Where the Robots Grow: The First AI Feature Built Without a Studio

In this episode of Technically Creative, Orlando sits down with filmmaker and technologist Tom Paton, founder of AImation, to explore how AI is already disrupting the entertainment industry — and why the next generation of filmmakers won’t need studios, crews, or even cameras.

From releasing the first feature-length AI film Where the Robots Grow to building a closed-beta streaming platform for gamified video-on-demand (GVOD), Tom lays out a radically efficient future for storytelling. A future where two people can make a full film in six weeks, powered by generative tools and creative instinct.

He also explains why legacy Hollywood is so unprepared for what’s coming: decentralized creators, genre-bending formats, and a new pipeline where production starts after post. The old model? It’s not just outdated — it’s already being replaced.

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Orlando and Tom uncover:

Why AI filmmaking is like Sundance in the Handycam era
How Where the Robots Grow was built by 9 people in under 90 days
The new economics of post-first production and studio-less pipelines
What GVOD means for content distribution after the death of subscription models
How AImation is positioning as the “AMC Theatres of AI”
Why the industry’s obsession with “tools” misses the point ofagentic collaboration

Technically Creative by KoobrikLabs explores how technology and AI are transforming the creative industries.

CHAPTER MARKERS

[00:00] From VFX artist to AI filmmaker: Tom’s creative evolution
[05:12] 9 people, 90 days, 1 viral feature: the Robots origin story
[10:24] Building AImation: infrastructure for decentralized cinema
[14:55] Post-first production: flipping the pipeline
[18:03] GVOD explained: gamified, swipe-based streaming
[23:40] “Where the audience is the market”: beyond niche
[28:10] AI isn’t a tool — it’s an agent
[33:45] Tom’s take on where legacy studios are getting it wrong
[37:52] Advice for creatives ready to jump in: “Just stop asking permission”
[41:00] Next up for AImation: animated series, AI reality TV, and micro-budget verticals

TRANSCRIPT

READ THE FULL TRANSCRIPT

Technically Creative by KoobrikLabs Podcast Transcript

Title:Where the Robots Grow: The First AI Feature Built Without a Studio

Host: Orlando Wood
Guest: Tom Paton

Tom Paton (00:05)

mean, look, the tech is, know, it advances at such a rapid pace now,

you know, from a filmmaking perspective, at least, you know, I

certainly, you know, can speak as a former VFX artist. It feels like

being in the middle of a singularity, you know, it’s like, you’re

trying to keep pace with something that just can’t be controlled in

that respect. But, you know, I think that’s why, you know, as a

company, we’ve been focusing on…

Orlando Wood (00:10)

Yeah.

Tom Paton (00:30)

building that direct-to-consumer relationship through gamified video

on demand. And we have our own backend that is designed to work

entirely with these new changes. So when a VO3 drops, it just slots

into what we’re doing. It actually just accelerates our pipeline. So,

yeah, it’s crazy times out there, to be honest.

Orlando Wood (00:41)

Yeah.

I heard somebody actually say that. They said, you know that you’re

doing something better than a rapper and you know that you’re doing

something that you’re on the right side of the tech. If when things

release, it makes your tech better, not makes it obsolete. And I think

that that’s a balance I think everybody’s trying to strike right now.

Tom Paton (01:07)

Yeah, I fully agree with that. I mean, look, the thing with the film

industry is, you you’re kind of trying to see people skin graft this

technology onto their existing workflows and having real trouble with

it. You know, it’s not necessarily conducive. It doesn’t want to be

embedded with the traditional pipeline. So, you know, there’s a few

companies out there. I like to think we’re one of them where, you

know, we speak fluent tech, but we speak fluent production as well.

And we know the demands of both. you know,

Orlando Wood (01:25)

Yeah.

Tom Paton (01:35)

It’s interesting when you see these big tools drop because they always

from an engineering perspective blow my mind. But then from a

production perspective, I go, but how are you going to use that? How’s

that going to work? Once you start stringing more than a two minute

trailer together, how does that actually work? How does that actually

benefit us? And so, yeah, you know, I’m always trying to approach the

tech we build in-house with that in mind and just make sure you never

get washed away. You don’t want to be a rapper.

It’s interesting when you see these big tools drop because they always

from an engineering perspective blow my mind. But then from a

production perspective, I go, but how are you going to use that? How’s

that going to work? Once you start stringing more than a two minute

trailer together, how does that actually work? How does that actually

benefit us? And so, yeah, you know, I’m always trying to approach the

tech we build in-house with that in mind and just make sure you never

get washed away. You don’t want to be a rapper.

Orlando Wood (01:41)

Hmm.

Yeah.

Tom Paton (02:00)

but you also wanna make sure that you can use the API keys to the best

of their ability.

Orlando Wood (02:05)

Yeah, and I do think that that’s the mark of creative people or people

who have worked in the creative space for a long time is your

imagination is always gonna be just that other side of the tech. If

the day before VO3 launched, your imagination went as far as this, the

moment VO3 comes out, you go, well, now my imagination’s there. You’re

gonna constantly be striving for whatever the thing just out of reach

is.

Tom Paton (02:31)

Yeah. I mean, I feel really sorry for big studios right now, know,

especially the sort of incumbents that have been around for like 30

plus years because they’re so used to building dedicated pipelines.

And, know, these are the same companies that spent, you know, three,

400,000 US dollars on an Avid suite and the desk. even though it’s,

even though it’s relatively redundant, they’re like, yeah, we have to

cut on Avid because we spent 300,000 on a desk 20 years ago. Like this

is…

Orlando Wood (02:35)

Mm. Mm. Mm.

Yeah.

Hmm.

Yeah.

Tom Paton (03:00)

This is like nightmare times for somebody with that mentality. How do

you keep up?

Orlando Wood (03:01)

Yeah.

Well, we were speaking to Lee and he was talking about when he founded

the electric theater collective and he was like, it was just at that

point where everybody was like, here’s the space to put the DigiBeta

and that was a 200 grand piece of kit. And he went, I think we can

just gaslight the clients into only taking sort of HD sort of video

files and sending them around in hard drives and just get out of

spending that 200K. And of course, you know, in every other…

Tom Paton (03:23)

Yeah.

Orlando Wood (03:30)

you know, VFX studio in London, they were still spending on, you know,

or they were either spending on a 200K DigiBeta or they were watching

it gather dust.

Tom Paton (03:39)

Yeah, honestly, I genuinely personally feel the same way about virtual

production. And I’m someone who made that mistake. We’re in a 6,000

square foot soundstage here in the UK. When we first started the

company, we were a research outfit. Pigeon Shrine, which is the

holding company now for AImation, that was started as a research

vehicle. Even the name is a joke. Pigeon’s the god of trash.

Everything AI made was terrible. We just kept offering it up.

Orlando Wood (04:02)

All right. Right.

Tom Paton (04:04)

You know, one of the first things we did was we built a virtual

production wall. We spent the money, we put it up, you know, and we

were really trying to hybridize what Gen.ai and virtual production

could do. And now it sits there collecting dust, you know, and I think

this will be the outcome for most of these VP stages, although, you

know, a lot of people will try and burn me at the stake for saying

that, but it’s true. That is the state, that’s where these walls are

headed.

Orlando Wood (04:19)

Yeah.

Right. Yeah. So, I mean, I’d love to get into your, you know,

obviously there’s, there’s so much to chat about with you. There’s,

there’s, you know, your background, obviously in VFX, also in

production, you know, you’ve been a producer, you’ve been a writer,

you’ve been a director, you know, and, what’s fascinating to me about

your sort of story is that, you know, your, your, you’ve created the

first feature.

Right. Yeah. So, I mean, I’d love to get into your, you know,

obviously there’s, there’s so much to chat about with you. There’s,

there’s, you know, your background, obviously in VFX, also in

production, you know, you’ve been a producer, you’ve been a writer,

you’ve been a director, you know, and, what’s fascinating to me about

your sort of story is that, you know, your, your, you’ve created the

first feature.

you know, created entirely in AI. What’s fascinating to me about that

with your story is it’s a very human story. You’ve been able to level

up and experience and show your ability to tell storytelling in sci-

fi, which is a very rarefied era. I most producer directors, you know,

don’t get that opportunity, you know, and you’ve worked with Malin

Ackerman and you’ve done, you know, productions.

and proving your ability to direct. But then this is just these tools

have just leveled you up and put you into into a different place. So I

think that like, you know, that that’s always I think I think that’s a

fascinating part about what you’ve you’ve done. And then there’s just

generally the technical achievement of where the robots grow. I think,

you know, and yeah, the tools have changed since you made it. But I

think that what I was really struck by was the

the character permanence, know, that, the characters, and that was

incredibly difficult and it’s getting a bit easier now, but that was

incredibly difficult and you really achieved it. You know, I felt

really connected to all of those characters. So much so that, you

know, my partner and I, when we were watching it, we were yelling at

the screen at a certain point, you know, we were sort of aghast and I

won’t give away what happens, but one of the characters,

gets removed from the storytelling. And we were yelling at the screen.

Now, focuses on, can it make you cry or whatever? Yes, we didn’t cry.

But we were emotionally compelled enough that we were yelling out at

the screen going, well, why can’t he just do this? And well, this

would be possible. And that just shows a connection enough to the

character that we were visibly.

