nights, but it's a club.”
2025-05-29 · Masters of Scale · Why great storytellers thrive in business, with Trilith Studios CEO Frank Patterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In the middle of a startup right now called What? You know how we're going to be successful? You have it figured out? Okay. Guy has done more businesses”
2025-05-29 · Masters of Scale · Why great storytellers thrive in business, with Trilith Studios CEO Frank Patterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And building on that, I'm often just surprised at how boldly I love the young filmmakers or the young storytellers, the young entrepreneurs that like, nope. Doesn't matter how it's done, I'm doing it. And that's really important.”
2025-05-29 · Masters of Scale · Why great storytellers thrive in business, with Trilith Studios CEO Frank Patterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Was just relief, like, of course, this is going to get made. I got to wake up here. And then one of the investors, Mr. Winter, said, I didn't invest in you so you could throw up. I invested in you because I believe in what you can do. Embrace the opportunity. And so since then, it's just been like, I got to believe in myself.”
2025-05-29 · Masters of Scale · Why great storytellers thrive in business, with Trilith Studios CEO Frank Patterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Was younger, much younger on my first film, I had raised money and I had investors and I went to go make the movie and I had one of those moments where you realize I shouldn't be doing this. I don't know what I'm doing. And it was the first day of shooting and I don't know what I'm doing. I'm complete imposter, right? Never made a movie. This is ridiculous. I'm going to lose everybody's money. And I started throwing up. So every morning I would throw up. I began to realize my fear was, what if this movie stops? What if it stops? And Julie Cormann said to me, you're thinking about it all wrong. It's funded. Gonna get made. It's just on you how good it's gonna get made.”
2025-05-29 · Masters of Scale · Why great storytellers thrive in business, with Trilith Studios CEO Frank Patterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Just a kindergarten, we have it's called a forest school, and it's a K through 12. And so yes, we have to think about where the kids are going to school, right? So I think the idea of Having all of those resources is what makes it work and not simply great sound stages and great technology, right?”
2025-05-29 · Masters of Scale · Why great storytellers thrive in business, with Trilith Studios CEO Frank Patterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh, it's brutal. Right. But we have a town. Come visit y'all if y'all hadn't seen it. We think about where they live, where their kids go to school, what they eat. We have a 65,000 square foot wellness center that when a crew comes in, when you have 5,500 people on the lot working every day, every crew member on that lot has a free membership to a world-class wellness center. We have all the technology and the cameras and lights and transpo and everything. I think 67 businesses at Trellith that range from the largest lighting and grip company to the best donut shop in the world. Go have a donut of hero. It's unbelievable.”
2025-05-29 · Masters of Scale · Why great storytellers thrive in business, with Trilith Studios CEO Frank Patterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Place is important. When we talk about everything someone needs to do anything they can imagine, you also have to think about how people live. Where they live, our industry is tough on families because we're traveling all the time”
2025-05-29 · Masters of Scale · Why great storytellers thrive in business, with Trilith Studios CEO Frank Patterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Everywhere, that we want to be home to those storytellers. And, you know, when I first moved to Hollywood, the sound sages were too... Live there. That's very hard to do today.”
2025-05-29 · Masters of Scale · Why great storytellers thrive in business, with Trilith Studios CEO Frank Patterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's this place that has everything great storytellers need to do anything they can imagine. And by the way, a little exaggeration because we don't have everything yet. I'd say that's our vision, but we have like 75% of everything. We have some of the most amazing technology. We have some of the most amazing homes and a town. And we figure if we can do that, wrap ourselves around the current and next generation of storytellers and really ignite this creative market ecosystem that we have, you know, what are the businesses and the brains that you put into this place that together provide everything that a great storyteller needs to do, anything they can imagine. So on one hand, we have James Gunn. I can't wait for you to see his take on Superman. And we have an up-and-coming filmmaker named Demetrius Wynne, who's in the audience, right? And we have...”
