NETFLIX / Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj

Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj is a weekly Netflix talkshow that premiered on October 28, 2018. Minhaj deep dives into political and pop culture topics, which are both timely and timeless. This isn’t your typical nightly talk show in neither the writing, nor approach, so it naturally warranted a non-traditional approach to in-show graphics. That’s where we came in! 

Slanted Studios partnered with co-creators Hasan Minhaj and Prashanth Venkataramanujam back in August of 2017 to help build the visual script for the proof-of-concept that won the hearts of Netflix. We brought the test script to life on a smaller build of what the Patriot Act stage is today. Once Netflix realized the show’s potential, we partnered with PepRally to establish the overall look and feel of the show, which has since been described as an ‘investigative visual comedic podcast’ or like ‘Michael Bay made a PowerPoint’. These compliments really make all our hard work in staffing up the graphics team in pre-production and building out a scalable workflow pipeline worth it.

For all you nerds, scroll down for further technical and proof-of-concept info.

Press & Awards
2019 Emmy Award for Outstanding Motion Grapics
2018 Peabody Award
Indiewire ‘Hasan Minhaj’s New Netflix Series Looks Different From Every Other Show on Late Night’
Motionographer 'An in-depth look at Patriot Act’

Patriot Act - Graphics Show Bible
Slanted Studios and PepRally
Executive Creative Director: Michelle Higa Fox
Creative Director: Erica Gorochow 
Producer: Jennifer Vance 
Design and Animation: Erica Gorochow, Philip Sierzega, Michele Graffieti, Jerry Liu, Eddie Song, Christopher Mennuto, Brendan Roche, Stephanie Swart 
Design Exploration: Tony Zagoraios, Elliot Blanchard, Erin Kilkenny, Guillaume Combeaud, Michael Batista 
Production Assistant: John Hughes
Coding: Beau Burrows

Special Thanks: David Hobizal, Sissy Emmons Hobizal, Joe Posner

Client: Netflix / Art & Industry
Co-Creators: Hasan Minaj & Prashanth Venkataramanujam
Executive Producers: Hasan Minhaj, Jim Margolis, Prashanth Venkataramanujam, Michelle Caputo, Jennie Church-Cooper, Shannon Hartman
Supervising Producers: Emily Anderson, Carol Klein, Nancy Agostini
Consulting Creative Director: Sam Spratt

Opening Titles: Elastic

October 2018

Editorial images courtesy of Bryan Derballa for The New York Times

TECHNICAL APPROACH

We took the show creators’ raw vision and outlined a plan to take it to scale. There were a lot of considerations and we had our work cut out for us. How do we take the unplugged album and make it platinum? A lot of love, a team of solid and trusted partners, some sleepless nights, and we’ll admit, a few tears were mixed in the ingredients for success. We weren’t just building another television show! 

Adaptability and shorter turnaround speed for show graphics was a big driving factor in the technology. An increase in complexity of scripts, canvas and overall components now had to work together from week-to-week. We knew we’d have to bring in the cream of the crop to build the A+team of motion graphics. We are pretty pleased that our groundwork in the birthing room helped play a role in how the show currently exists.

Patriot Act - Graphics & Screens Departments - Season One

Production Company: Art & Industry
Director: Richard A. Preuss

Creative Director: Michelle Higa Fox
Design Director: Jorge L. Peschiera
Head of Animation: Yussef Cole
Animators: Paris London Glickman, Brandon Sugiyama, Dorca Musseb, Ryan Mauskopf, Alex Pope, Lizzi Stuart, Tynesha Foreman, Apollo Baldoz
Additional Animation: Rachael Park, James Zanoni, Andrew Macfarlane, Elliot Blanchard, Shuhan Teoh
GFX Coordinator: Riaan Weyers
GFX Production Assistant: John Hughes

Pre-Visualization and Screens Supervisor: Jamie Van Dyke
Video/Screens Programmer: Greg Bloxham
Pre-Visualization Operator: Mikaela Baird
Systems Integration and Pre-Visualization Consultants: Rodd McLaughlin, Zak Haywood
Coding: nVoid

Lighting/Production Designer: Marc Janowitz
LED Engineering: 510 Visuals

December 2018

PROOF OF CONCEPT

You can see the show on Netflix so you know how this story ends, but this is where it all began… at least for us. You know when you just know? Well, we could tell from the spirit and conviction behind the team that this was going to be a winner. We also knew we were very lucky to be a part of this from the start. We teamed up with FirstMates to design and animate the proof-of-concept that was sold through to Netflix.

Patriot Act - Proof of Concept Graphics
Creative Director: Michelle Higa Fox
Producer: Jennifer Vance 
Art & Animation Direction: FirstMates
Additional Design: Erica Gorochow

Production Company: Art & Industry
Co-Creators: Hasan Minaj & Prashanth Venkataramanujam
Executive Producers: Hasan Minhaj, Prashanth Venkataramanujam, Michelle Caputo, Jennie Church-Cooper, Shannon Hartman
Lighting/Production Designer: Marc Janowitz
Screen/Stage Manager: Jamie Van Dyke
Video/Screens Programmer: Ben Price

September 2017