Tom Paton (06:15)

You

Orlando Wood (06:38)

angered.

Tom Paton (06:38)

⁓ Yeah, I

look, I, you know, I mean, I don’t mind spoiling it. It’s been out for

a while. I mean, we, you know, was like we broke the cardinal room.

Like we killed the dog, you know, in a kid’s film. So yeah.

Orlando Wood (06:44)

All right, okay.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It was a very cute robot named number two, who sort of, as you

say, takes on the role of the dog and then also learns to speak a

little bit. And so it becomes even more anthropomorphized. So you grow

in your relationship to it and then you kill the dog and, know, and

then, you know, then later on there’s another robot that goes and I’m

like, well, he could have had his battery if he just brought him

along, you know.

Tom Paton (07:07)

You

Orlando Wood (07:15)

And I honestly don’t say that to have a go at the storytelling. I say

that because, you know, it’s the thing everybody’s been saying is not

possible, is that I could be invested enough that instead of going,

well, this is just stupid, you know, I didn’t walk away. went, well,

but why? Why couldn’t he?

Tom Paton (07:35)

Well, look, mean, there’s a lot to unpack there. I think you’ve made

me sound a lot more interesting than I probably feel, which is nice of

you. Thanks for that. But like, I, know, it weirdly, you know, I think

my background in indie cinema weirdly kind of makes myself and

AImation as a whole, you know, we’re sort of…

Orlando Wood (07:43)

Well, it’s the proofs in the pudding. So your, your opinion on that

fact doesn’t matter.

Tom Paton (07:59)

You know, like we’re like the deep seek of this AI film space in the

sense that, you know, lack of resources really forced us to innovate

and push as hard as we can. You know, and do you know, I’m very, I’m

always very inspired, you know, to do the thing that you’re not

supposed to do. You know, you’re not supposed to kill the dog. Okay,

fine. Let’s get rid of the dog. You know, you’re not supposed to make

a film using generative AI and AI tools.

in the middle of an actor’s strike about AI. But, you know, I was

like, well, hey, we’re in the UK and I can do what I want. And, you

know, so we went there and even the release around it, you know, for

those people that aren’t aware, you know, AImation is actually a

platform, a GVOD platform that we are in closed beta at the moment on

and doing better than we could have hoped, which is great. And where

the robots grow was kind of like

Orlando Wood (08:27)

Yeah.

Great.

Tom Paton (08:51)

Okay, we knew we building the platform and we’d also made this film

and it was actually the second movie that we made using this. We’ve

got an entirely different film called Moonquake, which is also Gen.AI

powered. I think you will see that this year. I think we’ve held it

back for the platform because it’s just that sort of level above. So

we decided to hold it back.

Orlando Wood (09:07)

Right, okay.

Tom Paton (09:11)

You know, and we got into some really interesting conversations.

People don’t realize that we made that movie last March. Nine people

made it in 90 days, you know. And like you say, the tech wasn’t really

where we wanted it to be at that point. But you know, I’m proud of the

results. I’m proud of what we got to do. And it was very interesting.

Like straight away, we had lots of big Hollywood interest. You know, I

went from that scrappy indie director that’s been doing films for

Redbox.

Orlando Wood (09:20)

Yeah.

Hmm.

Yeah.

Tom Paton (09:37)

And suddenly

I’m sitting in Universal’s office with the bosses and, you know,

meeting A-list actors. the thing with me is if I’m…

Orlando Wood (09:43)

Yeah. The classic

the classic overnight success that you know took 10 years, you know,

everybody goes well, he’s an overnight success, but you were like,

dude, I’ve been I’ve been toiling at this for quite some time. ⁓

Tom Paton (09:50)

Well, I also, I also…

I think the

thing is, I think it came at a good point in my career because, you

know, and I’m not just saying this, this is true. You know, I’d been

in the film industry for like 10 years and like, I’m just fully

unimpressed by that. Like, I don’t care. Like I didn’t give a shit. I

was like, cool, how much are you gonna pay for this or, you know? And

then we got into these discussions with a pretty big distributor and,

we nearly sold it to them.

thing is, I think it came at a good point in my career because, you

know, and I’m not just saying this, this is true. You know, I’d been

in the film industry for like 10 years and like, I’m just fully

unimpressed by that. Like, I don’t care. Like I didn’t give a shit. I

was like, cool, how much are you gonna pay for this or, you know? And

then we got into these discussions with a pretty big distributor and,

we nearly sold it to them.

Orlando Wood (10:14)

Mm-mm. Mm.

Tom Paton (10:24)

And then I saw the contract was like, yeah, we’re going to release it

end of quarter to beginning of quarter free 2025. You know, and the

tech company in me was just like, no, no. And so we just put it online

and you know that even that was interesting. Yeah. We went to a few

big, a few of these big channels. Yeah.

Orlando Wood (10:38)

Yeah. We should say that it’s you can you can. I anybody

listening, you know where the robots are. You can, know, search it on

YouTube right now and watch it. It’s you know, and that’s the other

great thing is it’s you know it’s it’s immediately available and I

think you’re I think you did exactly the right thing, but sorry go on.

Tom Paton (10:55)

Yeah, it was funny because we took it to some of these big YouTube

channels and we were like, you know, people that have got like 5

million subs and you know, regularly get hits like, hey, do you want

this? We’ll do it with you. And we kind of got the same response. They

were like, yeah. And then they found out it was AI and they were like,

we’re kind of scared of getting shouted at. And so, so we were like,

okay, fine. We’ll just build our own channel. We know that the point

of all of this is to create interest in the platform itself. And so

So we put it out there and just so you know, since then, since, well,

really, we finished building our back of house platform, which is

called Omnigeno One. Now you could make where the robots grow with

that platform with two people in six weeks. You could make the same

film, a probably slightly better standard. And we’ve gone ahead and

we’ve made 10 movies and pilots since January the 20th. We’re in the

process of scaling up now. So, you know, I’m very much about, you

know,

removing barriers and just doing what’s in your head. To answer the

other thing you were saying, I also genuinely care about storytelling.

I really care about theme. I care about exploring theme. And honestly,

I don’t think the medium in which you tackle exploring theme through

story really matters, whether you’re doing it as a play or as a book

or as an AI movie.

You know, the rules have been the same for, you know, 5,000 plus

years. And, you know, if you can hit those beats, then you can connect

to an audience, I hope.

Orlando Wood (12:17)

Yeah, no, it’s very interesting. mean, we’ve talked about it just a

few times on the podcast that, you know, with YouTube unseating Disney

as the number one TV distributor in America. think it’s a, know, the

creative communities or the legacy film and television industry have

always kind of looked down their nose at YouTube. And I think kind

of…

You know this notion that certain things are real creativity and

certain things aren’t and usually the differentiator is craft and I

think that you know now that these tools are are out there I think

that what you’re going to see is like yes, it’s it’s going to. You

know it’s going to take away that rarefied air of mystery, but what it

is going to do is it’s going to mean that anyone who maybe has some

latent ability as a storyteller is going to be able to showcase it.

They’re going to be able to do it more.

And, you know, as we can all tell in most creative, you know, worlds,

doing it more is the thing that is probably the biggest differentiator

to being good or not, you know? And if you can tell three to five

stories a year and see what’s working, see what’s not, you know,

you’re far more likely to become a really expert storyteller. And I

think that, you know, a lot of that’s

going to be happening everywhere. The culture is not going to be just

defined by New York and London and LA. I think that, you know, one of

the things when I worked for the BBC, one of the things they always

kind of said was, hey, listen, a lot of the stuff you’re pitching us

is very London based and we’re a national organization. We want to see

leads and we want to see Blackpool and we want to see, you know, know,

Newcastle represented.

in the storytelling because everything tends to be very London

centric. And I think that this is the type, these are the types of

tool that empower that. I mean, and in your case, the, you know, as

yet untold worlds of culture.

Tom Paton (14:04)

Yeah.

Yeah, well, I mean, look, you’re absolutely right. you know, I’m like,

I see myself very much as a futurist. you know, the thing that I’ve

been very good at throughout my whole career has been kind of seeing

where the chess pieces are moving and kind of getting ahead of that.

You know, when it came to the DSLR movement, I was one of the first

out the gate, which is how I ended up doing all those indie movies,

you know. And I saw the writing on the wall with Gen. AI very early,

you know.

Yeah, well, I mean, look, you’re absolutely right. you know, I’m like,

I see myself very much as a futurist. you know, the thing that I’ve

been very good at throughout my whole career has been kind of seeing

where the chess pieces are moving and kind of getting ahead of that.

You know, when it came to the DSLR movement, I was one of the first

out the gate, which is how I ended up doing all those indie movies,

you know. And I saw the writing on the wall with Gen. AI very early,

you know.

Orlando Wood (14:15)

Yeah.

Tom Paton (14:34)

And so we kind of maneuvered into that place. And honestly, I think

you’re right when you bring up YouTube and in terms of like, why is

YouTube become the powerhouse that it has? Why are people going home

and choosing to put YouTube on instead of a traditional show that’s

been made for an awful lot of money? And like, there’s a few things

that are going on here mechanics wise that I find really interesting.

