Knights of Newgate × Define:
Rebuilding a Feature Film to Develop the Next Generation of Independent Production Pipelines
Grant Request: £60,000
Knights of Newgate is an ambitious real-time cinematic reconstruction project that will rebuild an existing feature film using Unreal Engine while simultaneously developing and validating Define:, a new visual production pipeline designed to help small teams, and even individual creators, manage productions of significant scale and complexity.
The central question behind the project is simple:
Can a small team, or even a single creator, efficiently manage a large-scale cinematic production using modern real-time technology, AI-assisted workflows and a properly integrated production pipeline?
Knights of Newgate will be the real-world test.
The Starting Point
Unlike a conventional film production, Knights of Newgate does not begin with an empty page.
The original production already exists, together with the extensive archive created during its development and production. This includes the original footage, greenscreen material, Maya projects, Fusion compositions, sound files, production assets and the accumulated creative work used to produce the original film.
This existing archive represents a substantial foundation on which to build.
The project will use this material to reconstruct and significantly update Knights of Newgate using Unreal Engine as the central real-time production environment.
Sets will be rebuilt and enhanced within Unreal Engine. Characters will be recreated using modern digital character technologies, including MetaHuman workflows. Existing footage will be restored and enhanced using modern AI-assisted tools. Greenscreen material will be re-keyed using ComfyUI-based workflows, while audio will be cleaned and improved using emerging AI technologies.
The objective is not simply to remake an existing film.
The reconstruction will provide a feature-scale production environment in which new tools, workflows and production methodologies can be developed and tested under real production conditions.
Introducing Define:
Modern independent productions now have access to an extraordinary range of tools.
Unreal Engine.
Maya and other DCC applications.
Compositing software.
AI image and video tools.
Procedural systems.
Audio restoration.
Motion capture.
Digital humans.
Generative workflows.
The problem facing independent creators is increasingly not access to technology.
The problem is complexity.
A modern production can quickly become an enormous web of disconnected files, applications, assets, processes and dependencies. For a large studio, entire departments exist to manage that complexity.
For a small team, or an individual creator, it can become overwhelming.
Define: is being developed to address this challenge.
It is a visual production pipeline application designed to help creators define, organise and understand the processes required to build complex productions across multiple applications and workflows.
Rather than forcing creators to mentally manage an increasingly complicated technical pipeline, Define: is designed to make that pipeline visible.
Assets, processes and dependencies can be organised into a structured visual workflow, allowing the creator to understand not only what needs to be done, but also how each stage of production connects to the next.
The goal is simple:
To allow small teams to create large productions without being overwhelmed by the complexity required to make them.
Knights of Newgate as a Production Laboratory
Define: will not be developed in isolation.
Knights of Newgate will become its primary real-world production environment.
The reconstruction provides a large and complex body of existing production material, combined with a modern pipeline involving Unreal Engine, AI tools, compositing workflows, DCC applications and audio restoration.
This makes it an ideal environment for testing Define: under genuine production pressure.
The development process will operate as a continuous feedback loop:
Production Challenge
↓
Pipeline Problem Identified
↓
Define: Workflow Developed
↓
Workflow Applied to Production
↓
Production Efficiency Improved
↓
Lessons Incorporated into Define:
Every challenge encountered during the reconstruction becomes an opportunity to refine the software.
Every improvement to Define: is then tested immediately against a real production.
The result is not simply software developed in theory.
It is a production tool developed alongside, and validated by, an active feature-scale cinematic project.
The Unreal Engine Reconstruction
The rebuilt Knights of Newgate will demonstrate how an existing film production can be transformed using modern real-time technologies.
The reconstruction will explore workflows including:
- Rebuilding and enhancing environments within Unreal Engine
- Integrating existing Maya assets and production data
- Recreating characters using MetaHuman technologies
- AI-assisted restoration and enhancement of existing footage
- Modern greenscreen extraction and re-keying workflows using ComfyUI
- AI-assisted audio restoration and cleanup
- Real-time cinematic rendering
- Integration of legacy production assets into a modern real-time pipeline
The project will demonstrate not only the creative capabilities of Unreal Engine, but also its role as a central environment within a modern hybrid production pipeline.
The original film archive provides the foundation.
Unreal Engine provides the new production environment.
Define: provides the system designed to manage the journey between them.
Define: Community Edition
One of the most important outcomes of the project will be the release of Define: Community Edition.
The Community Edition will be made available free of charge, allowing independent filmmakers, students, small studios and Unreal Engine creators to explore and use the production pipeline methodologies developed during the project.
