Moonvalley, Asteria, and the Art of Ethical AI

Technically Creative by KoobrikLabs Podcast Transcript

Title: The First AI Model Built for Filmmakers: Bryn Mooser on the Future of Hollywood

Host: Orlando Wood Guest: Bryn Mooser

Orlando Wood (00:00) I want to kind of start by saying congratulations. Like you kind of you you caught the white whale. A video model that is, you know, that is, ⁓ that is clean is unbelievable. I think that like your whole, your whole path through the industry, I find deeply fascinating. mean, I made documentaries. It’s something you don’t do. ⁓ you know, I didn’t do a lot of, did too. And before I realized I needed to pay bills and eat and survive, you know, you do it for the love of the game. You don’t do it to make money. mean, ⁓ but I think that same thing, peace core, you know, you don’t go into it. to make money or find ⁓ a deep career in film. Just all along the way, I think your path has been absolutely fascinating. So, I just wanted to congratulate you on the whole thing, but as well, this Moonvalley achievement is unbelievable. Bryn Mooser (00:53) Well, I mean, I’ll start kind of more at the beginning because you sort of brought up the documentaries, which yeah, is a big part of where I came from. Part of why I love documentaries is that it’s truly like independent film. Like if you have a story to tell and you wanna do it on your own and you’re hell bent on telling that story, like you can do it and you can afford to do it on your own almost, right? And like for me, That goes back to kind of a technology story. Like I went to film school, I could never make a movie that looked as good as something that was on the big screen. The Canon 5D DSLR came out and you could throw a cinema lens on it and all of a sudden I could make something that looked as good as anything else. It was literally this one piece of technology that allowed me and basically my whole group of ⁓ colleagues at that time to become documentary filmmakers. It was like. you know, what everybody talks about at these democratization moments of technology. That was the democratization of like, you know, indie film, really documentary especially. I love documentaries because I love telling stories and true stories, of course. And, but what I really love is that the spirit of being able to go out as, one person or a small crew who has a story to tell and is going to go tell it. You know how that goes. Like somebody’s like, I want to make this documentary and Orlando Wood (02:13) Yeah. Bryn Mooser (02:15) that’s very hard to find funding. it’s like, okay, well, like go start it. Like just go shoot. Well, you always tell.

Orlando Wood (02:19) Yeah, you got to start getting to that at least 650 hours or at least, know, 450 to 650 is sort of the minimum of time commitment required to have even something worth coming into a first cut, let alone, you know, all of the follow ups. No. Bryn Mooser (02:27) Yeah. And nobody’s gonna save you, right? As we run a documentary studio, we get pictures all the time where it’s like, people are like, you have to fund this thing. And it’s like, well, it’s clearly very important for you. So like, you gotta keep going further before it becomes this thing. And I think that spirit allows these filmmakers who are like, we’re gonna do this no matter what, because I have to tell the story, go out and do that. I think if I fast forward to what’s exciting about. Orlando Wood (02:48) Yeah. Bryn Mooser (03:00) it now, it’s actually not like it’s a pivot now into AI, it’s like AI now has this moment where people can make sci-fi films with a small crew of people, or they can make animation with a small crew of people, and that’s really exciting. So that spirit of what drove me so much to love documentaries was that like it was an art form inside of cinema that was achievable to do with pure grit and determination. and asking your friends to help you on the weekends or something. And like, we can do that now in whole new genres of cinema, and that’s what drives me here as well. Orlando Wood (03:38) Yeah, I always say that documentaries are made with duct tape and blood. know, it’s, it’s, you know, and, I think what’s great about that is it maxed out credit cards. ⁓ but I think that what’s great about that is that you forgive so much. Like, you know, I can’t imagine somebody looking at a, a documentary and going, I can’t believe they use AI. It’s like, they are going to use whatever is available to them. It’s, you know, there is no, Bryn Mooser (03:42) Well. Yeah. ⁓

Orlando Wood (04:06) gatekeeping of anything. It’s, you know, can you make it look good and make it and keep people sticking around, you know, to finish it? I loved it when the 5D came out because it was sort of it would crush the blacks. It would make it like, you know, overly saturated, but that sort of stylistically made it work in camera. And it was it was great. You felt that the moment you got, know, you looked at your rushes at the end of the day, you were like, it already looks good. It was huge. Bryn Mooser (04:33) Yeah, and the first documentary that I was nominated for an Oscar with was shot on a 5D and GoPros. And it was intentional, right? There was part of it where David Dark, who’s my partner on that film, we were like, we wanna walk into the Oscars having shot a movie on a camera that was in rigs that were under like $2,000 or $3,000. And we were. Orlando Wood (04:41) Right, Bryn Mooser (04:59) going up against the best films in the entire world. was like, was a, we wanted that moment to be punky, right? Which is, hey, we did this. So this moment where I think about all the time, like, or we think about as filmmakers all the time, how do you ⁓ lower the bars of entry into telling your story or making your film, right? Like, there’s a lot of ⁓ barriers of entry, right? There’s a lot of things, the walls of Hollywood are very high intentionally. There’s a lot of. Orlando Wood (05:04) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Bryn Mooser (05:27) that keep people out or keep people from making their own movies and doing whatever else, whether it’s cost or access or ⁓ whatever it is. And I think if you can help lower some of those, then you have a world where you have more films being made by more people with more diverse backgrounds and you have a better industry overall, right? And you have a power system that’s less consolidated, which is where a lot of our problems come into anyway in the first place in the industry. Orlando Wood (05:54) Yeah, I always say that filmmaking is doing fine. Studio filmmaking is under threat, but I remember when I was at film school, if the lighting kit was available or somebody canceled using it on a weekend, you’d be like, what can we shoot? You were like, if we can get access to that lighting kit, we’re gonna shoot something. I don’t know what yet, but we’ll figure it out. And I think that now there are more lighting kits in more people’s homes and offices than ever before.