Like one is, you you’re right, the craft or the QC bar, like the level

of quality control.

was really the barrier that Hollywood had. And the audience has sort

of decided for Hollywood to lower the quality control bar. Without

asking for permission, they just said, I’m actually all right with

watching these two guys talk on a podcast with no production value.

That’s fine for me. And so that’s a problem. And then the other thing

is, you’re right. Kraft, you fine tune what your audience want.

Orlando Wood (15:09)

Yeah.

Right. ⁓

Tom Paton (15:24)

And when you’re on YouTube as a creator and you’re not beholden to

approvals and signing off, you’re making stuff very rapidly and you’re

getting very good at giving the audience what they want, ditching what

they don’t want, you’re fine tuning your craft. And it doesn’t work

like that in traditional film. In traditional film and TV, you you

write something and it’s normally at least a year out before it

appears in front of anyone’s eyes. And so…

You know, I think we’re losing the battle, traditionally speaking,

because of immediacy and relevancy. Like nothing that is being made

traditionally feels immediate. It doesn’t feel relevant. And AI really

changes that. And then I think the other problem that Hollywood cannot

see coming, and they should be, I mean, if I was them, this would be

my sole focus on trying to figure out how do we stop this now before

it gets out of hand? Because…

Within the next three years, we’re going to see a new form of piracy

emerge on YouTube specifically, but also on X and Vimeo, Facebook. And

it’s not going to be the kind of piracy they used to tackling, like

where before you had to worry about someone comes to your cinema and

films on a camcorder and then leaks it online on a torrent. Now what

you’re going to have to deal with is, let’s say there’s a factory in

Taiwan that is currently making counterfeit Nike footballs, 300,000 of

them a day.

Within the next three years, we’re going to see a new form of piracy

emerge on YouTube specifically, but also on X and Vimeo, Facebook. And

it’s not going to be the kind of piracy they used to tackling, like

where before you had to worry about someone comes to your cinema and

films on a camcorder and then leaks it online on a torrent. Now what

you’re going to have to deal with is, let’s say there’s a factory in

Taiwan that is currently making counterfeit Nike footballs, 300,000 of

them a day.

and then they

Orlando Wood (16:41)

Yeah.

Tom Paton (16:41)

put them into the marketplace and they know that 90 % of them are

going to get caught. But for the 10 % that make it through, it’s

monetarily worth it to play this game. In the next three years, those

same factories in Taiwan are going to make 300,000 Pirates of the

Caribbean films. They’ll be two hours long. Some of them will be

great. Some of them will be terrible. They’ll be monetized throughout

the whole internet in such a never ending wave.

Orlando Wood (17:05)

Yeah.

Tom Paton (17:06)

that if you’re Disney making a $150 million pirates film, how do you

combat this? And worse, now the audience starts to see your IP as AI

and they’re, don’t watch that. And so now they start to drip.

Orlando Wood (17:12)

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they can churn the

franchise out as though it’s in television episodes. You know, you

could have the new Pirates movie comes out and then they’re going, OK,

well, we’ve turned this episodic and now there’s 22 episodes within,

you know, two years, you know. Yeah. ⁓

Tom Paton (17:23)

Yeah.

How do you fight this? You will spend billions of dollars trying to

pull down

this material, right? And it will always be economically worth it for

these pirate outfits to put it out because, well, you we made $50

here, $100 there. The cost of production for us was zero, you know? So

they’re in a real bad spot. And you can see the music industry going

through it now. know, Drake is the most copied AI artist on the

planet.

Orlando Wood (17:48)

Yeah.

Tom Paton (17:57)

And he’s going to have to do what Grimes has already done, which is

go, okay, it’s just 50-50. If you use my voice and name, we just split

the revenue 50-50. And I can genuinely see a version of Hollywood in

the immediate future where that becomes a primary economic driver for

them. Where they’re just like, look, we don’t make anything. We just

split the revenue 50-50 with the content creators.

Orlando Wood (18:16)

Right. Yeah, we just manage

IP and licenses. Yeah, that’s that’s fascinating. Yeah.

Tom Paton (18:21)

I can see that coming.

Orlando Wood (18:24)

Yeah, that’s a really good point. Sorry, I’m trying to sort of unpack

all of the different ways in which that kind of matters and happens.

Because yeah, it’s interesting. I mean, first of all, it seemed that

Hollywood got it in the 90s when people were sort of, it’s Sundance

coming out with movies on Handycam. You sort of.

thought, OK, Hollywood’s getting it, that actually story is what

matters. All of this sort of fine sheen and stuff is maybe extraneous

to good storytelling, character driven. mean, going back to 1970s

cinema is all character driven rather than plot driven. And then I

really thought that was going to happen when Sean Baker did Tangerine

on an iPhone. I was like, they’re really going to get that this is the

new form of storytelling. And then it sort of didn’t happen again.

And Sean kind of went into that, you know, the more traditional place.

and you know, YouTube just picked up that ball and ran with it. The IP

realities are fascinating as well. mean, I think that they’ve been

studios. We’ve been a part of some very high level conversations with

studios as they’re wrestling with user generated content. The thing

that they’re constantly trying to do though, is figure out what the

sandbox looks like, you know, the, shape of the sandbox because.

If you’re going to let people make their own Hanna-Borbera cartoons,

you absolutely can’t allow them to take your IP assets and then have

Shaggy and Velma going off into a broom cupboard and, know, and, you

know, shaggying. you know, but, know, these, they get very, you know,

and the, the, the architecture of that sandbox becomes the thing that

holds them back.

And actually, you know, it might be interesting them coming to grips

with the power of what it looks like when the gloves are off. Because

I do think other than your movie, there have been a lot of times I’ve

seen things on Reddit, which is just a short. This was all generated

in AI and I usually blow by it unless it’s Muppets, if Thunderdome or,

you know, or Kart, a dark version of Mario, but.

And actually, you know, it might be interesting them coming to grips

with the power of what it looks like when the gloves are off. Because

I do think other than your movie, there have been a lot of times I’ve

seen things on Reddit, which is just a short. This was all generated

in AI and I usually blow by it unless it’s Muppets, if Thunderdome or,

you know, or Kart, a dark version of Mario, but.

all IP things that I have a previous relationship

Tom Paton (20:29)

you know, it’s

funny, right? Because you’re right about the 90s movement. you know, I

personally think the reason that, know, the tangerine coming out on an

iPhone 4S didn’t create that. And Hollywood as an infrastructure, as a

business, you know, and this kind of extends to most of entertainment

that, know, that emerged, say, prior to 20 years ago. And it’s based

on culture. And the problem is, culture doesn’t exist anymore.

Culture…

Orlando Wood (20:42)

Yeah.

Tom Paton (20:54)

takes time to grow, know, like a film, an indie film made in the

seventies or the nineties. It’s spread through word of mouth. It had

these long lead ways of theatrical time. You know, it’s like moss

growing on a rock. It takes a while, but once it’s embedded in, it

becomes a feature of the rock and that’s culture. But then the

internet came along and more specifically, meme culture arrived in the

sort of, know, 2011, 2012.

And I think we’ve got Tim and Eric, awesome job to thank for this.

kind of changed the nature of comedy and made it very memeable. And

all of a sudden, this ability for the moss to grow on the rock

vanished because the rock is constantly being hosed down every day and

starting fresh. And so when you’ve built an industry that depends on

culture to take hold.

And suddenly culture is really just like meme culture. Meme culture is

like fast. It’s immediate, it’s relevant. know, everybody’s talking

about hock to a girl today and now people are like, who’s hock to a

girl? What’s that? You know, or like finding a hat with her name on

it. Like, why did I buy this? You know, the cycle is so quick. How do

you get an industry that was literally built on the foundations of…

Orlando Wood (21:52)

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Tom Paton (22:04)

the moss growing on the rock to survive in this environment. I think

the reality is you can’t, you know, and this is what you’re talking

about with the sandbox. They’re trying to always go, how do we, how do

we make the sandbox look like what we’ve always known? And so what

they’re doing is they’re defaulting back on, on old IP stuff that

still has cultural name, like the stuff that had time to become a

feature of the rock before meme culture arrived. And, you know,

Orlando Wood (22:10)

Mm.

Yeah.

Tom Paton (22:32)

Now we’re just like, okay, let’s do that again. Let’s do that again.

And that’s very problematic. And meanwhile, YouTube is doing whatever

it wants to do. People are coming out the gates. They’re being

immediate. They’re being relevant. They’re just going wild. And so,

you know, for us, it was really about looking at that last year and

going, okay, how do we use the technology at our hand? How do we

rebuild the pipeline from the ground up so that it’s much more focused

on being immediate and relevant?

Orlando Wood (22:34)

Yeah.

Tom Paton (22:58)

But instead of being user generated content, how do we build an

ecosystem, a sandbox that’s focused on professional generated content,

literally? How do we go after all these displaced people in Hollywood,

all the people that are about to find themselves out of work, that

have got a very broad sense of language when it comes to cinema? And

how do we retrain them and retarget them and make them part of this

new system?

Orlando Wood (23:07)

Yeah.

Tom Paton (23:24)

and also create a place where the user goes, okay, if it’s on YouTube,

quality might vary. But if it’s on these guys, it’s not a subscription

service, I’ve got a habitual relationship with it, and it’s probably

pretty good, you know? So I think that’s where we are, we’re kind of

trying to build the first steps on that ladder that I think will

become a very important ladder when this form of piracy arrives in

three years time.

Orlando Wood (23:33)

Yeah.

Right. so let’s get getting into AI mation. know, the the stated

premise of it was that with a team of nine, you could do what you did

with where the robots grow and that you could within sort of 90 days

or, you know, 120, whatever that that time frame is with a team of

nine people, you could make a feature film. I imagine, you know, you

you just said that, you know, now it’s down to kind of teams of two

and, you know, but

How does it work? How does it work best? what exactly are you

building? I’d love to just hear more about it.

Tom Paton (24:17)

Yeah, mean, look, my background is in VFX, post-production, coding. So

was kind of like, okay, let’s bring these skill sets together. You

know, and I personally was very frustrated with traditional filmmaking

because you front load production, you front load prep with the

budget. you know, like, I think anybody that knows, I mean, I’m a

writer and a director, but I also happen to be just okay at those

things. I’m a much better editor than I am at those other two.

Orlando Wood (24:41)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Tom Paton (24:43)

And so, you

Orlando Wood (24:44)

Yeah.

Tom Paton (24:44)

know, I think I always felt like the film gets made in the edit, end

of story, you know, like the editor is really God. People don’t want

to hear that, but it’s true. It’s the final draft of the script. It’s

where the movie is actually becomes a functioning thing. And it’s the

thing that no budget is given to, no time and attention is given to.

And when the film turns out horribly, they blame posts. say, well,

it’s VFX’s fault that, you know, we’ve got cats, the movie.

You know, really that is a very different issue that caused that. And

so I really set out initially to go, okay, can we, it was COVID, you

know, everybody was not doing a lot. You know, I set out to go, okay,

let’s use this time to try and reinvent the wheel. Like if you, if

film was being created today from scratch and you didn’t have to

follow any of these conventions.

Orlando Wood (25:11)

Right.

Yeah.

Tom Paton (25:34)

how would you go about it? And so we settled on this idea of post

first. We’ll do post first and then use generative AI to

Orlando Wood (25:41)

And so you

started this before the first AI tool, the first highly developed AI

tools came out. Great.

Tom Paton (25:46)

Yeah, so we started the company. So

was percolating conceptually from like late 21. And we officially

launched the company, I think, in June of 2022. So I think we’re on

mid-journey version two at that point. You know, no chat GPT that had

not launched yet. That wasn’t a thing. I think that came out in the

November of that point. But, know, again, it was like, I felt very

strongly. I was like, look,

Orlando Wood (25:54)

Mm-hmm.

Tom Paton (26:11)

I’m looking for a Netflix moment here and Netflix, Netflix didn’t

become Netflix because of streaming. It was a convergence of events.

know, they, they realized technological innovation was going to come.

And so they figured out how to do a distributed, a distribution

pipeline for 1080p content, even though the tech would only let them

do 360p right now. And they got way ahead and they were like, okay,

when it arrives, we’re first, we’re already there. We know what we’re

doing.

And so when everybody else is trying to figure out suddenly, we’ve got

to technologically innovate now, they were already at the economic

innovation point. And so I was like, okay, I can see this coming. We

need to do this as well. We need to be technologically innovating

right now. I don’t know what the product is. I don’t know where we’re

going. I just know that we need to figure out what production looks

like in this era. And then by the time everybody else figures it out,

Orlando Wood (26:48)

Right.

Tom Paton (27:04)

we should be openly talking about the economic innovation, but this is

how you make money from this. This is the impact that it’s going to

have on your traditional distribution routes. So that’s really where

this started. Yeah, and we did, we spent a lot of time and a lot of

resources. We tried every angle, hybrid productions, fully generative

ones. And it was really that one that convinced me, okay, this is the

future.

we should be openly talking about the economic innovation, but this is

how you make money from this. This is the impact that it’s going to

have on your traditional distribution routes. So that’s really where

this started. Yeah, and we did, we spent a lot of time and a lot of

resources. We tried every angle, hybrid productions, fully generative

ones. And it was really that one that convinced me, okay, this is the

future.

And very quickly we realized that filmmaking like this, its closest

cousin is documentary filmmaking. You know, that’s the closest

relationship. Well, if you think about how you make a documentary, you

know, let’s say me and you go, right, we want to make a documentary

about somebody who’s been in prison for 20 years and we want to free

him. We’re the producers. So the first thing we’re going to do is

we’re going to hire somebody to go and collect as much material as

they can.

Orlando Wood (27:35)

Interesting.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

As much footage as

possible, yeah.

Tom Paton (27:53)

Yeah, and then we’re give that to an editor. I’m gonna say like, get

this down into like something watchable. And then we’re probably gonna

hire a director and that person is gonna come in and look at this

first cut and go, well, you should focus more on this. We should shoot

some recreation footage. Can we get some interviews from here? And so

that’s a very post first approach to putting a story together. And

Gen.ai lets that you do that basically, you know, we come to the party

with a script.

Orlando Wood (28:08)

Interesting.

Yeah.

Tom Paton (28:20)

Then we go out and we try to collect as much material as we can that

represents that script. Then we edit it down into something just about

watchable. And then we go, okay, let’s change this. Let’s tweak that.

Let’s go here, you know. And notes becomes part of it. so what we

ended up doing is we built a 242 page system prompt guide in house

here last year that is essentially, okay, this is how you make an AI-

Mation production. This is a one person.

Orlando Wood (28:42)

Right.

Tom Paton (28:47)

puts 22 minutes of anime together in two weeks. we found it very labor

intensive, not from the work perspective, bizarrely, but from trying

to protect the material. Because I also think that chain of title is

going to rapidly change here, right now, let’s say we’re making our

documentary, I need a contract, you need a contract, then we get some

contracts for the material and the editor.

Orlando Wood (28:51)

Right.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Tom Paton (29:13)

in the Gen AI space, we’re gonna need a contract for every single

shot. Like, where did it come from? What did the prompt say? Because

there’s a version of this where you go to court one day, you know, and

this happens in the traditional space. There’ll be no difference

between somebody coming after you for copyright infringement in the AI

world as there is in the traditional world. Like, forget the input

argument. That is a different argument. Like, how they trained it.

Well, that’s the companies. They’ll have to do their…

buyouts or whatever they do and they’ll probably end up something like

PRS is how it will end up. But then the output of this, let’s say

somebody takes me to court like the guy who took Disney to court from

Moana and says, oh, you guys stole Moana from me. Disney had to prove

that they didn’t have the intent and that they didn’t have the means

of access. And if they’d have lost on one of those points, that guy

wins a giant payout or the rights to Moana, which is a disaster.

Orlando Wood (29:43)

Mm hmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Tom Paton (30:05)

So we got

Orlando Wood (30:05)

Yeah.

Tom Paton (30:05)

to do the same thing here, and that means you have to have very

documented prompts. You need to make sure that you don’t have some

rogue employee that puts in the style of Pixar in a prompt. So you

actually spend a lot of labor and man hour documenting your process.

So we built the Omnigen 01 platform, which is all of our 242 page

system prompts behind the backend, and it lets us API key into new

tools as they come out.

to do the same thing here, and that means you have to have very

documented prompts. You need to make sure that you don’t have some

rogue employee that puts in the style of Pixar in a prompt. So you

actually spend a lot of labor and man hour documenting your process.

So we built the Omnigen 01 platform, which is all of our 242 page

system prompts behind the backend, and it lets us API key into new

tools as they come out.

Orlando Wood (30:14)

Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Tom Paton (30:31)

but it also does all of this stuff for you. you know, it’s a very sort

of by the numbers, easy approach for content rights holders, for IP

holders that can come to us and they can say, yo, I really want to

make an anime using your pipeline. And we can say, absolutely, it’s a

business to business service. You know, we will charge the user a

nominal fee. They’ll pay as they go for the tokens that they use.

And we’ll hardwire into it. Look, we also want a non-exclusive

contract for the rights to that content for the AI-Mation platform,

but you can also do what you want with it, or you can buy us out of

that license agreement. And so the idea is to try and make what we’ve

built here accessible to you guys, to anybody. You know, if you’re

sitting on 10 scripts right now, that you spent a fortune on

development and none of them are going anywhere, well, now they can go

somewhere, come and talk to us. And so…

Orlando Wood (31:10)

Mm-hmm. Right.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Tom Paton (31:22)

The business is really kind of a true end-to-end solution where it’s

like, you know, we want to work with IP holders, we want to make

content faster and at speed, but we also want to give you a home to

economically monetize this in the incoming wave of content wars that

AI is about to bring as well.

Orlando Wood (31:39)

And so your ideal user is a filmmaking professional at the moment.

Tom Paton (31:44)

Well, this

is I mean, so you’re talking about two sides of the company. So the

real the front end platform, the G VOD platform is everyday, everyday

consumers.

Orlando Wood (31:51)

It’s just, yeah,

consumers who wanna kind of see what people have made using you guys.

Tom Paton (31:56)

Yeah, and

you have to think about it like real short, you know, I don’t know if

you’ve heard of these guys.

Orlando Wood (32:00)

And presumably eventually

you’ll open that up as well. Once you get a bunch of users and they’re

paying whatever else and you guys have some profit kicking around, you

go, we really like this thing. Somebody’s made over there and they

haven’t made it with our platform, but we’d really like to show this

to our users. So you have that economic model and then separately you

have the sort of, you know, the, I imagine a range of low use to high

touch relationship to filmmaking professionals or people who

have the financial resource to be able to explore whether this could

be done and then they can either get helped by you or they can kind of

take your platform and run with it. Is that about right? Right.

Tom Paton (32:36)

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly that. mean, look,

we called it AImation for a reason. You know, I truly believe it’s an

emergent media space. It’s not traditional. It’s not a traditional

film. And I don’t like when I hear people say AI is just a tool. I’m

like, it’s not a tool, guys. That’s it. That is that’s you being

disingenuous about what’s happening here. Because, you know, when I I

worked in VFX, the client used to say, oh, isn’t there just like a

dinosaur button that you press and then you get the T-Rex?

Orlando Wood (32:54)

Yeah.

Tom Paton (33:03)

And you’d like,

no, I’ve got to sit here and ray trace this and render it for like six

weeks. But AI is a render, it’s a dinosaur button, right? It’s an

agentic relationship with something where you, the creator say, I want

you to go off and bring me these things back. Like it’s not a tool,

it’s an agentic relationship with something unique. And so I am very

keen on being like, look, this is its own separate lane. You have

traditional animation.

Orlando Wood (33:08)

Yeah.

Tom Paton (33:30)

Traditional media, I love and respect both of them, but that’s not

what this is and we should stop pretending that it is. And I think

that opens up lots of interesting discussions because we have a

platform that is built around the same economic micro transaction

model as something like Reelshort, except for horizontal content. Your

content can have a life outside of that ecosystem. You can sell it to

Netflix when you’re done with it. You can basically treat us like a

theatrical window, you know.

Orlando Wood (33:31)

Hmm. Hmm. Hmm!

Right.

Tom Paton (33:58)

And if you don’t know who Reelshot are, fascinating. They are vertical

short bite content where the user is forced to touch the screen every

minute and a half. And they’re doing about $120 million of revenue a

month currently from questionable content, shall we say. So we’re

trying to create that infrastructure in that market for professionals

to make long form content using AI-mation and also not affect your

careers. You know what, you want to go and work in traditional film.

Orlando Wood (34:11)

Wow.

Right.

Tom Paton (34:26)

fine, like still go direct that movie. But if you’re sitting on 10

scripts that you’re like, these are never going to get going. Well,

why don’t you turn them into valuable IP, build up an audience, make

them in an anime format or something. There’s a home to distribute

them on. You you’ve still got the IP rights. You can do what you want

with it. You know, and essentially that’s kind of the model that we’re

building. We’re trying to build an end to end trusted infrastructure

for professionals and for the users where you go,

We know this is AI, we know what it is and it’s cool. We like it. This

is what we want to watch.

Orlando Wood (34:59)

Yeah, yeah, that’s interesting, because I mean, listen, you know,

YouTube is kind of showing that model. I mean, YouTube, the head of

YouTube was on the town with Matt, Matt Belloni the other day, and he

was just saying, listen, when we see Mr. Beast go off and make beast

games with a network, we’re super proud of him. We don’t. That’s not

the place that we play in. We’re not trying to play in that place. We

look at him and look at all of our creators and go.

Yeah, yeah, that’s interesting, because I mean, listen, you know,

YouTube is kind of showing that model. I mean, YouTube, the head of

YouTube was on the town with Matt, Matt Belloni the other day, and he

was just saying, listen, when we see Mr. Beast go off and make beast

games with a network, we’re super proud of him. We don’t. That’s not

the place that we play in. We’re not trying to play in that place. We

look at him and look at all of our creators and go.

This is the opportunity that’s available to you. Look at the path

we’ve created. This amazing stage we’ve created to take you from where

you are now to doing what Mr. Beast is doing. If he goes off and does

that, we have all these other creators that we’re trying to work with.

And I think that that model is smart.

Tom Paton (35:40)

Absolutely. Yeah, well, I mean, we

Yeah, we call what we do GVOD because you’re swiping on the left and

right of the screen habitually every 30 seconds, you’re earning coins

in app as you’re watching. And then you get a micro transaction at

roundabout every six minute mark and you can watch an advert or you

can pay to unlock with the coins that you’ve earned or you can buy

coins. So there’s a mobile gaming element fused onto it that doesn’t

interfere with the content. You’re not choosing the story. It’s linear

stuff, you know.

Orlando Wood (36:09)

Right. Yeah.

Tom Paton (36:11)

And so that means you can just take this and you can use this as an

economic route where, you know, we’re in, like I said, we’re in closed

beta right now, but we’re already seeing 8.74 is our average for

sessions per device, which is mobile gaming level high. You know,

we’re seeing early signs of people who are, you know, it’s been in

closed beta for three weeks and we’ve got one guy who’s got nearly

90,000 coins in that space of time. You know, we don’t know who these

people are.

Orlando Wood (36:26)

Yeah.

Tom Paton (36:37)

And so there’s real data now to back up what we’re saying, which is,

look, you’re always gonna get people that are gonna go watch this on

YouTube at home. We want you to do that. We want you to sell it to

Hulu. We want you to sell it to Netflix. But we also want you to think

about, you know, in this economic market, in this day and age, like

what’s your theatrical window? Where are you putting this to make the

money that you used to get from AMC cinemas? And so…

Orlando Wood (36:57)

Hmm.

Yeah.

Tom Paton (37:02)

You know, a lot of meetings I do, people go, you’re trying to be the

Netflix of AI. I’m like, no, Netflix will be the Netflix of AI.

YouTube is the YouTube of AI. But what we are trying to be is the AMC

cinemas of AI. Like, come and put it with us for six weeks, monetize

it till, you know, you’ve drained as much as you can from it, and then

go and sell Window 2 and Window 3 elsewhere. We’ll be proud of you. We

want you to do that. ⁓ and you can use the Omnigen platform to be

immediate and relevant. You can keep your content coming.

Orlando Wood (37:09)

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Tom Paton (37:30)

fast all year, like there’s no reason to sit on this. And if Hollywood

comes calling and suddenly they wanna make a $150 million version,

great, you’ve never done it in live action, go knock yourself out.

That’s absolutely fine, you own the rights.

Orlando Wood (37:42)

Well, also, I I think that, you know, as you said, that people have

spent a lot of money with scripts that are sitting in a drawer. And I

think that, you know, it occurs to me that executives probably just

won’t read scripts anymore. They’ll expect this to be the way that a

script is packaged to them. You’re like, OK, like, send me the send me

the film you made with it and I’ll decide if I’m interested.

Tom Paton (38:01)

Yeah. I mean, look, look, I actually

know execs, I won’t say names, but I had a meeting recently where the

guy literally said to me, he’s like, yeah, I don’t read the scripts

anymore. I just asked chat GPT if it’s any good. And I’m like, you’ve

got an enterprise account, right? You’re not just chucking that in

there. It’s like, yeah, why is that bad? It’s like, yes. So that is

kind of the world that we live in right now. But like, you’re quite

right. Like I…

Orlando Wood (38:19)

Yes, very, very bad.

Tom Paton (38:28)

You know, for me, I just think this is a way, you know, for people who

consider themselves serious filmmakers to fight back against the user

generated content march where you can be part of it. You can be part

of professional generated content. You can exploit all of the stuff

you wrote that just is too weird to get the green light without

proving it’s got an audience. And you can do it in such a way where

you can take advantage of all of your traditional avenues.

You know, for me, I just think this is a way, you know, for people who

consider themselves serious filmmakers to fight back against the user

generated content march where you can be part of it. You can be part

of professional generated content. You can exploit all of the stuff

you wrote that just is too weird to get the green light without

proving it’s got an audience. And you can do it in such a way where

you can take advantage of all of your traditional avenues.

all of the contacts that you’ve got, and you can have a theatrical

window with us if you want it. And so, you know, I really think we’ve

spent this last three years really kind of not just trying to tackle

one element, like we’ve built a truly end-to-end solution for

everybody from indie film studios to those sort of mid-level husband

and wife teams that have got like, you know, they had a big hit in

2014, but it’s not been going so great lately.

Orlando Wood (39:15)

Yeah.

Tom Paton (39:20)

you know, all the way up to the majors who are having conversations

with us and we’ll see where that goes. But, I think that AI is a

completely emergent space and if treated like it, it doesn’t displace

the other two, it just becomes a brand new lane and that’s what it

should be.

Orlando Wood (39:21)

Mm.

Yeah.

And I think that the other thing is that, you know, Dakota Johnson was

just talking the other day about how risk averse studio executives

are, and that’s no news. And we’re seeing it with, with the studio,

the Seth Rogen show of, you know, he, has this great quote where he

says, studio executives are people who love movies, whose job it is

now to ruin movies.

Tom Paton (39:50)

Yeah.

Orlando Wood (39:58)

And he goes,

Tom Paton (39:57)

Yeah, I saw it.

Orlando Wood (39:59)

we always forget that they came to this job because they deeply,

deeply love movies. But yeah, it’s funny. I think that with that risk

aversion, you positioning yourself as something where also the data

that comes along with what you’re doing when releasing it, the ability

to say there’s data to be captured before box office.

we always forget that they came to this job because they deeply,

deeply love movies. But yeah, it’s funny. I think that with that risk

aversion, you positioning yourself as something where also the data

that comes along with what you’re doing when releasing it, the ability

to say there’s data to be captured before box office.

And up until now, that’s not really been possible. You either release

it on YouTube and then it’s kind of out there and it’s done and then

it has no box office value or it’s released through your platform

where it’s still, you know, protected. That can be a proving space

where people can go, well, we were number one for three months on this

platform and look at how many people are micro-transacting, you know,

to watch this thing and wanting, look at how many people want to skip

the ads.

This is a person who’s never skipped the ads before. And this film is

so compelling. They’re now skipping the ads, you know, those sorts of

things. Suddenly you go to, you know, the studios and the distributors

and you say, this is, this is a rare thing. And this has data support

that, that users really like it. Maybe it is worth, you know,

investing the money in distribution.

Tom Paton (41:06)

Absolutely, man. mean, like data and box office don’t have to be

mutually exclusive from one another. In fact, you know, on a platform

like ours, they go hand in hand because you can see engagement levels

in real time. You can actually track what that one specific film is

making or that one show is making because we’re not subscription

based. know, when you’re a subscription service, the psychology around

this is very different. You know, I used to pay…

Orlando Wood (41:12)

Mm.

Tom Paton (41:32)

$15 for a CD, it would have 12 tracks on it. And I was like, this is

value for money. And now for $15, if you as a company are asking me to

onboard to commit now $15 for every month of the year, I want every

song ever written. I want it immediately or I’ll cancel you. And so

their game becomes like a customer retention algorithm where I log

onto Netflix, I see 10 new titles. The thumbnails have been customized

to me.

Orlando Wood (41:48)

Yeah. Yeah.

Mm.

Tom Paton (41:59)

I’m never gonna watch any of these things, none of them are my taste,

but there’s just enough there that I’m like, I’m still getting value

for money, so I won’t cancel my subscription. But microtransactions

work very differently. We just have to be on your phone and you only

have to come for one thing that you like every week or every month and

watch that one thing, pay the $20 that you might have, in terms of

advert revenue, swiping, engagement, and we set the coin prices very

similar to real short.

I’m never gonna watch any of these things, none of them are my taste,

but there’s just enough there that I’m like, I’m still getting value

for money, so I won’t cancel my subscription. But microtransactions

work very differently. We just have to be on your phone and you only

have to come for one thing that you like every week or every month and

watch that one thing, pay the $20 that you might have, in terms of

advert revenue, swiping, engagement, and we set the coin prices very

similar to real short.

Orlando Wood (42:08)

Right.

Hmm. Hmm.

Tom Paton (42:27)

You know, that company for me was a big eye-opening moment when I saw

what they were doing with sub $300,000 Hallmark films and that the

audience was like, I’ll happily paid $20 to watch 90 minutes of the

billionaire husband who cheated with my sister because I’m choosing to

pay for this. This is my choice. Like it’s my $20 and I’m choosing,

and you get, so that freemium model.

Orlando Wood (42:49)

Yeah. Yeah.

Tom Paton (42:53)

was immediately like, you know, when we were kind of, okay, we fixed

the technological innovation side of this, like we’re ready. It was

like, okay, now how do you do this? Because there’s gonna be like the

AI film wars for the next two years, where streamers are like, I don’t

know what we’re allowed to take, what should we take? Where will the

backlash be? But the creatives will slowly more and more start to do

stuff. And like, this is a slowly building tidal wave. But in amongst

that,

That’s the same sort of curved tidal wave that made Netflix who they

are today. And if we carry on the way we’re going and we consistently

prove ourselves to not just the audience, but to the filmmakers, and

we let them into the Omnigeno One platform, then that crest is gonna

look like, okay, most of you guys can come and play in the AI sandbox,

know that you’ve got a place to put this stuff, know that you can send

it there without disrupting your other income.

Orlando Wood (43:24)

Yeah.

Tom Paton (43:46)

and without angering anybody so badly, because you’re being upfront

with the consumer, you’re saying, yeah, it’s called AI-mation and it’s

on AI-mation and we’re not messing with anything. And then eventually

that crest comes down. Everybody says, yeah, we’re fine with AI now.

But in amongst that, emerge as, yeah, but these guys are like the AMC

cinemas. We go there because we trust that stuff. We want our stuff on

that platform. Their tool is embedded in our workflow. It’s our

version of a red camera.

and without angering anybody so badly, because you’re being upfront

with the consumer, you’re saying, yeah, it’s called AI-mation and it’s

on AI-mation and we’re not messing with anything. And then eventually

that crest comes down. Everybody says, yeah, we’re fine with AI now.

But in amongst that, emerge as, yeah, but these guys are like the AMC

cinemas. We go there because we trust that stuff. We want our stuff on

that platform. Their tool is embedded in our workflow. It’s our

version of a red camera.

Orlando Wood (43:57)

Yeah.

Tom Paton (44:11)

So, you know, that’s really been what we’ve been building and yeah, so

far so good.

Orlando Wood (44:16)

Great. Can I ask, so what, if you were to sit down right now and say,

using your platform, using the systems that you’ve created, you or a

creator wants to make a feature length sci-fi movie, what is the

optimal staffing? What is the optimal system that you then take

through that 90 days? What does that look

Tom Paton (44:37)

Well, it won’t take you 90 days anymore. That’s for sure. Unless you

want to, it’s, you know, what you can do though, is you can iterate a

lot. You know, you, if you, if you’re like I say, the system that we

provide is, it’s very, it’s all in one. It lets you use all of the,

the tools that are available. Like you don’t have to go, we’re, we’re

stuck using this and really we want VO free, you know, that’ll be

built in via API. So you pay as you go, you set in your own token

price. You’re saying, look, you know, if we’ve spent seven grand on

this, if we’ve spent 20 grand on this.

Orlando Wood (44:40)

Right.

⁓ Right.

Tom Paton (45:06)

whatever it took to get us to the place we’re happy with it, that’s up

to you. And you can iterate as many times as you want. But optimally,

so for instance, we’ve got a team of people in house here. The six of

them total every two to three weeks, they produce 22 to 25 minutes of

completed anime, which has been…

gone through the show run up approach that we’ve sat down, we’ve given

notes, we’ve retooled it a few times. So you’re talking, it’s normally

like draft free by the end of that three weeks. So like very fast,

very efficient, you know, and it all depends on what kind of filmmaker

you are. You’re gonna get some Trey Parker’s and Matt Stones that see

this tool and be like, yeah, I’m gonna have a professional 25 minute

episode of a comedy show like a Rick and Morty every Monday, every

Friday without fail using this tool.

And then you’re get filmmakers that come along and you’re like, you

know, I’m gonna spend six months on this, but it’s gonna be triple A

standard. By the time I get to that end of six months, we’ve made the

film 20 times and we’re really certain that this is the right one. And

so there’s lots of advantages to using this from a creative

perspective. Me personally, the thing that I’m most vested in is

emergent media. I’m more interested in the media that doesn’t exist

right now that we can do with AI.

And then you’re get filmmakers that come along and you’re like, you

know, I’m gonna spend six months on this, but it’s gonna be triple A

standard. By the time I get to that end of six months, we’ve made the

film 20 times and we’re really certain that this is the right one. And

so there’s lots of advantages to using this from a creative

perspective. Me personally, the thing that I’m most vested in is

emergent media. I’m more interested in the media that doesn’t exist

right now that we can do with AI.

Orlando Wood (46:03)

Mm.

Tom Paton (46:20)

I’m personally heading up our AI reality TV line at the studio, which

is as crazy as it sounds. ⁓

Orlando Wood (46:27)

Yes, explain that because you did mention

that previously and I’m very intrigued as to what that looks like.

Tom Paton (46:33)

Yeah, so I mean, look, it’s the great thing about AI is that, you

know, it’s there is a weird fascination, I think, as a human, when

you’re looking at something behaving very human and and you know it

isn’t there’s something strange and like visceral that happens inside

of you. And I also think it’s probably where all this AI discourse

comes from, you know, we as humans are the only things for as far as

we know that have been capable of art, you know.

And, you know, I said recently, was like, look, if, you know, one dog

started painting at a very professional level, we’d be like, wow,

that’s so cool. But if every dog on earth started doing it, we were

like, hey, dogs need to stop. You know, and I think we’re in a place

of this where it’s like, okay, we’re watching this system that we know

isn’t human doing human stuff. And to me, that that kind of presented

a really interesting opportunity. And there were a few things we, you

know,

Orlando Wood (47:10)

Alright.

Tom Paton (47:28)

We saw a demo a few years back for somebody hooked ChatGPT 3.5 into an

Unreal Engine demo of the Matrix game that just come out. And he was

running around trying to tell these non-player characters that they

were in the Matrix. And they were like, no, I’m not. You’re lying. And

it was very interesting to watch. Then in-house, we also were vibe

coding. And we made a game called Sentient Snake.

where we let the snake hook into Chachi BT4 and it was running around

questioning why it was eating so much and was it getting too long and

it was just very fascinating. And so from there we kind of like, okay,

there’s actually an emergent media lane here. And so, over the last

six months we’ve been building something called Nonplayer Combat.

There’s a demo of it on the closed beta now. Nonplayer Combat is we

take six NPCs, we’ve…

where we let the snake hook into Chachi BT4 and it was running around

questioning why it was eating so much and was it getting too long and

it was just very fascinating. And so from there we kind of like, okay,

there’s actually an emergent media lane here. And so, over the last

six months we’ve been building something called Nonplayer Combat.

There’s a demo of it on the closed beta now. Nonplayer Combat is we

take six NPCs, we’ve…

Orlando Wood (47:58)

Right? Yeah.

Tom Paton (48:17)

given them all very detailed backstories, 200 plus pages. They think

they’ve got lives and jobs and debts and they know where they went to

school. And then we basically create an LLM that calls between that

and the LLM of choice, which in this case is Gemini. And then we let

these characters fight it out in a Hunger Games arena for four weeks

in real time.

Orlando Wood (48:38)

Right.

Tom Paton (48:39)

And

it’s littered with all the things you would expect, you know, there’s

dirty drinking water, they have to find shelter, food, but they’re

also trying to kill each other for what they think is a million coins.

So it’s basically the hunger games for real sort of, and it’s

fascinating because you realize like, no one’s making these choices

for them. No one’s in charge of this. Like it’s happening organically,

choices are being made by these characters and…

Orlando Wood (48:52)

Right.

Yeah. Yeah.

Tom Paton (49:04)

You know, we ran the simulation here in house and there’s an alarm

that goes off whenever anything happened and everybody would just drop

everything and run to the TV so we could see what was going on. And so

what we’ve done is we’ve cut that down into six episodes, six half an

hour episodes. It’s called Nonplayer Combat. It will be out at some

point this year. And we really think this will be the main user

acquisition device for the platform. You know, I’m not silly enough to

think that having really great anime is enough to bring in a million

users, but…

Orlando Wood (49:27)

Right.

Tom Paton (49:33)

having a water cooler moment like non-player combat, that definitely

is. so, yeah, I think AI reality TV will become a very emergent line

as we start to live and work alongside these things more and more. It

becomes a more fascinating exploration of, you know, what this really

means for us. So yeah, that’s it in a nutshell.

Orlando Wood (49:37)

Yeah.

Wow, that’s amazing. Cause it reminds me a little bit of, you know,

when big brother first came out, I don’t know, most people won’t

remember this, but, but in the first couple of seasons, they would cut

to psychologists who would say, well, you know, Jade goodies doing

this and what she’s trying to do is assert her dominance and she’s,

you know, and it was, I found that very fascinating. Of course, you

know, it, got, you know, removed from the format, but I always found

that really fascinating. And I think that, you know, there is,

Tom Paton (50:04)

Yeah.

You

Orlando Wood (50:20)

something very interesting about, okay, how are these things thinking?

How are they solving problems? And understanding that from a sort of,

the fascination of the ghost in the machine. I think that that is very

interesting.

Tom Paton (50:32)

Yeah. Well, I mean,

there were things in there that, for me, you know, as somebody who’s

very invested in the AI space from a philosophical perspective, I

found mind blowing, you know, when an AI character is being, you know,

a two-faced liar, you know, has befriended somebody else and then

stabs them in the back, you know, two hours later, you’re like, okay,

wow, these things lie. Okay, that’s where we are. That’s where we are

then, you know.

Orlando Wood (50:52)

Yeah.

Tom Paton (50:58)

The black box of it all makes it so interesting. And look, from a

studio boss perspective, yes, I think the interesting thing about this

is playing in those morally gray areas where you’re like, is this okay

that I’m watching this? Is this okay? And it’s like, yeah, I guess it

is and it isn’t. But that…

The black box of it all makes it so interesting. And look, from a

studio boss perspective, yes, I think the interesting thing about this

is playing in those morally gray areas where you’re like, is this okay

that I’m watching this? Is this okay? And it’s like, yeah, I guess it

is and it isn’t. But that…

Orlando Wood (51:10)

Right. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah, we’re not doing it with humans, so

it’s fine,

you know.

Tom Paton (51:21)

And

honestly, there are a lot of interesting formats out there in the

reality TV space. It’s just like, you can’t do that. know, where an AI

presents the opportunity to go, yeah, but what if you did? Like, what

if you ran that experiment? And you can cut these things into a way

that are very digestible. Like, know, non-player combat feels like

you’re watching Naked and Afraid or Alone. It’s got that kind of vibe

to it. You know, and it’s amazing how quickly you fall in love with

characters that are…

Orlando Wood (51:32)

Yeah. Yeah.

Tom Paton (51:48)

essentially their own entities that are not real.

Orlando Wood (51:51)

Yeah,

fascinating. Can I ask just how you’re doing for time? I have two

questions, but if you’re nearly done, I can cut it down to one. One

is, what do you wish people knew? I imagine so much of this space, and

we’ve experienced it ourselves, is just explaining the same thing over

and over and over again. mean, what do you wish?

Tom Paton (51:56)

Yeah, yeah, no, go, No, go. No, no, go for it.

Hahaha

Orlando Wood (52:12)

You know, in, the people you speak to, what do you wish came pre-

packaged in their software that you didn’t have to kind of explain?

What do you wish they knew that you didn’t have to explain?

Tom Paton (52:22)

think when, especially when I’m answering these questions about like,

why, we don’t want this, you get the sort of the, and I think it’s

very important to have those conversations. Like, human beings are

really bad at change. We’re really bad at accepting that things are

always in flux. People forget that the first iPhone was only 2008.

They just act like they’ve always been here. And I always think to

myself, if I was the…

think when, especially when I’m answering these questions about like,

why, we don’t want this, you get the sort of the, and I think it’s

very important to have those conversations. Like, human beings are

really bad at change. We’re really bad at accepting that things are

always in flux. People forget that the first iPhone was only 2008.

They just act like they’ve always been here. And I always think to

myself, if I was the…

Orlando Wood (52:42)

Yeah.

And the only good

thing it did was that beer app. That was the only, that was the only

thing that really worked. Email barely worked. It barely made calls.

Everything dropped out, but that beer app was the shit.

Tom Paton (52:49)

Yeah, that was it. That was it. Yeah.

But you could do the beer app, yeah. But like

if I was the heir to an alarm clock company in 2007, I would be like,

life’s gonna be great for me. And then the iPhone comes out a year

later. Like no one cares about the alarm clock guys now. We were all

like, it created millions of jobs in the app sector that wouldn’t have

existed. And the thing that I think people would really take into

account when having these conversations is like stop thinking about

the immediate and then just from an economic perspective for yourself,

like.

jump forward 18 months because there are more, you like I said

earlier, like Netflix isn’t Netflix because of streaming. It was like

a bunch of converging situations. And for me, the most pressing one

right now is right now there are 3.8 billion internet users on the

planet, but there’s 8 billion people. So what are the other 3.2

billion people doing? Well, they’re the people making your stuff so

that you can go online and complain about the world. And the thing

that…

Orlando Wood (53:53)

What?

Tom Paton (53:54)

The thing that’s really fascinating to me is in the next 18 months,

because of technological innovation, companies like Google are rolling

out short-throw Wi-Fi to regions in India and Nigeria, areas in China

that never had access to it, regions that have never been on the

internet. They don’t know what Facebook is. They don’t care about your

sub-stack blog. They don’t know what this is. And in the next 18

months,

1.2 billion new internet users are going to come online for the first

time and they’re gonna enter an internet that is already Gen.AI

enabled. They’re gonna find ChatGPT straight away. They’re gonna find

Sora. They’re gonna find Google VO for it. If you don’t think that 1.2

billion new internet users, AI super powered aren’t gonna cause

widespread economic innovation and destruction and both equal

measures, you’re crazy.

1.2 billion new internet users are going to come online for the first

time and they’re gonna enter an internet that is already Gen.AI

enabled. They’re gonna find ChatGPT straight away. They’re gonna find

Sora. They’re gonna find Google VO for it. If you don’t think that 1.2

billion new internet users, AI super powered aren’t gonna cause

widespread economic innovation and destruction and both equal

measures, you’re crazy.

So stop having a go at people who are trying to innovate now, because

these are the people you’re gonna need the most in the next 18 months,

because job losses are coming, but there are 1.2 billion people coming

also, and they bring with them an entirely new outlook that’s AI-

powered, and it means big trouble for the way we currently live. And

so I think if people knew that…

Orlando Wood (54:48)

Hmm.

Yeah.

Tom Paton (55:07)

The conversations would be a lot more nuanced. You would have a lot

more nuance around, okay, let’s start planning for this. Let’s start

being smart because this isn’t just a question of AI. This is a

question of like, you know, actual human manpower entering the digital

workforce in a scope we have not seen for 20 years.

Orlando Wood (55:14)

Yeah.

Yeah. God, that’s a fantastic way to look at it. Cause I agree. think

that there’s, there’s, know, there there’s everybody kind of, you

know, still, and I think it’s shocking because we’ve seen so many

major innovations in our lifetime. mean, from the beginnings of the

internet to mobile telephony and then smartphones and then Bitcoin and

then AI. And in each case, it’s been proven that the people who jumped

on it first,

were able to thrive. And now whole ecosystems and economies are built

up around each of these pieces of technology. And as well, the

technology has just improved exponentially. And I think that that’s

the thing that shocks me is when people look at the Apple VR glasses

and everybody’s like, well, it’s a bit shit. And I was like, it’s a

bit shit now. But you don’t think that they’re learning huge amounts

of things that are going to be awesome when they built

Tom Paton (56:13)

Yeah.

Orlando Wood (56:19)

when they put out their smart glasses. Like that, that’s where that’s

going. And I can’t believe people aren’t seeing it. Yeah.

when they put out their smart glasses. Like that, that’s where that’s

going. And I can’t believe people aren’t seeing it. Yeah.

Tom Paton (56:22)

⁓ Yeah, I’m glad you brought AR up. Yeah, I mean, look,

I’m glad you brought AR up. know, again, like I said earlier, I like

to see myself as a futurist and everything we built around AImation’s

GVOD platform is because I wholeheartedly believe in the next five

years, your phone will be in your pocket powering your AR glasses. And

when that happens, like, okay, forget all the other like big

existential stuff. Let’s just say it’s just about film, you know.

Orlando Wood (56:43)

Yeah.

Tom Paton (56:49)

How are you gonna get someone to go and sit in the cinema and watch

your film when they’ve got a big screen built into their glasses? And

so we designed that app to keep that user’s hands busy and let them

have a theatrical experience. When AR arrives, it’s like pre-built for

that. It’s a classic mistake of the film industry. The film industry

attracts ego just by its nature. And right now they think AI is all

about them. This is all about us. And it’s like…

Orlando Wood (57:04)

Yeah.

Mmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Tom Paton (57:17)

Okay,

this isn’t green screen. Like my accountant doesn’t need a green

screen and won’t put one in his office. But my accountant will have AI

on every computer. And if you don’t do something about this, your

accountant will be a way better filmmaker than you are. And it won’t

be long before they realize it. And that’s the end of you.

Orlando Wood (57:27)

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That’s another great point. well, Tom, thank you so much for this. I

have one question that I do ask everybody towards the end of, of the

interview. And it’s, I had a boss named Dan Wyden. He had this great

quote and you know, it permeated the entire agency that was, you know,

in loads of countries, different continents and whatever else, but it.

it kind of created a safe space for everybody to create. And it was

that you’re useless to me until you’ve failed big at least twice. And

so, you know, I’m sort of asking, you know, can you remember when

would you be willing to admit a time where you kind of failed big or

small and what you learned from it?

Tom Paton (58:15)

Yeah, I mean, look, I’ve been working in movies for 20 years. I’m 40.

I just look fresh faced, but I hope anyway. I failed a lot, you know,

Well, you look great, just so you know. Yeah, you know, like that’s

kind of the thing with making anything like a movie is you’re sort of

bearing your soul. know, every movie that I’ve written,

Orlando Wood (58:22)

You do. We’re the same age and you look better than I. Well, thank

you. Thank you so much.

Tom Paton (58:40)

There’s something in there that I wanted to talk about. There’s

something in there that I cared about. you know, what’s really

interesting is when, you know, you make these things and you’re in

these little insular bubble, and then you give it out to people, and

you just get a torade of hate back. And they tell you how wrong you

are and how you got it all, you know, and it does a few things. makes

you, it made me very thick skinned where, you know,

Orlando Wood (58:55)

Yeah. Yeah.

Tom Paton (59:02)

And I was like, okay, fine. But then I very early on, you know, after

like the second or third movie where, you know, it very much felt like

some people really like this, but most people are saying I should fuck

off and never make a film again. Sorry, I swore you can beat that out.

know, ⁓ you know, so you go, okay, right. And I kind of adopted this

rule of thumb that I used to this day. It’s a big part of the company

here now. We call it the rule of three.

Orlando Wood (59:16)

Right? No, no, go for it. Please, please swear as much as you like.

Tom Paton (59:30)

And that is if somebody says something that is, you know, negative or

goes against what you believe about something, whether it’s the

product you’re building or the film you’re trying to do or the story

you’re working on, it’s an opinion. And you should always listen to an

opinion. They’re free. There’s value in listening to something, you

know, but it doesn’t mean you have to listen. If you trust your gut,

off you go. If two people independent from each other say the same

thing, then you should investigate because

And that is if somebody says something that is, you know, negative or

goes against what you believe about something, whether it’s the

product you’re building or the film you’re trying to do or the story

you’re working on, it’s an opinion. And you should always listen to an

opinion. They’re free. There’s value in listening to something, you

know, but it doesn’t mean you have to listen. If you trust your gut,

off you go. If two people independent from each other say the same

thing, then you should investigate because

there’s a chance you could be wrong here. And, you know, again, if you

get to the end of that investigation and you feel like, no, my guts

right on this, I’m going to pursue and good for you. But if three

people say something independently identical, then now the likelihood

that you are incorrect goes up exponentially. And we should actually

sit down and we should have a team meeting about this and we should

course correct before it goes too far. And I think that mentality is

helping us as an AI company because it lets us

Orlando Wood (59:58)

Right.

Tom Paton (1:00:24)

iterate faster, you know, like I’m not that interested in letting

anything pursue down a road that doesn’t quite work. And ironically,

when I started using that in my movies as an approach, know, three

people didn’t like this about the thing I did in the last one. Let’s

try something that doesn’t feel organic to me in the next one. And the

reviews got better and my career got better. So, you know, I think

there’s I think there’s real power in.

Orlando Wood (1:00:42)

Yeah.

Yeah, right.

Do you think that’s

the tech, sorry to use the term tech bro, but do you think that’s the

sort of, you know, the tech background in you?

Tom Paton (1:00:51)

Yeah.

Maybe, I mean look, think that I kind of…

Orlando Wood (1:00:57)

you know, user feedback

and, and, know, putting that in rather than just blocking it out

entirely.

Tom Paton (1:01:02)

Yeah, maybe. mean, look, I think I occupy a very strange. Yeah, I

mean, look, the reality is, like, if you think you’re, you’re right

all the time, then there’s a pretty big problem. Maybe some therapy

should be, should be required. You know, like the reality is, is like

getting things wrong is a good thing. If you figure out what was wrong

and you fine tune it, you will get better for it. And, you know, I

think I occupy a very strange space within, I’m not quite a tech bro.

Yeah, maybe. mean, look, I think I occupy a very strange. Yeah, I

mean, look, the reality is, like, if you think you’re, you’re right

all the time, then there’s a pretty big problem. Maybe some therapy

should be, should be required. You know, like the reality is, is like

getting things wrong is a good thing. If you figure out what was wrong

and you fine tune it, you will get better for it. And, you know, I

think I occupy a very strange space within, I’m not quite a tech bro.

Orlando Wood (1:01:04)

It’s a very mature way to come at it.

Tom Paton (1:01:29)

I’m not quite a film bro, but I speak both languages fluently and I

kind of hover down the middle. So yeah, I think I occupy a very

strange space there, but I’m also someone who genuinely believes in

self-improvement. Me, my partner, we meditate and do breath work every

day. And I think that kind of the point of life is self-improvement.

If I ever get to a point where I go, right, I’m perfect now, this is

great, then.

Orlando Wood (1:01:31)

Right.

Yeah.

Tom Paton (1:01:54)

you know, I think there’s a problem. I can’t see that ever happening.

I think when you fail and if you’re willing to listen to failure, you

end up better and stronger for it.

Orlando Wood (1:02:03)

Well, that’s just the perfect place to end. mean, that was tremendous.

I mean, absolutely love talking to you and your perspectives are

fascinating and so forth, thinking without devolving into a lot of the

cliches that I’ve used before as well, whether it’s sort of AI as a

tool or whether it’s,

The lawyer who, know, the AI is not gonna replace you. It’s the lawyer

who uses AI is gonna replace you. know, like, you know. Yeah, if I

hear it again. But no, I think it’s, you know, it’s actually, it’s

fascinating to talk to you. I love the movie. I’m really excited to

see, you know, the next things coming out. You know, if, you know, let

us know when that open beta opens up and I’ll be the first one in

line.

Tom Paton (1:02:29)

yeah, I love that one. Yeah.

I’ll send you an invite as soon as you have Audrey from your teams or

she’s already, she’s already in there and gave us some really good

feedback. So she’s in, she’s in.

Orlando Wood (1:02:49)

Wow, that’d be fab- fabulous! ⁓ Audrey’s already got it! ⁓ I see!

She’s holding out on me!

Tom Paton (1:02:58)

Hahaha!

Orlando Wood (1:02:59)

Apparently, I gotcha. ⁓ Well, thank you.

Tom Paton (1:03:02)

Now this has been awesome guys.

Thank you so much for having me on. I really appreciated it.

Orlando Wood (1:03:06)

Pleasure, pleasure. And anytime, we’d love to kind of have you back.

If you’d be willing, when you launch any of the next stuff, we’ll be

watching.

Tom Paton (1:03:11)

Yeah, of course.

I don’t know if you notice, I

don’t know if you notice, but I like talking. So yeah, bring me on a

podcast whenever you want. It’s fine.

Orlando Wood (1:03:18)

Well, you’re very good at it.

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Where the Robots Grow: The First AI Feature Built Without a Studio

Orlando and Tom uncover:

Technically Creative by KoobrikLabs explores how technology and AI are transforming the creative industries.

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