How AI Is Rewiring Filmmaking

Speaker A: Welcome back to my podcast on the future of business and technology. In today's episode, I want to explore the role of AI in filmmaking and more widely the impact of AI on the creative industry. I'm here with Samir, Malal and Buha. Uh, Kazmi. You are, uh, directors. You're running a company that uses a AI to make films. Tell me a little bit more about yourself and your company.

Speaker B: Uh, so we're, we're called One Day and we're a director, uh, led AI entertainment studio. And we're built on craft, creative excellence. We are bringing our filmmaking sensibility and experience into this new world of storytelling with AI.

Speaker A: And what's your background?

Speaker C: Uh, we're both filmmakers. We've been filmmakers for about 20 years. Um, I've worked in the advertising, film and TV industries across large portion of that. Sameer and I began collaborating about a decade ago and uh, yeah, over the years and the evolution of our relationship, we eventually, um, set up one day.

Speaker A: Yeah, you're actually award winning directors.

Speaker B: We are, yeah, yeah, yeah. We are in our, in our previous lives, uh, in documentary and commercials, music videos. So we're, we're kind of a good complement, uh, in the sense that we, we come from very different backgrounds and our work is quite different. But we do share a sensibility around taste, around, you know, what makes something good. Story development. Also craft. I mean, you know, the directing is a kind of a, it's, it's, you know, you kind of need to wear a lot of different hats as a director and you need to know a lot about a lot of different things. So it's actually very, uh, useful for working with AI because, you know, you are interacting with something that has a huge body of knowledge, but you need to be able to communicate with it in different ways depending on what you wanted to do. It's very similar to how we have to spend time figuring out how to communicate with the different people in our production. Like an actor is not the same as a dp, the person who shoots the thing. Right. You have to speak to them totally differently. And as a director you have to be quickly able to switch modes, like in an instant.

Speaker A: Yeah. I would love to explore all the ways AI is changing the industry, the impact on creatives. Before we do this, I would love to know how you got into the AI world. Uh, what was the impetus?

Speaker B: And I, I've always been interested in technology and storytelling. Um, I was involved with, you know, the first wave of, you know, portable cameras that allowed us to go out and just make films and, and shoot everything on autofocus or the um, you know, the, the wave of VR. And, and so this is kind of like another step in that direction. So I, I discovered, uh, mid Journey, I heard about it. This was about three years ago. And as soon as I typed the first prompt in Imagine, you know, that was like, okay, this is going to change the world because suddenly it can bring our imagination to life. And I knew that eventually it was going to be for video and that it was going to be good because it was already quite, quite good. And it was right then and there that I decided that I wanted to be, um, part of this. I wanted to be. I wanted a seat at the table. I didn't want the technology to be determining what our creative expression is going to be. And at the same time there was a lot of fear and there's a lot of fear from my colleagues and people in that world. And instead of leading with that fear, I said, I'm going to learn about this and I'm going to allow the fear to kind of drive, uh, a process of learning. And that's really how it kicked off.

Speaker A: Interesting. How about you?

Speaker C: I think for me the, my interest in it stemmed from democratizing the filmmaking process. So in our traditional filmmaking, uh, processes, we need to come up with hundreds of ideas and test ideas and understand which ones make the cut, which ones don't. And AI gave us the allowance to prototype a lot of these concepts, uh, to understand which ones are worth exploring and uh, running with and which ones, you know, you set to the side. And so it really started. Samira, uh, in fact was the person who um, I would say transferred me over from the traditional world of filmmaking and you know, opened uh, my eyes to the possibilities of uh, the AI filmmaking domain. But really it's about giving us the allowance of exploring ideas and stories that we would have otherwise been unable to make because of external barriers or friction, budgetary or logistical issues that would have, uh, um, otherwise, you know, left your ideas in a folder. And this gives us an opportunity to um, stretch these concepts as far as they go and, and put them out there for audiences to be able to consume and give us instant feedback and response.

Speaker A: I love this idea of democratizing filmmaking to some extent where budget or even your imagination has limits in the physical world. And with AI, you don't have those. Right. Yeah. So you can be as creative as you want. Take me through the process of how you're using AI and maybe some examples of what films you've made and what was possible with AI that maybe wasn't possible without it?