2025-05-29 · Masters of Scale · Why great storytellers thrive in business, with Trilith Studios CEO Frank Patterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Different environment. Yeah. Things that did really surprise us all, which you just mentioned them, right? The pandemic. The stuff that didn't surprise us was Hollywood has this habit of, and a lot of industries are guilty of this, but we in the film industry are very guilty of this. Spending like drunken sailors, waking up hungover. You know, it's like, oh, guess what? You got to pay for this. And we had the good fortune at Trilith of being home to some of the biggest movies in the industry, a lot of Marvel product, as I think everybody here knows. But we knew that there was going to be a correction. And we have recently really widened the aperture of kind of storytellers and businesses that we focused on to support now.”
2025-05-29 · Masters of Scale · Why great storytellers thrive in business, with Trilith Studios CEO Frank Patterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was basically if we made some bets into some emerging content companies and bets into some emerging tech companies at this place that's 20 minutes from the most traveled airport in the world that has a great culture and a history of innovation, I bet we could go where opportunity is. And so that's kind of where I felt like, okay, let's do this. And fortunately at the time, the Pinewood CEO and investors at that time was excited about it. Now they recapped, they wanted to focus on facilities and we ended up separating, buying them out. But Ivan Dunlevy, he was the CEO of Pinewood at the time, really liked this idea of being entrepreneurial and erecting this other business and figuring out how to build this opportunity.”
2025-05-29 · Masters of Scale · Why great storytellers thrive in business, with Trilith Studios CEO Frank Patterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The good fortune for me was to have that platform to say, okay, now let's start investing in content companies and technology companies, and let's build a place that really is a platform for storytellers. What's ultimately become a city for storytellers, a place that is really unique, I think.”
2025-05-29 · Masters of Scale · Why great storytellers thrive in business, with Trilith Studios CEO Frank Patterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And we got through it, but it was a very, very much a startup business. And we created some really wonderful tech. And by the way, in the end, it worked out. We had a nice exit out of it. But imagine coming off the heels of that and saying, let's run facilities. That's not the plan. And so I think what was exciting about my partnership with Dan was Dan, as a lot of people in this town know, Chick-fil-A is an amazing business, right? And Dan's an amazing leader. He was basically saying, look, just paint, brother. Just paint because he didn't come from the film industry, right? But he loves it. He loves storytelling. And so that's, I think.”
2025-05-29 · Masters of Scale · Why great storytellers thrive in business, with Trilith Studios CEO Frank Patterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I could lose my business, my house, and my wife if this goes wrong. So, you know, but if I don't pull payroll, this is a very high-profile company because six of our artists were some of the most famous animator artists in the industry. That's the only way we were able to pull off Michael Jackson at that time. So if I don't pull payroll, it's going to be in the trades in the morning and my business is over, right? So needless to say, I pulled payroll.”
2025-05-29 · Masters of Scale · Why great storytellers thrive in business, with Trilith Studios CEO Frank Patterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Imagine a few here. And because we were doing animation at the highest levels, we were literally animating one of the most famous faces in the world. And we were out of money. And there was that really awkward moment that I had to, am I going to pull payroll? Which is, by the way, going to hit the bank account on Monday and I don't have the finances to cover. I do have a hard lender who has agreed to leverage my house. I haven't told my wife about that yet, so I could lose my business.”
2025-05-29 · Masters of Scale · Why great storytellers thrive in business, with Trilith Studios CEO Frank Patterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we did have product market fit. There was one night back in 2014, I was out of cash. It's a Thursday night for Friday payroll. Every entrepreneur who's been in this room, we're not”
2025-05-29 · Masters of Scale · Why great storytellers thrive in business, with Trilith Studios CEO Frank Patterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Very unstable stack, and it just didn't work at dress rehearsal. So that was Very challenging time because it was a startup. We were emerging technology. We didn't have a product market fit. Tell me where digital humans belong right now, right?”
2025-05-29 · Masters of Scale · Why great storytellers thrive in business, with Trilith Studios CEO Frank Patterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Just didn't work. It just didn't work. We were putting together a lot of technologies that didn't want to play nice with each other.”
2025-05-29 · Masters of Scale · Why great storytellers thrive in business, with Trilith Studios CEO Frank Patterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, okay. So I was co-founder and CEO of a company that we call them hyperrealistic digital humans. And we created the Michael Jackson that appeared at the Billboard Music Awards in 2014. That was nine years after Michael's death. It was an original song. It was an original performance. And so we did that. It scared the life out of me. Because, by the way, in dress rehearsal, that performance didn't work. Oh. So there were only 11 million people watching and 10,000 people live.”