The intention is to ensure that the lessons learned during the reconstruction of Knights of Newgate do not remain locked within a single production.
Instead, the knowledge and tools developed during the project will be shared with the wider creative community.
The Community Edition will be accompanied by:
- Tutorials
- Production logs
- Workflow demonstrations
- Technical case studies
- Pipeline breakdowns
- Lessons learned during production
- Examples of real-world problem solving
The project will therefore produce both a finished cinematic work and a practical body of knowledge for creators working with Unreal Engine and modern production technologies.
Embedded Documentation
Documentation will be integrated directly into the production process.
Throughout development, screen capture and production logging will record the practical decisions, problems, failures and solutions encountered during the reconstruction.
Rather than attempting to recreate tutorials after the work has been completed, the production itself will generate a continuous record of the development process.
At regular intervals, this material will be reviewed and developed into tutorials, case studies and production breakdowns.
This approach will provide an unusually honest view of the production process.
It will document not only successful workflows, but also the challenges encountered while attempting to build a large-scale cinematic project with a small team.
The objective is to create educational material that demonstrates:
Not simply what worked, but how problems were identified and solved.
A Demonstration of Production Efficiency
At its core, the project is intended to demonstrate a new approach to independent production.
The traditional assumption is that large productions require large teams.
That assumption is becoming increasingly challenged by advances in:
- Real-time rendering
- Digital humans
- Artificial intelligence
- Automation
- Procedural systems
- Modern production pipelines
However, access to these technologies alone does not automatically make production easier.
In many cases, the opposite is true.
The more tools a creator uses, the more complicated the production pipeline can become.
Define: is being developed around the belief that the next generation of independent production will require not only more powerful tools, but better ways of understanding and managing how those tools work together.
Knights of Newgate will provide the practical demonstration.
The project will attempt to show that, with the right production architecture, a relatively small team can manage work that would previously have required significantly greater resources.
Project Outcomes
The completion of the project will deliver:
A Reconstructed Cinematic Production
A modern rebuild of Knights of Newgate using Unreal Engine and contemporary real-time production workflows.
Define: Production Pipeline
A validated visual production pipeline application developed and tested against a real feature-scale production.
Define: Community Edition
A free version of the software released for the creator community.
Tutorials and Production Logs
A collection of practical educational material created throughout the reconstruction process.
Case Studies
Detailed breakdowns demonstrating how individual production problems were solved through the combination of Unreal Engine, AI-assisted workflows and Define:.
A Real-World Production Archive
A documented example of how an existing production can be reconstructed and transformed using modern real-time technology.
Grant Request
£60,000
The requested Epic MegaGrant funding will be allocated across four principal areas:
Production & Development Hardware
£6,000
High-performance workstations, GPU and processing upgrades, storage and backup infrastructure, and production capture equipment required to support Unreal Engine production, AI workflows, Define: development and educational content creation.
Knights of Newgate Reconstruction & Production Validation
£30,000
Funding for the reconstruction of Knights of Newgate within Unreal Engine and the practical validation of Define: across a feature-scale cinematic production.
Define: Community Edition Development & Release
£22,000
Development, refinement, testing, documentation and preparation of Define: Community Edition for public release.
Educational Documentation & Case Studies
£2,000
Editorial development of production logs, tutorials, workflow demonstrations and case studies captured throughout the project.
Why Epic MegaGrants?
This project sits at the intersection of several areas that are rapidly changing the future of independent production:
- Real-time cinematic production
- Unreal Engine
- Digital humans
- AI-assisted creative workflows
- Independent filmmaking
- Production automation
- Open community education
The project is not simply intended to demonstrate what Unreal Engine can create.
It is intended to explore how productions can be organised around Unreal Engine and modern real-time workflows in order to make ambitious work achievable for smaller teams.
The proposed MegaGrant would provide focused funding to accelerate the development of both the Knights of Newgate reconstruction and Define:, transforming the project into a complete public case study for modern independent production.
The existing production archive, creative development and technical groundwork provide a substantial foundation from which to build.
The grant would enable that foundation to be transformed into something with value beyond a single film.
The Vision
The long-term vision behind Define: is straightforward.
Powerful production technology should not be available only to large studios with specialist departments.
Independent filmmakers and small creative teams should be able to build ambitious productions without becoming overwhelmed by the complexity of the tools required to make them.
Knights of Newgate will be the proof of concept.
A real production.
A real archive.
Real technical challenges.
Real solutions.
And, ultimately, a practical demonstration of how a modern production pipeline can help a small team think and work at a much larger scale.
The project will not simply rebuild a film.
It will rebuild the process used to make one.