Speaker B: Yeah, I could, I could do that. I. I think, um, the story of how we made our first film is really will. Will tell you a lot about, about the power of AI. Um, so, uh, there, you know, VO came out. So this is a, you know, widely accessible tool made by Google VO3. And when it did, it was clear that this was a leap forward in terms of capability and in terms of fidelity and things like, you know, character consistency. And so that was a turning point for us as directors where we said, hey, we've been following this for a couple of years, but we were not able to jump in yet. And that was just in June of this year, and I think globally in AI, June, July. That was a real turning point generally where brands all over the world, company, everybody's going, hey, we're all in on this at this point. And, um, so we jumped in, we got an idea, uh, which came from asking a question of, like, what could we do that we could only do in AI that we can never normally do, you know, on a regular shoot? Uh, and that's often where our heads go. And we said, oh, let's do something cinematic, but about the news, and let's put it out during the news cycle. So what's a great news story? Oh, uh, the Ukrainian, you know, the drone mission that destroyed, um, bombers in Russia. Like, that's, that's like, you know, that's like a spy thriller. Okay, let's try to make that into a movie. And so we, we found somebody online who was, uh, a drone pilot. We, um, we talked to them, we took what they said, and we used ChatGPT to kind of help us structure it. So, uh, that saved us about three or four days. Then we started putting it together right away in an edit. And from there we started using that material to start to generate ideas. So we came in just with a concept. We organically found somebody who knew the story, and then we started generating images to, to complement this story. So it's very organic and it's much less siloed than a traditional process. And then from there we started doing video. We started cutting. We said, ah, uh, no, this isn't as good. You know, we got better. So we had to go back and redo everything. And what we love is that the AI process is iterative. And this is not just in filmmaker, it's in everything. It's iterative. You can change stuff. And it's, It's. It's much more plastic as they call it. Right. Like we can change one thing at the end. Even we're not stuck with things.

Speaker A: And so traditionally you're stuck.

Speaker B: That's it. Yeah, you're done.

Speaker C: You could go back for a reshoot, but that becomes dependent on your budget, on logistics, on being able to go back and revisit a location.

Speaker B: Actor's availability.

Speaker C: Availability. Um, and this takes the issues out of the process. So if we happen to be in an edit and we decide that the scene would work better in a certain way and we're able to introduce new shots or change someone's expression or completely change the tone of a scene, you know.

Speaker B: Yeah. And look, we don't like just to add to that. I mean, we still value the role of, you know, actors and performers. Just for us, this is a different thing and it's like a new way of telling a story. And it's, it's a, it's an additive. So typically, all of the information about this one thing was from the news and where those sources are. Some, you know, some are, you know, some are clear and some aren't. Okay. Um, but what we wanted to do is give you another perspective, give you an insider's perspective. That's a story. It's not, it's not based in fact, it's based in truth. There's a difference. We're not out there going, hey, we're journalists and we're fact checking all these things because we're more interested in the story. Because for us and the way we want to experience the news, like traditional news, for example, doesn't, I don't, doesn't speak to me as a viewer. And so we made this for other people like us. And it's a new format. It's cinematic news. Now we're just at the beginning of what I think, you know, AI is going to do for society globally, which will be to take things like this, take things that are very much entrenched in this old system, an industrial system. This is just the way it is and is going to provide these kinds of unlocks. It's going to be the people like us who take these tools and, and create and, and do new things with them and make new ways of, you know, telling stories. At the end of the day, a story is universal. Story is something that we believe is very important, that is part of who we are as human beings. We need to tell stories. So on a personal level, we need to tell stories. On a, you know, macro level, human beings need stories. It's one of the things that defines us as a species, that, that allows us to make sense of our world. And that's never going to change. Um, but the way that we experience those stories will change and already has changed.

Speaker A: Yeah. And the reason I reached out to you is because I saw an amazing clip, one of your recent films that you've done, which was set in Tehran, where you literally can't shoot. Right.

Speaker C: That's right.

Speaker A: So. And he had films of amazing aircraft said your budget wouldn't allow to use. So I believe you used real actors in that process.

Speaker C: Right, our process involved real actors you have on screen as far as the characters. But in terms of, uh, the filmmaking process itself, of how to add a human voice to the scenes. And the way we went about this is, um, following a casting process. We had the actors, um, come and visit us.

Speaker B: Yeah, the same way you would with a traditional shoot.