Bryn Mooser (06:09) Yes. Orlando Wood (06:20) creativity is doing fine, you know. ⁓ Bryn Mooser (06:22) Yeah, I say the same thing all the time too, which is like, even in those moments of disruption through technology, which we’re at maybe the arguably the biggest one right now, like in those moments where we switch from streaming, from going to rent a video to streaming, like it’s not that people who love films lose their jobs. It’s like Blockbuster goes away, right? Or you stop shooting on film and you start shooting on digital. It’s like Kodak has got to figure that out. Like not. a photographer, like a photographer can still go shoot on film if they want to, or they can now be able to use digital if they want to, but it’s like the incumbent giant industries that were built in the old world are the ones that have to catch up. So I feel the same way. It’s like, it’s a, it, it, potential of this is quite exciting for, for filmmakers. And it’s sort of never been a better opportunity if you’re a filmmaker with a story to tell. ⁓ But we have to recapture that energy, you know, like, Orlando Wood (07:15) Mm-hmm. Bryn Mooser (07:17) I remember in film school, I had the same experience that you’re talking about where like a camera shows up and you’re like, okay, let’s go shoot today. Like everything is about, let’s use this. know, ⁓ Robert Rodriguez talks about it famously in his No Film School thing where he’s like, if you have a dog, make a movie about a dog. If your dad has a convenience store, shoot the movie in the convenience store, right? Like that energy ⁓ is an energy that we came up with, but that energy I think has been largely stripped from us. because of like the industry of Hollywood and the streaming wars. Like somehow we lost this thing that was like, let’s all get our buddies together and go make a movie because everybody’s like, actually I’m having my eighth meeting at Netflix right now. Like it’s possible I’m gonna get this thing sold and it’ll be a $20 million movie because those things do happen too. But like that’s not the norm. Orlando Wood (08:02) Yeah. Yeah.

Bryn Mooser (08:06) and it’s very, very hard to do, but how do we get back to this scrappy world of go make your movie, put it out somewhere, and if you have a great story, the internet is still a magical place where stuff rises to the top that hits, and so you’re quite optimistic about it. Now that said, there’s big challenges, right? And so you can’t… put your head in the sand and say, AI is going to be great for the industry and there’s nothing wrong with it because that’s also discounting what the challenges are and the biggest challenge for us that we see is copyright. And so back to why we want to try to approach ⁓ creating a workflow that’s commercially safe is that copyright is a real issue for people, right? It’s an issue for filmmakers and it’s an issue for studios. ⁓ Orlando Wood (08:52) that’s, well, that’s why I say you’ve kind of caught the white whale is, you know, we, created a, um, a moral model, a language model. Um, it was very difficult. Um, it was very expensive. Um, to be honest, we got to working with a lot of studios and a lot of larger clients because they respected that we did it. not so much that they actually respected the output because naturally it wasn’t as good as GPT and things that they had become used to. And it sounded like it was trained on legal texts, which of course it was trained on publicly available legal texts. Bryn Mooser (09:15) Hahaha! Orlando Wood (09:30) But it garnered a lot of respect. think people appreciated that we bothered to do it. What I’m amazed by with Moon Valley and what you’ve done there is it looks pretty great. And usually people release with an MVP feature or two. I mean, you guys are releasing with… You know, some significant feature first frame, last frame motion control, path and action drawing camera moves. mean, you guys are, you know, up a really heavily developed tool that seems ready to play. Bryn Mooser (10:04) Yeah, would love to take all credit for it, but it’s really, you know, we were lucky enough to, you know, what I was working on building at Asteria was like ⁓ a studio in the model of like DreamWorks or ILM or Pixar, like any of these studios where there’s a technological shift. really smart people from different backgrounds come together to try to solve a common problem. And then you put the best filmmakers in the world to go make films with them. Like that was the thesis. And on that journey, we met these guys who were leaving DeepMind ⁓ and Naim who were starting Moon Valley. ⁓ they were, you they saw that the future was visual intelligence, even more so the large language models. And I think set out to build ⁓

really smart people from different backgrounds come together to try to solve a common problem. And then you put the best filmmakers in the world to go make films with them. Like that was the thesis. And on that journey, we met these guys who were leaving DeepMind ⁓ and Naim who were starting Moon Valley. ⁓ they were, you they saw that the future was visual intelligence, even more so the large language models. And I think set out to build ⁓ the best visual intelligence model like the world had ever seen. And that’s incredibly exciting when you think about its applications across industries. But what’s exciting for us is its applications inside Hollywood. And I think if you’re going to be ⁓ thinking about how building models works across different industries, you have to think about how to adjust those models for the industries that they’re playing in. So whether it’s cultural or legal regulations or those things. ⁓ They, ⁓ you know, we spent a lot of time talking about that. Like, I remember it was Bob Iger who said on a call at one point, you know, to Disney shareholders, like the future of Disney is AI, but we have some legal problems to get through. But once we do, the future is going to be AI. And when he said that a year and a half ago or something, I was like, well, what are those legal issues? Like, what is barrier there? to having this become adopted across the studio. ⁓ And so, ⁓ you know, I think that the AI group at Moon Valley and their research team is the best in the world and they worked really hard to be able to build a world-class model with the constraints of data that was fully licensed. Orlando Wood (12:05) Yeah, I mean. Bryn Mooser (12:05) It wasn’t easy, it was not easy or cheap or without ⁓ struggles and what did you say, blood and something else? Yeah, duct tape and blood. ⁓ But we are in the early, very early days of it and it’s only gonna get better from here. And ⁓ I think that ⁓ when you think about what… Orlando Wood (12:13) Yeah, duct tape and blood. Bryn Mooser (12:32) big large language models need to do, which is like everything everywhere all the time or whatever, versus when you think about what really robust visual intelligence models need to do for visual effects and animation and advertising, it’s not everything, right? So like you actually can find a really powerful way to get very clear about how do you look at… at least at the start of production model and think about all the places where you can compress the time it takes to make stuff while keeping your artists and your creatives at the center. And if you’re focused on that, I think like the team was, then you can build something really special. Again, early days.

at least at the start of production model and think about all the places where you can compress the time it takes to make stuff while keeping your artists and your creatives at the center. And if you’re focused on that, I think like the team was, then you can build something really special. Again, early days. Orlando Wood (13:10) Yeah, I mean, we had Andre Vargas, the chief data officer at ⁓ CAA on just the other week, and he was talking about the three C’s, consent, credit, and compensation. ⁓ And I think that like what’s great is that obviously from the training data standpoint, you’ve licensed all that stuff. A lot of it is, is it Asteria was Asteria stereo a big part of the documentary? You’re so prolific in the amount of documentaries you guys have done was. Right, yeah, I figured. Bryn Mooser (13:20) Mm-hmm. Yeah, but it’s a drop in the, but it’s like, the amount of data that you actually look, think that like, um, we’re in a different world in the last year, I would say, which is that there’s, there’s data brokers and, and, and companies that have just popped up to be able to provide data like this in large quantities that probably didn’t exist a year and a half or two years ago. So like the world has made it, I think, um, easier to be able to do this, um, in a way where you’re trying to build something that’s commercially safe. Um, Our hope was that it would inspire or force or push ⁓ others to take a hard look at it, which was like, if we can build something in this way that’s commercially safe and that feels like it can pass a litmus test inside Hollywood, then why wouldn’t the other ones do that as well? ⁓ And so, because look, I think that copyright is complicated. And I think that copyright is also… ⁓ You know, I think that we don’t know what’s going to happen in the current administration for copyright. We could probably guess what’s going to happen, which is that it’s going to be like you can use anything you want all the time. If that happens, that actually doesn’t mean that Hollywood just falls in line with whatever the administration says. We are famous for setting our own standards and our own rules and our own ethical code inside of Hollywood. And copyright’s really important. know, like there’s not a single studio that we go to that doesn’t say that, that doesn’t talk about those three I think that there’s an idea somehow, which is a false narrative, that behind the scenes at the studios, there’s just cigar-chomping ⁓ executives being like, what if we could fire everybody and just prompt our way to the movie? we’re working with all the studios. I don’t know. That’s not my experience. And I’m pretty much in the backest room you can get to. And even in those rooms, they’re like, hey, like,

I think that there’s an idea somehow, which is a false narrative, that behind the scenes at the studios, there’s just cigar-chomping ⁓ executives being like, what if we could fire everybody and just prompt our way to the movie? we’re working with all the studios. I don’t know. That’s not my experience. And I’m pretty much in the backest room you can get to. And even in those rooms, they’re like, hey, like, Orlando Wood (15:21) Yeah. Bryn Mooser (15:23) We have seen what happens when a technology disrupts the way we make stuff with computers before animation or VFX or whatever else. We know that this is gonna happen. my God, what we’re seeing is so powerful. How do we do this in a way where filmmakers wanna continue to work with us? Where we can defend the copyright on the other side of that, where we can try to do this responsibly. So that’s quite encouraging. Orlando Wood (15:48) Yeah, I mean, I think that those human stories, like, you know, I suspect that the first, you know, AI feature film that knocks everybody’s socks off is going to come along with a human interest story of this kid was doing this and it was in his bedroom and she did it in this many hours and it’s changed his life. what, you know, it’s like kind of if social media has taught us anything is that we’re actually invested in the human stories, however, you know, perfect and well curated they might be. ⁓ But I don’t think that’s going to change, you know, and I think that, you know, just in the same way that everybody thought when photography came out, was this bastard technology and it was going to get rid of, ⁓ you know, painting on canvases. And of course it didn’t, you know, it’s, it, you know, it, just became its own ⁓ category ⁓ of, of art. ⁓ Yeah. So I think, you know, Bryn Mooser (16:34) You know, I think when you really, when you play the painting one out, I think what’s most interesting about it is, ⁓ you know, whatever, before the camera or something, people were painting portraits of kings or boats on the sea. They were painting photographs. Then photography comes out and all of a sudden, you know, postmodernism, contemporary art is born. modern art is created, like all of a sudden you can have a world where Jackson Pollock can make a painting, well, you couldn’t have done that before the invention of the camera. You never saw that for, you know, thousand years. You didn’t see abstract expressionism because everybody was like, wait, what is this? I’d rather have this like a portrait of my dog. And so to me, it’s like, it’s not like it that limited it. It actually like expanded the scope of what art is and who artists are.

Orlando Wood (17:26) Yeah, you’ve talked before about ⁓ sort of, you you mentioned Picasso, I think, and talked about the suffering that, you know, that is sort of evident in art and that suffering is a sort of key part of the creation of art. ⁓ You know, because I I agree, I think that even in his, you know, his dove of peace, which is really only about three or four lines But what’s amazing about that is all of the study that is kept away from. It’s the choice of, no, I could have drawn anything. I could have done the Dove of Peace as a Cubist painting. I chose not to. I decided that these five lines were enough the suffering by its lack is almost there. It’s a part of the story of that drawing. Bryn Mooser (17:58) Yes. Yeah, I think that, you know, we think about it as like a skin in the game or blood and duct tape to your earlier point or blood on the page. It’s like, if you go ask a AI model to make you a thousand ⁓ doves, you know, of peace or a thousand Mona Lisa’s, it’s empty in there. There’s even on the subconscious level, I really believe that you’re missing. There’s a thing that you see, which is like nobody. Orlando Wood (18:19) Yeah. ⁓ Bryn Mooser (18:39) Nobody sacrificed anything for these things. Somebody didn’t go, know, instead of like spending this time playing catch in my backyard with my son, I’m gonna go paint this thing because I have to get it out and I’m in it or, you know, a marriage falls apart or whatever, all the things that happen for artists. ⁓ And I think that you can feel that like artists toil in there. And I think that that’s important and people can feel that. Otherwise without that, it’s like, it’s just random sort of. Orlando Wood (18:55) Mmm. Bryn Mooser (19:09) things, right? It’s like, I think about when somebody like tells you a dream that they had, and it’s like, I can’t, I don’t want to know your dream. does. It’s useless for me. The worst thing would be like an AI movie maker tells you its dream. You’re like, I wouldn’t care less about it, even if it’s whatever technically beautiful or something. And so I think that like, the human hand is and always will be very, very important within that curation, whatever. Orlando Wood (19:22)

Orlando Wood (19:22) Yeah. ⁓ Yeah. Mmm. Mmm. Bryn Mooser (19:39) is like essential in that. Orlando Wood (19:42) Yeah, yeah, I mean, I don’t see us stopping, like, I don’t see people who love film not watching Sean Baker’s next one because there’s another AI film out, you know, it’s like, I think the hand of that artist is still gonna be interesting to people. And I think that it’s just gonna create two categories and classes of things. What does it mean? Bryn Mooser (20:06) We’re losing more. Well, I would just say we’re losing a war already, probably to tick tock sort of like garbage anyway. Right. So like, you know, is it like Ted Saranis or whatever talks about like our competitors like tick tock and like sleep or something. Right. Like it’s like there’s only so many hours a day. So like we run into a risk already about like, do people go out and see Sean Baker’s new movie or do they just stare at their tick tock screen of like somebody doing an ASMR cutting a vegetable or something? And I’m like, Orlando Wood (20:20) Mm. Mm-hmm. Right? Bryn Mooser (20:35) There’s a world where AI is just making slop and feeding it exactly to you that is terrifying. ⁓ And ⁓ I think we all have to kind of be aware of that and try to fight against that. But like, ⁓ you know, could, you know, having a ⁓ tool for Sean Baker help him in some way make his next movie, maybe by making the development process a little shorter or being able to help if it’s a, you know, do some backgrounds. I don’t know. I think there’s a lot in there ⁓ that can be very useful for even independent filmmakers like that.

Orlando Wood (21:12) Yeah, I spoke to Brady Corbet’s producer and he was saying, know, Brady actually, the AI he used on the Brutalist actually created more work. Like it was, it was about trying to make the language relevant to the time. And it was, it was about trying to get a more precise version of history or a version of his story. It wasn’t used to, you know, to, yeah, it’s precisely right. It was, you know. Bryn Mooser (21:22) Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. cut a corner. Yeah, think that Brady talks about it the best where he says, like, what’s gonna help me make the best film I possibly can make? And if we can be a part of that future by allowing filmmakers like him to make the best film that they could make and do it in a way that is responsible and isn’t in stealing his movie to help him make the next movie, that’s, I think, the goal of it. Orlando Wood (21:48) Yeah. Yeah, I mean, so what does that look like? You you got you at Asteria you’ve you’ve talked about being artist first. how are you broadening out in terms of your narrative and editorial choices? And then how do you do that respecting the artist’s primacy in that process? Bryn Mooser (22:21) I mean, think that we, documentaries is probably. a small part of what we’re doing now at Asteria. There’s a lot that I think is interesting around recreation. ⁓ We worked on a film called Free Leonard Peltier that was at Sundance that had recreations that was done in partnership with the Archive Association. I think there’s a lot of things that are interesting still in nonfiction, maybe less like capital D documentary than like ⁓ nonfiction television, a history channel, A &E, whatever. ⁓ But at the studio on a stereo level, we’re really building ⁓ custom models for film and television projects. We’re building custom workflows on top of those. And then we’re really looking at, again, all those places where you can compress the time that it takes to make stuff while keeping those filmmakers at the center. So ⁓ where you see probably the most kind of ⁓ efficiencies is in

Stuff that goes as much through the model as possible, right? So if you’re doing a movie and it’s got you know What 1 % of it is a VFX shop that you could be you use AI to help you with it? Well, that’s not you know, you’re still gonna make them It’s not you’re not gonna change the economics of that movie that much but if you’re talking about how you do an animation Where everything flows through a model then there’s a lot of economic change that happens in there Orlando Wood (23:42) Yeah, you talked a bit about ⁓ somewhere else I saw that you talked about almost having a model per project, sort of like a full project LoRa as it were. how, you know, how does that feed? mean, how much of that is the artist really kind of brain dumping theme and stylistic choices and what, like, what is, what does that kind of look like? Or, you know, is it, is that something on the horizon or is that sort of a now thing? Bryn Mooser (23:49) Yes. Yeah. So I… I think that in the very near future, every film and TV project will have a custom model and an agentic partner to help you make it. And I’m confident in saying that because I think that… all of us in our lives are going to have an agentic partner who’s helping us with our lives, which is this kind of like agentic assistant, right? Like we’re all going to have a Siri or whoever who’s like, you know, helping us with emails, booking travel, whatever. Like I think that our lives will all have this kind of assistant with us. And so film and television will be the same thing. And I think that you’ll probably be able to cart your same assistant over to all those places. It’ll be able to work in those things. But I do think that the world that we’re moving into has this sort of like gigantic. ⁓ is the Sejantic world and I filmmaking is the same. So I’m confident that that’s what it’s gonna look like for film and TV. I think for people who aren’t following it as closely as us, you could just think of it as like a smart series Bible or you could think of it as a an assistant that can help you with everything from research to even rendering backgrounds that you want or ⁓ helping fill in crowds or whatever else like that. But it’s your partner who’s there who ⁓ is an assistant across all these different departments. It doesn’t mean that it’s replacing all of those departments. It means that it’s enhancing all of the people who are still working in those functions.

departments. It doesn’t mean that it’s replacing all of those departments. It means that it’s enhancing all of the people who are still working in those functions. Orlando Wood (25:34) Yeah, let’s say, because obviously, standard tool for a director going into a project is a lookbook and then a mood board. ⁓ this is my mood board for production design. This is my mood board for the way I want the interstitial animations to look or whatever else. Then you get back into that copyright question again, don’t you? Where you’re like, well, the goal is to amalgamate these ideas and take. you know, man Ray and mix it with, you know, something Chris Nolan did or what, you know, and then, and it’s the, ways the artists looks at those two things and goes, no, I see a path to connecting these incredibly disparate elements. The moment they go into a model, don’t you suddenly get into this, you know, scary place again, where you’re like, well then attribution and whatever. And it’s something that makes all the sense in the world on the human process. But the moment it goes into a model, ⁓ how do you handle something like that? Bryn Mooser (26:28) I think that’s why what we’re building is custom models on top of the model for those particular types of IP, right? So like, let’s say we’re gonna together make an animated film. ⁓ Orlando Wood (26:33) Right. Bryn Mooser (26:42) on a comic book that you love and have the rights to do or a comic book that you created. Like we would be building that model with the art that you’re making, with the story that have, with the script that we would put in, with the real writer. We would have the mood boards. We’d be able to train that model to know this is our film that we’re making based on this thing. Then when you’re generating things like buildings or whatever else, you’re doing it in the hands of the artist. It’s an extension of their hands. It’s an extension of that thing. That’s where I think like If you really pull back and think about what is happening right now, like this AI thing is like, everything gets lumped into that. But like, I think if you pull back and say, what is this technological shift? What is happening? Why do people think this is such a seismic shift? Well, to me, the answer is like very simple. It’s two things. It’s like, there’s… chips like the Nvidia chips that can make you render things in real time very fast. And so what are the implications if you can render things in real time when you think about development and pre-vids and VFX is a lot. And then two, and this is more on the AI side. If you can train them in, if you can fine tune all of that into one piece of IP that you own, that you’re working on. And the combination of those two things, which is you can render stuff really fast and you can generate things on model on that piece of IP. Those two things combined are sort of the revolution of what’s happening. There’s a lot of other noise about AI, this, that, whatever, but it’s really like those two things and the confluence of them coming together. That’s like the sort of seismic event of what’s happening in the industry. Then when you just think about, well, what was that?

If you can train them in, if you can fine tune all of that into one piece of IP that you own, that you’re working on. And the combination of those two things, which is you can render stuff really fast and you can generate things on model on that piece of IP. Those two things combined are sort of the revolution of what’s happening. There’s a lot of other noise about AI, this, that, whatever, but it’s really like those two things and the confluence of them coming together. That’s like the sort of seismic event of what’s happening in the industry. Then when you just think about, well, what was that? in film and television that it means a lot. Orlando Wood (28:24) Yeah. And so what does it mean in terms of the process now? Like, you know, because obviously there’s, you know, Murray, the the moon Valley model. But, you know, in terms of right now, you’re going into your you’re currently in production on on the uncanny Valley. Is that right? Bryn Mooser (28:44) Yeah, we’re in production on about like six things right now. Orlando Wood (28:47) Right. And so an AI first film as it exists now, what does that workflow look like? Like, where are you plugging things in and how are you engaging with these models, you know, in terms of, you know, in terms of current workflows? Because obviously, you know, a lot of this stuff is point on the horizon stuff. We think that at one point very soon we’ll be able to do this. What are you doing now? Bryn Mooser (29:16) So I’ll say it in two ways. You mentioned this human story of somebody making a film that people are gonna talk about the narrative of that. So like, I agree 100%. I get asked all the time, like, what’s the Toy Story moment? What’s the moment where a movie comes out like Toy Story, it’s undeniable that computers should do animation? Or what’s the dinosaur walk cycle in Jurassic Park that’s like, okay, we’re never gonna do things the old way, we’re only gonna do CGI from now on? What’s that moment for AI with filmmaking? And to me, it is a total narrative moment. It’s not a creative, it’s not a moment that goes, this looked so great because like everything looks whatever, great. It’s a moment where it’s like this little team made a movie like with the budget of flow, but it did Lilo and Stitch numbers at the box office. And they didn’t do it at a studio. They borrowed money from their aunts and uncles and they actually owned the thing. And they’re like, they made a hundred million dollars each on this thing. Like, and that’s

And they didn’t do it at a studio. They borrowed money from their aunts and uncles and they actually owned the thing. And they’re like, they made a hundred million dollars each on this thing. Like, and that’s Orlando Wood (30:15) Yeah, the Blair Witch product of AI filmmaking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Bryn Mooser (30:19) or paranormal activity, yes, that’s coming. I hope that we’re the studio that is, that I hope one of the films we’re working on right now is that film. It’s gonna come and it’s thrilling to think about. ⁓ And it changes everything. And every studio at that point has a crisis meeting going like, what are we gonna do? I mean, it is a paradigm shift that’s coming that’s quite exciting. ⁓ So I think if you just like, Orlando Wood (30:28) Yeah. Yeah. Bryn Mooser (30:46) think of that as what this sort of is leading up to. There’s a lot of excitement around that. When you think about what’s possible right now with AI in current kind of the ways that we make movies, there’s a lot that you can do. So there’s kind of, I think for the most part, when you think about live action, The first steps that happen is sort of like hybrid, you know, live action and AI stuff or like AI enabled movies where you’re making a live action movie like Uncanny Valley is a good example. There’s a lot of it that is in this video game world where you could see a world where real actors are driving motion and you’re doing things like, you know, virtual production and motion capture in a way that’s much more efficient. You’re able to generate VFX that doesn’t require shipping stuff overseas and waiting a lot of times. There’s efficiencies in that. Our belief in what we see is that like filmmakers actually can get closer to the final product. when they’re closer to kind of their teams and their leads having control of those VFX and those outcomes of that, right? Rather than like, hey, we go into a desert land and then they’re like, cool, come back in four weeks, like the VFX company in Thailand’s gonna send you this thing back and let us know what you think about it. And it’s always like, no, that’s not it. Actually, what I meant is this versus like, could you sit at a table with your head of VFX, a cinematographer, a director and be like, okay, I want the world to be like, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, And. you can see it in real time, the beginning of it. like there’s stuff that’s happening in development. There’s stuff that’s happening in VFX. And on animation, there’s a lot like from things like generating backgrounds to in-betweening to background characters to movement that you’re also seeing smaller teams being able to do things that are much, much bigger. So I think.

you can see it in real time, the beginning of it. like there’s stuff that’s happening in development. There’s stuff that’s happening in VFX. And on animation, there’s a lot like from things like generating backgrounds to in-betweening to background characters to movement that you’re also seeing smaller teams being able to do things that are much, much bigger. So I think. Orlando Wood (32:09) Mm-hmm. Bryn Mooser (32:27) There’s the world that we’re in now and the efficiencies and the ability for AI to help more people make stuff or people make bigger or better stuff. Ed Sarando says, I hope AI can just make our films 10 % better. I think that’s the right approach to it. ⁓ But then there’s a future where things are… Orlando Wood (32:43) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Bryn Mooser (32:48) even more generated and that’s not like the most interesting stuff right now that we’re going for, right? Like it’s, that’s not what we’re focused on because I still don’t know if that, that’s certainly not interesting for me to say, Hey, make me now a Star Wars movie. And then it’s like my buddies in it. Like that’s not interesting. think people are going to watch that. ⁓ but people love to, ⁓ Orlando Wood (32:55) Yeah. Yeah. Bryn Mooser (33:12) talk about that stuff. know, it’s like when people on a, it’s like a sexy thing to say on stage at South by Southwest, like we’re building something, you just type whatever you want and you watch that movie. And the people who are saying that are not filmmakers. The people who are saying that are from Silicon Valley and they have never made a movie or even probably enjoyed a movie in their lifetime. Because if they did, Orlando Wood (33:24) Mm-mm. Yeah. Bryn Mooser (33:34) they would know that that is not how people make movies, that is not what people want who make movies, and that’s actually not how people watch movies. That is how people play video games. And there’s a big market in video games of like, hey, I wanna play Grand Theft Auto, but it’s in my hometown. Like, good business. you know, build that business. But that is not how people watch movies. Like, me you don’t go home and we’re like, okay, now we wanna watch Succession, but it’s like, but they’re in a bakery.

they would know that that is not how people make movies, that is not what people want who make movies, and that’s actually not how people watch movies. That is how people play video games. And there’s a big market in video games of like, hey, I wanna play Grand Theft Auto, but it’s in my hometown. Like, good business. you know, build that business. But that is not how people watch movies. Like, me you don’t go home and we’re like, okay, now we wanna watch Succession, but it’s like, but they’re in a bakery. Orlando Wood (33:48) Mm-hmm. Yeah, but it’s my dad yelling at everybody just to remember what it felt like, you know? Bryn Mooser (34:02) Yeah, ⁓ and then we meet up later at the bar and you’re like, man, my episode last night was crazy. And I’m like, my episode was crazy. And you’re like, it’s a dream. We’re telling each other dreams. There’s no common thing. And only filmmakers, think, and people who love, and cinephiles, understand that. Orlando Wood (34:16) Yeah. Bryn Mooser (34:23) And that’s why, even if I go back to why we wanted to start this thing, it was because I would meet people building AI video companies at the biggest companies on the planet. And they were like building weird stuff that nobody asked for. And then everybody was scared. And I was like, this is wrong. You know, we Orlando Wood (34:36) Yeah. Yeah, there’s a lot of, no, no, no, you’re not gonna wanna do it like that. You’re gonna wanna do it like this. And you’re like, no, no, I’m telling you that this is the way we wanna do it. Bryn Mooser (34:47) Well, yeah. You know, they’re like, but what if you could just get rid of everybody and bake this in your basement alone? was like, nobody

wants- Orlando Wood (34:54)

Yeah. And it’s, mean, but listen, I think that like that’s, that’s the funny thing is I think, you know, we always focus on, you know, social media rotting our brains and turning us into zombies and whatever else. But the other side of it is more people creating, like actually creating is part of the entertainment, you know, like, and, we like doing it, you know? And I think that that’s the thing that has so many crafts people up in arms is we’re like,

And it’s, mean, but listen, I think that like that’s, that’s the funny thing is I think, you know, we always focus on, you know, social media rotting our brains and turning us into zombies and whatever else. But the other side of it is more people creating, like actually creating is part of the entertainment, you know, like, and, we like doing it, you know? And I think that that’s the thing that has so many crafts people up in arms is we’re like, The amount of pain that we went through to learn how to do this thing. Like, I mean, I’m probably more proud of those documentaries than anything else, because I made the least amount of money on them. It hurt to make them. And when they released, felt that I put something positive out into the world. And we do crave that as people. Like, no bit of technology we’ve ever made has ever really made us work less. We’ve always found a way to help it make us work more. Bryn Mooser (35:50) It’s, yeah, it’s also… ⁓ was a lot easier story for me when I was just making documentaries, when people would ask me what I did and I would go, I make documentaries. Every single person on the planet is like, wow, I love documentaries, tell me more about your documentaries. When I go and like, ⁓ we’re building this AI thing to help film make, it’s like, well who cares, people don’t understand it, or they’re very interested in it, or they’re like, get out of here. Believe me, it was a lot easier to make documentaries too, but. ⁓ Orlando Wood (36:06) Mm-hmm. Bryn Mooser (36:21) But I really believe we look back on this moment and it’s like the most interesting thing that’s happening, right? Orlando Wood (36:28) Yeah. That’s so, I mean, listen, it’s so fascinating. I mean, we had Tom Payton on who did Where the Robots Grow. And for me that, for me, that was my Toy Story moment. know, like that was where I went. Basically at some point during the film, kills the digital dog. And I was yelling at the screen. Like, you know, I wasn’t crying, sure. But I was visibly annoyed, upset. I didn’t understand. something else. I didn’t turn it off. I didn’t disconnect. I was actually more invested and upset that this character had died because I had come to feel for it. there were, and, and, you know, I do think, you know, like you said, I think that that’s coming and I think it is going to change the game. And I think that, you know, I don’t know about you, but in, you know, the commercial world and the filmmaking world and a of the people that I was around,

There was this general poo pooing of YouTube when it first came out in the mid 2000s. And it was, well, that’s where all the crap’s gonna go. That’s where all the slop is gonna go. ⁓ And now it’s sort of undeniably, there are people who understand the format. They’re growing like Mr. Beast and Logan Paul back in, in traditional legacy media, into traditional legacy media. You know, I think, I think. Bryn Mooser (37:28) Yeah. Yeah. Orlando Wood (37:50) now we’re sort of these tools are just going to pour lighter fluid on that growth trend. And, you know, we’re going to have really interesting things coming out of, you know, some film student at University of Boulder is going to see Shannon and Alou and go, well, I can do that. You know, I’m going to do some really weird stuff with this and I’m going to make a really interesting avant garde film that maybe only me and my Bryn Mooser (38:09) Yeah. Orlando Wood (38:18) friends who wear skinny jeans and smoke a lot of cigarettes are gonna like, but that’s what it’s gonna be and it’ll find an audience, you know? Bryn Mooser (38:25) I guess the question is, listen, I totally agree with that. There’s a thing still about Hollywood, which is that it is very powerful in shaping culture in a way that is ⁓ important to not sort of discount, right? Which is like, ⁓ know, Sean Baker can get a table at the Chateau Marmont. anytime he wants and Mr. Beast or whoever makes skibbity toilet probably can’t, but you know, Sean, Mr. Beast could buy the Chateau Marmont and so could the skibbity toilet guy, right? So it’s like, I don’t know if, I don’t know how much, like I think that we need to be fully aware that the systems of distribution and reaching audiences has shifted dramatically and even how to. monetize things, right? Like the look at skibbity in the amount of money it makes in Fortnite or whatever. Like we even know all of those things, but we also need to be like still aware that like Hollywood is powerful, you know, it is still, you know, ⁓ as even an exporter of culture or democracy, whatever it’s like, there’s a real power in that that I think is like important that we don’t all kind of discount. And so I think it’s about like, how do you really spend time? paying attention to those things and understanding those things. And you can’t ⁓ ignore either one of them, right? Like you can’t ignore Mr. Beast because you’re like, ⁓ but Angelina Jolie says this thing. And you can’t ignore Angelina Jolie’s power to like, you know, sit down with the president of every single country if she wanted to, right? Like, I ⁓ don’t know. I think it’s like we’re in this like incredibly interesting moment where the future is like being written right now and like a

paying attention to those things and understanding those things. And you can’t ⁓ ignore either one of them, right? Like you can’t ignore Mr. Beast because you’re like, ⁓ but Angelina Jolie says this thing. And you can’t ignore Angelina Jolie’s power to like, you know, sit down with the president of every single country if she wanted to, right? Like, I ⁓ don’t know. I think it’s like we’re in this like incredibly interesting moment where the future is like being written right now and like a Orlando Wood (40:01) Mm-hmm. Bryn Mooser (40:19) why wouldn’t you do like what we’re trying to do, which is like spend time to try to be a part of what the future looks like. And try to be ⁓ conscious about how do you be a part of that future in a positive way for filmmakers. Orlando Wood (40:34) Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, what does it look like with new talent? you see the role of the studio turning more to, on some level, like being more like a sports team where you’re actually spending a lot more time seeking out talent that’s doing impressive things? I mean, in some ways that doesn’t change, but ⁓ do you see a lot more kind of recruiting of talent from… things that they’re doing in their bedroom to, you know, to trying to put a more professional sheen around it. Bryn Mooser (41:09) Our thesis has been kind of closer to ILM, which is like, find those talented people in their basement somewhere and bring them under one room and then bring in the best filmmakers to work with them and apprentice under those filmmakers. And the team that’s back there is like, you know, 30 something of the most inspiring, incredible people from all over the world who have figured out little parts of this puzzle. ⁓ And I think that many of them will be great filmmakers of tomorrow, but they’re still like, is not everybody is a filmmaker. Not everybody can do it. It’s a real craft. ⁓ And so I do think that it’s like this, it’s an evolution of kind of those things mixing together. Like I think the world where people are like, I saw this guy make this thing and now what movie do you wanna make buddy? Is it’s not gonna work. Right. Because what we’ve seen is, although impressive, we’re seeing essentially silent sizzles with no real story. And it’s like, this guy made this spec Star Wars thing. That’s a knockout. And by the way, it’s super impressive, but it’s not a movie. Right. But like put that guy on, you know, JJ Abrams team and like, it’s a knockout. Right. And then, then take that guy out in three years and go say, okay, now you

Right. Because what we’ve seen is, although impressive, we’re seeing essentially silent sizzles with no real story. And it’s like, this guy made this spec Star Wars thing. That’s a knockout. And by the way, it’s super impressive, but it’s not a movie. Right. But like put that guy on, you know, JJ Abrams team and like, it’s a knockout. Right. And then, then take that guy out in three years and go say, okay, now you Orlando Wood (42:06) Mm. Mm. Mm. Right. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Bryn Mooser (42:34) who spent three years working for JJ, like what movie do you wanna make? I think that’s how it works, right? So I think when people who are just trying to cut to the front of the line and be like, I wanna find these guys who are making this little exciting sizzle, I don’t think you’re gonna see those movies come from those people, yet. Orlando Wood (42:47) Yeah, yeah, it’s interesting. know, I mean, you’re repositioning as artists first. It’s very interesting because you were telling me earlier that you’re in ⁓ your offices or in Mabel Norman’s, ⁓ you know, old production company, which is pretty great because very similar. Like she was a ⁓ silent film actress in the 20s who, you know, was one of the first females to have her own studio and like, you know, working right at the edges of tech. She started out silent screen and sort of grew from there. ⁓ And it sounds like that’s very similar to your guys ethos is trying to bring in that technology to empower artists to to be more powerful in the game as these these high large motes and high walls are coming down from around the studios, being able to kind of, you know, really empower them in a very real way with this technology. Bryn Mooser (43:39) So it’s not an accident that we’re in this. studio, you know, like it’s very intentional. I wanted to be in a place. This studio was built, like you said, by Mabel Norbin in 1916. You know, there wasn’t ⁓ a roof originally because there was no electricity and they would just use the sun. ⁓ And the technology of the time was painted backdrops. You know, these sort of beautiful painted backdrops. There’s many of them still here. And like Max Sennett, who was the pioneer of those things, made like thousand films in his lifetime during that time. They made, I think, a handful of Charlie Chaplin movies.

studio, you know, like it’s very intentional. I wanted to be in a place. This studio was built, like you said, by Mabel Norbin in 1916. You know, there wasn’t ⁓ a roof originally because there was no electricity and they would just use the sun. ⁓ And the technology of the time was painted backdrops. You know, these sort of beautiful painted backdrops. There’s many of them still here. And like Max Sennett, who was the pioneer of those things, made like thousand films in his lifetime during that time. They made, I think, a handful of Charlie Chaplin movies. here, including Mickey. And it is the story of technology then, right? Like we were living in a time in 1916, it was like, okay, well, you’re doing these painted backdrops and that’s the technology. then sound comes along and then color comes along and then computers come along. And I think I wanted to be in a space that like even subconsciously, every single person that walked in was reminded of that. We’ve been through as an industry pretty massive upheavals, which included imagine the conversations in this studio that were happening around like, should we do sound or not? Right? Like, what about all the people and whatever like, or color or not? Well, what about all the people? Should we do digital or not? Like it’s happened many times before and we’ve come out the other side. And so there’s a lot of lessons in that. And there’s a lot of, think, ⁓ Orlando Wood (44:49) Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Bryn Mooser (45:01) hopefully feelings of not being as afraid of it as that, which is like in all those moments, let’s learn what we can to help us and let’s try to learn what’s gonna hurt us and try to figure out how that balances. So I think that’s important, but it’s also like the story of Mabel is… Also like the ultimate Hollywood cautionary tale, which was like, Mabel was just a model and then she was an actress and then she was a writer and a director and a producer and then she was a studio boss. And then like they framed her for murder and took her out and she like died in her 30s in like an insane asylum. know, like not, it’s the studio, there is a power structure that is set up in a way to prevent. Orlando Wood (45:31) Yeah. Yeah. Bryn Mooser (45:41) I think people from just grinding up from the bottom like that and like part of why we’re here and what inspires me is this kind of spirit of Mabel Norman about like we’re gonna get this time Mabel like we’re gonna be able we’re gonna change it. ⁓ Like I don’t know that’s like ⁓ I have a little shrine upstairs to Mabel because I’m like it’s the DNA of what we’re doing and part of the thing that drives us and I hope that we’re successful at it. Orlando Wood (45:45) Mm-hmm. Great.

Bryn Mooser (46:09) We’re gonna try, we’re gonna spend as much blood and duct tape as we can to do it. But the walls are, know, the structures of power are deep and entrenched. I think that we’re, I think we got a real shot. Orlando Wood (46:10) Yeah. Yeah, fantastic. Well, that’s amazing. I I just have one question if you have the time. ⁓ There’s a question I’ve been asking everybody. I grew up in advertising. That’s where I sort of cut my teeth. And I had a great boss named Dan Wyden of Wyden and Kennedy, which is, you know, he’s kind of legend in the ad world. And he died quite recently. But he had this great quote where he said, you’re useless to me unless you fucked up big at least twice. ⁓ And I just loved it. It gave a lot of cover because whenever you fucked up, you’re like, well, that’s one. It was your nine lives, your creative nine lives. ⁓ And I was just wondering, can you remember remember and would you be willing to admit any time where you fucked up, whether big or small and what you learned from it? Bryn Mooser (46:58) You’re fit. my God. I’ve definitely fucked up many more times than two times. ⁓ I think that, ⁓ you know, I think that there’s been times where ⁓ I’ve, ⁓ one of my investors once told me a great piece of advice, which was never managed for the exits. Orlando Wood (47:13) Right, yeah. But big is the qualifier, fucked up big. Bryn Mooser (47:34) And what they mean by that is basically like, don’t build and you’re only thinking about what the outcome of this thing is. Like build something you love every single day. You believe in it. You’re going to make it happen no matter what. Like we were talking about those filmmakers before, and there’s definitely been times before where I ended up managing too much for the exits as, as, as documentaries were booming with XTR. It was happening all to every single, you know, I had this thesis, which was like documentaries never had an audience before. And now that they’re on streaming, they’ve got an audience. So when all of a sudden they realized that. They’re going to need a lot of them. If you can build the best documentary studio in the world, they’re going to call you. And so I was set out to build XTR to be the best documentary studio in the world. We got everybody called the second that they realized that we started making a lot. grew very quickly. Then everybody wanted to buy us.

They’re going to need a lot of them. If you can build the best documentary studio in the world, they’re going to call you. And so I was set out to build XTR to be the best documentary studio in the world. We got everybody called the second that they realized that we started making a lot. grew very quickly. Then everybody wanted to buy us. Orlando Wood (48:19) Yeah. Bryn Mooser (48:19) And I think that, and I had the advice before of don’t manage for the exits, but it’s easier said than done when you have the pressures building something that’s growing so fast, pressures investors, and it’s easy to kind of just lose sight of how you’re doing the right thing that you believe in because all of a sudden you have somebody being like, oh yeah, but we’ll buy your company and make you, so. Orlando Wood (48:26) Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Bryn Mooser (48:43) That’s what, I’ve fallen into that ⁓ trap before. So I would say my wisdom to part on is that I think it’s really true, which is, it’s not just true for startups, it’s true for life. Like don’t manage for the exits, know, like ⁓ the journey is the destination, whatever, all those things. Orlando Wood (48:55) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I’m probably you go, ⁓ well it’ll be easier once I sell. And then you sell it. go, well, it’s not like I’ve ever sat around doing nothing before. So I’m going to just find something else hard to do. Bryn Mooser (49:11) Yeah, how do you find a way to do what you love every single day and like, and be able to support the family and whatever you like. That’s the dream, right? Like it’s very easy when you’re building something that’s growing very quick to lose sight of that. Orlando Wood (49:16)

Orlando Wood (49:16) Yeah. Yeah. Bryn Mooser (49:30) and be like, what if I had a brownstone in New York and what if I had a place in Paris and what if I had this? And all of a sudden you’re you’re stressed. I’ll tell you this, I know a lot of billionaires. I probably know as many billionaires as anybody else and very few of them are really, really happy. It is like money doesn’t solve all of the… problems, power doesn’t solve all of the problems, you have to like really be loving it. So if you’re just thinking about an outcome where like, man, one day I’m going to be ba-ba-ba-ba-ba, you’ll lose sight of everything else that you do. Orlando Wood (49:59) Yeah. Yeah. Well, that’s fantastic. Bryn Mouser, thank you so much. It’s, ⁓ it’s been fascinating to talk to you. I’ve, you know, I’m such a fan of everything you’ve, you’ve done. Your, your trajectory is just so fascinating and brilliant. And, you know, I’m, so glad you’re, you’re onto a, you know, onto a winner here. And, and I just, I think it’s so fantastic. So thank you for spending the time. Bryn Mooser (50:26) Well, thank you and I love these conversations and love this show. So it’s a big honor for me to be on it. Orlando Wood (50:31) Thank you. I appreciate it.