From Blumhouse to Times Square, AI is Stepping into the Spotlight!
... still wondering if robots have celluloid dreams.
Edited by Elizabeth Kealoha
The conversation that matters is happening here. Machine Cinema is home to the creators, builders, and business insiders defining the future of media and entertainment.
In this issue, we catch up on last week’s GenTalks! series with Brian Wankum and Uchenna Okiya, break down the latest Openart Music Video Competition, and invite you to join all of the cutting-edge events hosted by us, Machine Cinema and the MC Community!
Machine Cinema “GenTalks!”- Oct. 15, 2025
Each week we invite artists, builders, and thought leaders to share their knowledge, their works in progress and their ideas in this emergent space of generative media.
Guests: Uchenna Okiya (3D Artist & Educator, Nigeria) + Brian Wankum (Post Producer & Technologist, Blumhouse)
The Conversation
Last week’s session bridged continents and generations of creative technology — from Lagos to Los Angeles, from 3D mesh workflows to Hollywood post-production.
MC host, Fred G. opened with reflections on LA Tech Week and the ripple of Sora 2’s “unlimited” access model, with participants comparing it to Veo 3’s gated ecosystem. The conversation quickly expanded to include new forms of cinematic production emerging globally — culminating in two spotlight talks that perfectly captured the Machine Cinema ethos of showing up, hacking tools, and redefining process.
Highlights
Sora 2 vs Veo 3 — Democratizing Cinematic AI
Christian Knudsen described running unlimited Sora generations through Higgs Field, highlighting its built-in sound generation and physics simulation fidelity.
Fred framed Sora 2 as “the new printing press moment” for participatory creators: less about the app, more about access to the full cinematic pipeline.
Gilberto Balderas demoed time-coded multi-takes in a single Sora 2 Pro render — an early “multi-shot” hack now becoming core to advanced prompting.
The group agreed Sora’s openness mirrors early YouTube energy — a wide-open creative economy, not just another subscription moat.
“All Sora 2 really did was give everyone the feeling that the screen talks back.” — Fred Grinstein
Guest: Uchenna Okiya — From Lagos to Blender: Building a 3D Pipeline for Africa
Uchenna Okiya, a Nigerian 3D generalist and teacher, shared his AI-accelerated production loop:
Ideate in ChatGPT
Concept Art via ImageFX
2D-to-3D Mesh Conversion using Triple 3D or Hanyuan 2.5
Rig & Retopo in Blender / Mixamo
Finalize scenes in Unreal Engine or Unity
This process reduces what once took a week of 3D modeling to mere hours of ideation and iteration.
He emphasized AI’s role in de-risking creative investment: African studios can now prototype stories cheaply before committing scarce resources.
His teaching model encourages students to specialize quickly (rigging, animation, or environment) while using AI to prototype assets and costumes.
Okiya’s upcoming short, The Meeting, blends African ritual aesthetics with sci-fi futurism—an emblem of AI-native Nollywood innovation.
Quote: “We have the talent, not the pipeline. AI gives us the bridge.”
Guest: Brian Wankum — From Buffy to Blumhouse: Showing Up in the AI Era
Brian traced a 25-year journey in post-production—from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly to Once Upon a Time—and how Hollywood’s shift to remote and globalized workflows pushed him to explore AI.
A chance encounter at NAB 2024 led him into the Machine Cinema ecosystem (GenJam, AI on the Lot, Curious Refuge, Project Odyssey).
Through these collaborations (Verena, Maddie, Kenny, Rachel, Monica Monique, and others), he evolved from experimenting with Viggle and Flux to working on Secret Level’s campaigns and USC ETC projects.
Now appointed at Blumhouse, Brian’s new role is to guide AI adoption across the studio — spanning script breakdown, scheduling, post-VFX, asset retrieval, and potential AI-native storytelling.
Quote: “Nobody’s done this job before—so there’s nothing wrong with the last person who had it.”
His story became a communal reminder: show up, collaborate, iterate — the work finds you.
Takeaways
AI is closing global skill gaps: what was once “Hollywood pipeline” is now achievable from anywhere with bandwidth and curiosity.
Tool interconnection is the new literacy: ChatGPT + ImageFX + Triple 3D + Blender + Unreal form a modular workflow now teaching itself across continents.
Career evolution = curiosity loops: Wankum’s leap from post supervisor to studio AI strategist epitomizes the emerging creative technologist path.
Machine Cinema’s connective tissue continues to produce real-world outcomes — from new teaching models in Africa to full-time AI roles in Hollywood.
Hot Quotes
“AI isn’t replacing our artists — it’s replacing our excuses.” — Uchenna Okiya
“Showing up became my new job title.” — Brian Wankum
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Coming Up…
GenTalks - Our weekly digital get together with guest speakers.
Wednesday, 10/22/25 @ 10-11:15am PT / 1-2:15pm ET
THIS WEEK’S GUESTS:
Katya Alexander - She is an award-winning filmmaker and the Head of Production at Showrunner AI, the cutting-edge storytelling platform from Fable Studio that’s redefining how films and series are created with artificial intelligence. A producer known for blending emotional truth with technical innovation, Katya has led projects across the globe—from SXSW Audience Award–winning features to the groundbreaking Magnificent Ambersons AI restoration. At Showrunner AI, she’s building the future of narrative media, helping creators co-write, direct, and animate stories with living AI characters—pioneering a new era where filmmaking becomes an interactive, intelligent collaboration between humans and machines.
Ziyaad Bhorat - He is Senior Advisor to the Executive Director at Mozilla Foundation, where he leads Creative Futures, a new initiative supporting artists and technologists building bold alternatives to today’s internet. He also oversees higher education grant-making for Mozilla Foundation’s Responsible Computing Challenge in the U.S. and South Africa. A classically trained political theorist, Ziyaad holds a PhD from UCLA and an MBA+MSc from Oxford University. He studied producing at the New York Film Academy and is Associate Director at USC’s Center for Generative AI & Society (AIMS). His work—spanning Aristotle to AI judges—has appeared in global publications, and he has led projects across digital media and telecoms in Sub-Saharan Africa, including with The Walt Disney Company.
RoboDojo - Machine Cinema’s weekly skill-building series. ‘How to Write with AI for the Short Attention Span Theater’
Thursday, 10/23/25 @ 10-11:15am PT / 1-2:15pm ET
This Week’s Guest: Fred Graver
Fred Graver is the founder of the AI Screenwriters’ Studio, bringing a long career as a writer, producer, executive, and technologist full circle.
Learn how to engage audiences in 30 or 120 seconds using the same principles that captivate them in 30 or 120 minutes. Fred will share techniques for paring storytelling down to its bare essentials — and invite the community to explore how we connect with audiences in this new, accelerated creative landscape. Let’s work on this together in the RoboDojo.
It's interesting how this GenTalks recap frames the democratization of AI cinematic tools. This builds nicely on your previous piece about broader access models. The comparison between Sora 2 and Veo 3 offers a clear perspective. Such global discussions on generative media are crucial for its future trajectory.