Speaker C: We set it up very much in a, In a theatrical format. Yeah. And had the actors in the same room. Um, we had a script that they were using as part of the scenes, but we also let them improvise. Uh, and we spent the whole afternoon working with them and then used these voices and recordings to integrate them back into the AI characters that we created earlier on in the creative development process.

Speaker B: And you know, we, we. I have a deal. I mean, I've studied acting, I've done a ton of acting myself and spent years, you know, directing actors in my filmmaking, uh, work, whether it's commercial or fiction. Um, uh, we're both writers as well, so we have a deep respect for the craft and the process. It's. And that's why that layer of authenticity is really important. So we see it as kind, uh, of like, you know, an animated movie, the way you would, you know, bring in voice actors. And we wanted to have a layer of, you know, of that realness. So when. When our characters are talking to each other, you know, they're interrupting each other and there's real emotion. They're in a room. You can feel it. Because we don't think that the. It's about the layering. So in. In AI, for us, our approach is. Yet there's the layer of the technical and the fidelity and immersion that is now possible because of the video models and the quality of, of the M models and the, the level of compute. However, there needs to be a human craft element on top of that. And for us, that could mean things like the performance, that could mean the music. We worked with a member of Arcade Fire who, you know, you know, she wrote a song 10 years ago that I really like. And we use that, you know, like the sound mix, all of those little details, uh, add to the experience. Um, and I think it's important to realize, um, that A.I. is not some sort of. I mean, the quality that we strive for requires just as much consideration. Craft. As a big film.

Speaker C: We're still. Yeah, so, so the tools are there and the capabilities are there, but we're still coming to the table with collective 40 years of filmmaking experience, working with actors, experiencing, uh, different types of shoots, as Samir said, screenwriting, how to work with actors, how to, uh, communicate with different departments. And part of that also is, you know, taste, judgment and story can't be automated. It's, uh, you know, AI has no taste or point of view. The creative spark still comes from human beings.

Speaker A: So when you produce a film, which part does the AI contribute and which parts do the humans contribute?

Speaker C: Well, before we get anywhere near, uh, the stage of generating anything, we still have to go through the process of story development, concepting before that, story development, character development. We're still writing a script, we're developing a script. Um, we're testing these and getting responses based on what we've written. We then go through a process of creative direction where we're deciding what a scene looks like, what the tone is, what the lighting looks like, what the characters and who the characters are. And all of these come into play way before we get anywhere near a keyboard.

Speaker B: I think it's, it's, It's. For us, it's like. And this is, we're going more towards this as a society, but it's like, it's, it's still coming from us. Right. Um, but it's, it's a kind of a superpower. So I, I think that separation is getting blurred. Um, and I personally don't see a. AI as a. A tool. I think that's the wrong word. It's much more like something like fire, which is more like a platform that enables other things to happen. So a tool is like a hammer. But if you think about the difference between when we had tools versus when we had fire as a civilization, that is what AI is. And things you can. It. It's going to enable all sorts of stuff. And so we're, you know, at the beginning of last year we were maybe, uh, iPhone 3 version of AI. Now it's like iPhone 7 6, 7. And in a year it's going to be like iPhone 10 or 12. So that's kind of where we are. Um, things are rapidly Rapidly advancing, there's no stopping that. Um, and so the question for us as creators is how do we ensure that we are um, you know, able to still do what we want to do as creators, but use this as a way to, to, to scale up our creativity not just in terms of output, which it certainly does, but it's sort of like capability. You know, we, we can, we can do things. We can make, you know, a uh, $200 million Hollywood level feature film for, you know, 1 1/100 of the price. Um, and, and that's, that's what we want to do and we, we can reach audiences directly so we can, we can go to where our, our eyeballs are directly and we don't have to sell our, uh, sell our souls essentially as creatives, which we've had to do for the past 120 years to get things made, which we're kind of done with. We don't need to do that anymore. And that's what we find exciting.

Speaker A: Yeah, very. And do you think the iPhone 20 version of the AI will you still need the voiceover actors or do you think these AIs will be so good that they will take m on more? The things that you today need humans for?

Speaker C: Things are evolving so quickly week to week. I think it's hard to predict where we'll be in a few years, but in the interim it is very much going to be an idea of adapting to human vision and machine execution.

Speaker B: So I'll give you another answer on this. Do you, when you, let's say you have a Taylor Swift record, you've got the itunes version and you've got the vinyl version. Do you need the vinyl version?

Speaker A: No.

Speaker B: And, but if you had the choice, which one would you buy?

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: So it's going to be the same thing.

Speaker A: And there's also, there's been quite a big backlash against AI created commercials recently. We've seen this with Coca Cola releasing the Christmas ad, McDonald's, uh, doing something similar. They actually took the commercials back, they removed them because there was such a big backlash, saying is destroying the industries, destroying jobs. What's your take on that?

Speaker B: Uh, so yeah, there has been a big backlash. Um, you know, I think that we're sort of in the kind uh, of Napster, uh, era of AI in terms of rights. And I think that artists are correct that copyright is a foundational aspect of an artist's value and uh, it's an important thing and that um, the way that these models have been trained is problematic and that artists need to be compensated for that or share in the spoils of that at the very least. And that is essentially what is going to happen.

Speaker C: Uh, that needs, you know, there needs to be standards and principles.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Set up in the industry. So.

Speaker B: Yeah, no, no, so we support that. So I think the backlash is, you know, people, this has happened throughout history. I mean it's, it's, it's constantly, you know, it's been happening for every big technological wave. Now the big difference with this one is that it's the intellectuals and the white collar people and the creatives. But uh, in fact this exact same thing happened in, in America in the 80s with globalization and automation. In small town America, the exact same thing. So now it's flipped and I think we, us, uh, people from, from those backgrounds don't know how to deal with that. So there is going to be a period of, I would say, you know, heightened kind of fight flight or freeze response. Um, what I would say to people is me. While all that is happening, meanwhile, the, the most powerful companies in the history of human civilization with the most capital that's ever been accumulated are moving forward. And these companies have more resources and are more powerful than any government or. Right. So whether we like it or not, it's, it's happening. And so I think people's, if I, I mean I don't want to tell people what to do, but I feel like it's, it's probably better served to look at this and go, okay, how can I, you know, how, how can I position myself for, for, for what's coming? Um, and that's, you know, that's what more and more and more people are doing now. They're like, if you look at the sentiment, uh, I can't really speak to, you know, other industries, but if you look in the creative industry, I feel confident speaking about that. If you look at the sentiment change from one year ago to today, it's like night and day. And so now you have big huge brands jumping into it. Whereas a year ago was Coke, now there's many brands jumping into it. You have high level creators like James Cameron coming out and saying, look, okay, yes, this is happening. James Cameron who is now on the board of one of the big AI model companies, Stable diffusion. Um, you have studios that have cut deals with AI model companies, some successfully, some not. But you know, Skydance just announced a deal with one of the model companies. So as they prepare to, you know, purchase a legacy studio, a big part of their strategy is going to be to use AI up and down the. Both the processes and the creative process. So then on a more granular level, you have creatives starting to embrace it, um, and, and starting to see both the benefit and the um, the pitfalls. Some things will be lost. Right. Like if you, if you look at social media, which is really not social at the end of the day, as anybody riding the subway, uh, in any urban city will attest to, um, in fact, it's the opposite of social media. It has changed our way of interacting and we have lost something. So I think paradoxically, AI will usher in an era of creativity, craft, unlock, put, uh, the value back in the hands of people who actually make things. For people who want to take this opportunity, it will do that. At the same time, it will also displace the industrial model and way of doing things. And filmmaking has not changed since it began. It has not changed at all since the advent of sound film in the 20s. Okay. It has stayed exactly the same. And it's hard to think of anything else that has stayed so similar as film. So yeah, it's gonna disrupt that. M. Okay. Now, as somebody who's coming up in the industry as some person of color trying to break in, I think it's ripe for a bit of disruption. Frankly. When I look around and I see, you know, people who work in the business, it's all the same people, right? And there's a lot of lip service about. We want things to change and. But I don't see that change. So I think it's an opportunity for those people who want to embrace it, young or old. AI is a leveler. It's a meritocracy. But in any meritocracy, the people with the power are very intimidated by it. And when people are intimidated, they gaslight and they. So I'm not saying it's not, you know, I'm not saying it's not unfounded. I think there will be a lot of displacement. I think actually, personally, um, you know, when I hear people like Sam Altman go, it's not going to be. So it's. I actually totally disagree with that. It's going to be even more than people think it is and it's going to be massive. Like, if you read the book the Coming Wave, one of the most popular AI books, it's going to be fundamental to society. I don't think that's hyperbolic and I don't think we even have the capacity to understand the level of change and the speed of progress. But one thing we always do is we, we Adapt and we keep up and we'll, you know. But we. He's right. I mean nobody really knows exactly how it's going to shake out. Um, but I think a bit of uncertainty in terms of creativity is usually a good thing.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: And that's where a lot, if you look at music or art, that's where a lot of great movements have come out of uncertainty.

Speaker A: So what advice would you give someone coming into the industry now in terms of the skills they need to develop? This will need to change, right. You will have to be able to use AI, have some um, AI literacy. What skills would become more important? What skills would become less important?

Speaker B: I have two kids, 7 and 9, so I think that nobody is going to need to know how to use AI. First of all, I don't even think the word AI is going to be used in a couple of years. It's like we don't talk about electricity very much, do we? You just say turn off the lights. It's, it's the, it's that other layer. Every single thing will have AI in it. So you won't need to talk about it. But I'm, I'm sure you know, in 1870 or whatever, whenever electricity was invented, they talked about it a lot. So for my kids, um, what they're learning is how to talk to a computer like a human. You don't need to learn that. It's natural. Um, they, they are learning soft skills. They're learning that um, it's good to do things in person because that's going to be a real people who can have like an interpersonal dialogue and relate to people that, those, those skills are valuable. Yeah. And also being. So we, we typically if you look at how value has been assigned, especially in the creative industry, it's very much um, assigned according to uh, very specific skills. So if you find a niche and you um, you build in that, right? You, you focus, hyper focus on that. I'm a X director, I direct X. That's going to change. I think we're going into an era of generalists. So for my kids, I want them to be generalists within like a sector, but generalists because you're not going to need to learn a language anymore because you're just going to be able to talk and it'll translate in real time, which is already uh. This is not science fiction. This is literally just came out. So people aren't going to learn languages unfortunately, which again has some pluses and minuses, but there isn't the history again. Shows us that if something's easier, we'll just do the easier thing. That's just what we do. That's our brain works. So I think that for. You want to teach kids good values, good manners, I wouldn't teach a child coding, um, creativity and how to, to um, see their ideas in different, in different ways. So it's like react, because AGI is coming whether it's one year or three years or whatever. And you know, the um, incentive will be for people to kind of engage in a very one to one intimate way with machines. And then, uh, I mean we're going towards the singularity. It's a step, uh, it's really just this playbook was written years ago by Kurzweil. It's, if you look at it, it's, it's in there, it's by year. And he's been right every time. And if you look at it, it's literally exactly what's happened. He called it in 2050, but I think it's a B before. And so, you know, I, I don't personally, I, I'm personally, if it was a, uh, you know, for me that I find that exciting. But some people think it's, some people don't. But I think we're already a machine anyway. So if you can just improve the machine, why wouldn't you? That's my personal opinion. Um, and having lived through, you know, a lot of health problems with my family members and things like that, if there's an opportunity to, to avoid that or to, to better those outcomes, why wouldn't you do that? Um, I, you know, and, and so anyway, um, I, I think, yeah, that that's, that that's what I would suggest.

Speaker A: And the future of the industry, if we look. I know you said it's very hard to predict anything. We look five, 10 years ahead. How do you see things changing again?

Speaker C: You know, this would be very speculative.

Speaker B: It's impossible.

Speaker C: I think one thing that we can be certain of is timelines are going to shrink. We're going to see, um, projects manifesting in a much shorter time. Um, whether budgets follow that lead and shrink is something to be seen. Um, I think there'll be much more content out there and it'll be an incentive for people to create better content because you have so much saturation in the industry. Um, and that's exciting because, um, it puts a little bit of pressure on people to think outside the box and explore better ideas, better concepts. Um, I think a point to make also is everything we've seen so far. Although we are, we are the creators as people and AI is there helping us execute at a quicker pace. The training so far has existed based on existing content. So it's really important that people uh, keep creating because the ideas need to originate from somewhere. So I think as long as focus is placed the inception stage, there'll be some exciting projects uh, to consume down the line.

Speaker A: I like that. Yeah, good point. What do you see in the future?

Speaker B: What do I see in the future? Um, I don't, I mean I, I don't think it's possible to know. I think that um, there's going to be like whatever rate of progress, you know, whatever Baron, whether it's you know, Moore's law or whether it's you know, laws of scale, which is what we have now. Um, I think it'll, if you look at the trends that are kind of already in progress, so major trends. Automation, quantum computing, um, which are all basic and you know, coming, coming, coming into the world over the next like five to 10 years. I think you can. The one sure thing is that the rate of change will be exponentially faster. Um, and that there's a kind of compounding effect with that. So as machines get more involved in the kind of intellectual and creative processes with human beings, that rate of change will massively um, compound and accelerate. And then I think simultaneously it's reasonable to assume there's going to be quite a substantial backlash that will have its own manifestations. Um, and what that is I don't know but that, that might be anything from people going off the grid to you know, things like the, the, the, the, the AI pin thing that you know, Johnny I've and, and Sam Altman are, are making. That's supposed to be like the anti iPhone. There's no screen. So I, you know, and if you look at for example social media, um, is Facebook. They're ah, they're not acquiring new um, users uh, at the, it's basically peaking and my kids are like oh, social media is not cool. Um, my kids also, their idea of a good TV show is somebody else playing a video game which is not really a story in a traditional sense. So I think that it's safe to say based on just my, you know, limited knowledge. But what I'm seeing is that the sort of real world, physical world and the digital world will kind of mesh um, and therefore in real life experiences will become more valuable, um, especially the ones that have high scarcity. So like professional sports, um, concerts, those things will rise in Value massively, because you'll be able to experience those digitally on a, In a very personalized way. I also think just personalization of everything will. Is the next sort of natural step. Um, and so how that manifests itself I'm not sure. But again, I think there'll be a massive, substantial backlash. But it's probably similar to, you know, digital, uh, music and record, which is, you know, uh, record, uh, sales are like 10% of the, you know, economy of the music industry. It's about 10%, which is way higher than it used to be, by the way.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: Like in 1989 or 1990, during the transition from analog to digital, it was like it got decimated or whenever that was. Maybe it's a little bit later. But, um, so, so I think we can look at history, but we also have a tendency to think that what happened before is going to repeat, but really this is like a whole new thing because we've never had a, um, machine that can run autonomously that has a higher degree of intelligence than we do, which will eventually happen. And what intelligence is, we can all debate that, but by several different measures that will happen. And that's essentially what AGI is. So at that point, um, we, we don't, we don't. Nobody can say how that will change society. Nobody. So, you know, I think about something that, you know, Jeff Bezos said, like when he was talking about how Amazon would plan. They plan like 10 years out, what are we going to build? And he said, um, you know, you should just think of something that just won't change and just build for that. So, I mean, people like other people, right? People are social beings typically. Um, so we can infer that that's not going to change. People like technology, and so that's not going to change. People like to interact with technology. People like to make their lives easier if they're doing something and some piece of technology can make it easier, they like that and they will do that. So, but beyond that, no idea.

Speaker A: You mentioned the word VR before. Virtual reality. This is something you've looked into. What role do you think more immersive storytelling, uh, will play in the future of filmmaking?

Speaker B: I mean, I think that's a good question. I think that this is one of those things where, you know, like it or not, you know, Mark Zuckerberg is the new Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg is not Steve Jobs, but he is essentially the new Steve Jobs. Because. And the, the reason I'm saying this is because he is kind of. He is, is not addressing customer demand necessarily. He's, he's, he's making, he's doing what he thinks the customer should have and he's bringing the customer to them. And actually it's working. Right. So if you look at meta, um, glasses, the sales versus, say the, you know, um, Apple. Similar. I mean, it's not similar, but it's the same sector. It's the same idea. If it's, it's actually becoming a successful consumer product. But this is something that Zuckerberg has willed into existence from 10 years, 12 years ago. So I think that again, it's. If it's going to make life easier, um, we will, we will do it. As, as uncomfortable as the first generation of VR was, I think AR will have a massive use case because, yeah, if I could not. I don't want to be on my phone either, right. So if I could be on a map and I'm seeing it and it just comes up every now and then and yeah, maybe it's cool. I don't know. I, I don't, I don't use that. It seems crazy to me. But I'm sure, you know, my grandfather would think it's crazy that we have this supercomputer in our pocket. So it's like my, the kids will be like, oh, cool. So, you know, I think immersive. That's why I brought up thing about my son. Think like his, his definition of a good TV show is somebody else watching a video game. That means he's priming himself for a world where, you know, there's no, um, there's no layer between him and that, and that's. That he's already there mentally. So for me, that's not relaxing, but it's for, for me, relaxing, sitting on a TV and actually, oh, you know, changing channels. But for him, it's not so like, like, I'm not. I know that there's no judgment. I don't think it's good necessarily. Um, uh, but that's the reality of it. So I, I think that there's. Again, immersion is probably immersive is the next frontier, and there's going to be new kinds of forms that are developed and new possibilities. And so as a story too, I'm really excited by that. I also think there might be casualties. And there's good just like anything, you

Speaker C: know, it's part of the evolutionary process.

Speaker B: It's. It's like we all, we all like the feeling of, you know, ink on paper. But I mean, how many times do we write with A pen. So I, I think again, we'll go in that direction and then there's going to be, you know, live theater and things like that that will rise in value because they become more scarce. But the vast majority, the, the big middle will be with these big trends. And, and even if there's like a dip, which there might be coming, eventually, it will, you're not really going to stop that wave. And if you look at say, Internet video, it was the same thing. And, and you're gonna have the Netflix of immersive video. It won't be Netflix, it's gonna be something else. Um, you know, or, or maybe it will be, I don't know, maybe they're too bad. I, I don't, I'm not sure. But, but I think that is exciting and maybe a little bit concerning. But, you know, um, it'll be, you know, I, I personally, I, I like, uh, adapting and I like change. So, um, I find it exciting. Um, and I think actually, um, from where we are now, my hope is that we actually become closer and return back to a more in person kind of relationship which we're already seeing, like, which we're already seeing. So, for example, in our studio, we work in person, we don't do remote, we work together, we work in a, in a room. We bounce ideas and we, we really value.

Speaker C: Yeah, it becomes much more of a personal process. Yeah, yeah, it's much more responsive. We're able to progress things on a much quicker timeline because of it.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Um, you know, ideas can be bounced around the table, people can have, uh, their voices heard and you know, it no longer becomes one person driving it, it becomes part of the team and everyone has a say in it.

Speaker A: I like that. Give me three words. What will the future of filmmaking look like?

Speaker C: Immersive, competitive, non existent.

Speaker B: Um, beautiful.

Speaker A: Thank you very much. I, I, I, I literally could carry on this conversation forever.

Speaker B: I want to explain my, I can I explain?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Okay. I think that the idea of filmmaking comes from film, which the reason film was a, was films were two hours. It's not just some arbitrary number. It has to do with the fact that they have reels in cinemas that were that length and there's like whatever 10 minute reels and that's how many reels I could have. That became the craft, that became the standard, that became the system. So if that's no longer the case, why would we continue making those kinds of things? Doesn't, it's not logical. What's logical is that there's the old way and the people who like the old way, us being two of them, um, that like to go to cinema, that like to watch this experience that came from a technical limitation and turn into an art form as many other art forms have. But it's much more likely that, that that will die essentially in terms of new output. There'll be a very small. I mean, essentially die in terms of cultural relevance. And, um, the more likely outcome is, uh, a different kind of experience that I don't think you could call a film. Because if something doesn't run from A to Z on a timeline in sequence and the authorship doesn't belong to the filmmaker and the writers, uh, so I don't call that a film. It's something else. I don't know what it's called, but I wouldn't call it a film. And I think that that's the future of what you're really asking. And that's why I said filmmaking will be this, this old way. But once it changes so much, you can't really call it a film anymore. And, and you shouldn't. It's not fair to filmmaking. You need to call something else. Even if you go into the places that used to be cinemas, which, by the way, I don't know if you've been to a cinema, but it's like, it's like a ghost town. Like, I mean, in every cinema. Right. Um, and it's like they make money from popcorn. I mean, that's not a business. So. But that will, that will change. That will involve, again, people like to be in person. But it's not going to be called cinema. It shouldn't be called cinema. It's an offense to cinema. Should be called something else.

Speaker A: Fascinating.

Speaker C: I think a word we can also use here is disruptive.

Speaker A: Thank m you so much for your time today. That was fascinating. I guess I take away a lot of positives here that you're saying actually comes down to creating, craft, creativity. There will be lots of AI slop being created using these tools. But actually what will stand out in the long term is what makes us human. It's the storytelling, is the creativity. Right. Which is lovely. Um, thank you very much for your time. Um, for anyone, if you ever want to rewatch this conversation or any other, simply head to my YouTube channel. Thank you very much.

Speaker C: Thank you.