2025-05-29 · Masters of Scale · Why great storytellers thrive in business, with Trilith Studios CEO Frank Patterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't know that business. I'm a filmmaker and an entrepreneur and a technologist. At that time, I had just exited a technology company that was making digital humans and I wasn't really focused on running facilities. But Dan said something kind of important to me in that first meeting. Think of this as a 700 acre campus that you can paint as an entrepreneur. I thought, okay, now that's interesting. He even said, why don't you grab your team from San Francisco and have a move here and build digital humans here? And I thought, okay, he's being serious about this. Like we should think about this.”
2025-05-29 · Masters of Scale · Why great storytellers thrive in business, with Trilith Studios CEO Frank Patterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's like renting hotel rooms, right? You're just providing facilities to productions to execute on their production, right? And at the time, the studio was looking for its first leader. And I had given this keynote speech at the Innovation Summit in Zurich. Dan just showed up in my office one day and said, the way you're thinking about industry, we're looking for a leader. And he invited me to come less and”
2025-05-29 · Masters of Scale · Why great storytellers thrive in business, with Trilith Studios CEO Frank Patterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I love talent. When I began to realize, wait a minute, I'm really more of a producer entrepreneur than I started a couple of production businesses and realized, wait a minute, I should do more than one film at a time. And I began to think of the industry as an industry that has a really incredible social impact if you're handling it the right way, right? And I think through several startups, some failures, some wins I met who was then the pinewood team, James Vaughn movies, you probably all heard of them, formed here a partnership with Dan Kathy here in Atlanta.”
2025-05-29 · Masters of Scale · Why great storytellers thrive in business, with Trilith Studios CEO Frank Patterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“How do you get I think it was very helpful that I was focused early on. How to tell a story. Story was important to me because no matter where you end up in this industry, the real currency is the ability to tell a story and whether you're a production accountant who's trying to understand why a director make a decision to purchase something, or you're a writer-director, it is everything. It's everything that we breathe and leave. And we haven't been doing a great job of it lately as industry, but we have some young people that are doing some very cool things. But the bottom line is I think it was very helpful for me to grow up as focus on story. Then as I learned the craft, I began to realize all these other parts of the industry. And to be honest with you, I was never the best person, I was not a good athlete, but I was always on the team. And I knew how to pull good teams together. So I began to realize that kind of my talent is recognizing talent, right? Mainly just because I'm a good audience.”
2025-05-29 · Masters of Scale · Why great storytellers thrive in business, with Trilith Studios CEO Frank Patterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I got a writing scholarship to school, and I think everything that I grew up in was, you know, as adult looking back, it was a gift.”
2025-05-29 · Masters of Scale · Why great storytellers thrive in business, with Trilith Studios CEO Frank Patterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, you know, as an adult looking back, my dad's no longer with us. I learned that he struggled with a lot of sickness, a lot of mental health problems. And so, you know, my parents ended up not. Their marriage didn't survive. You know, my mom was. An important person in my life. And so, you know, the things that I saw as sort of adventures, like going to see 2001 Space Odyssey, turned out to be really valuable for me. That world that I grew up in where there was all this tension and I had an English teacher in high school pulled me aside. I grew up in a little town in Texas. He said, you know, you're a storyteller. This is, you know, thank goodness for an English teacher to come in and say, you are a storyteller. Get out of this town. Do not grow up here”
2025-05-29 · Masters of Scale · Why great storytellers thrive in business, with Trilith Studios CEO Frank Patterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A space Odyssey. My mom, now I didn't know this at the time. She was trying to get away from my dad. So we went to a theater and we watched that film. I think I was eight. I'll never forget. I mean, it's easy to say Kubrick, but that one shot of the ship going across the screen and the sort of feeling of the world that he was asking us to consider, I obviously didn't understand it at eight, but it's just a memory I'll never forget.”
2025-05-29 · Masters of Scale · Why great storytellers thrive in business, with Trilith Studios CEO Frank Patterson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT