The Machine Cinema Times - June 5th, 2025
... still wondering if robots have celluloid dreams.
In this issue:
“Overheard in Basecamp” for the week May 29 - June 3
New Podcast: Minh & Fred ponder “Cinema’s Napster Moment?”
Overheard in Basecamp - Week of May 29–June 3rd, 2025
Our Machine Cinema Basecamp is a firehose of activity and even the most diehard members of our community can feel overwhelmed sometimes. This weekly digest of hot topics discussed, links and articles shared and discussed is here to make sure you never miss a beat.
If you’d like to join the conversation, this link is your invitation.
Full disclosure, we had our robot friend help us pull all this together and sometimes they are prone to making harmless mistakes.
🎥 PJ Ace Breaks 3M Views with Veo3 Viral Hit
PJ Accetturo’s satirical "Puppramin" ad soared past 3.1M views in a week. His process, detailed in a chat with Greg Isenberg, highlighted structured prompts, $500 in credits, and quirky performances.
Prompt tip: Remove quotes from dialogue for better subtitle results
Veo3 “requires less than you think”; clarity > complexity
Shot with an iPhone-style aesthetic: casual, grounded, hyper-specific
Quote: “I found if I run the other direction, it kind of fast-forwards the parade.”
👁️ Flux Kontext Steals the Show
Kontext from Flux is earning praise (and panic) for its matte painting replacements, structural consistency, and intuitive editing capabilities. But it "drips from the original" and isn’t perfect yet.
Allows detailed text-based image editing
Dramatically shifts angles and seasons in a single frame
Considered a "better Photoshop" by many
🎙️ Is AI Editing a New Kind of Writing?
A vibrant thread explored whether the editor in AI filmmaking is now the true author. With tools like Runway References, it’s less about shooting and more about shaping.
The editing stack includes prompt writing, vibe management, pacing
Prompts now function like direction
Looping and frame extraction tips exchanged (FFmpeg, Shutter Encoder, Blender)
📲 Runway, Veo3, and the High Cost of Creativity
Veo3’s pricing sparked discussion: at ~$3 per 8-second slot, longform projects could cost six figures. Stanford’s FramePack, an open-source alternative, was shared as a viable contender.
Prompt adherence and generation stability still pain points
Projects are emerging where performance is trained wide, captured close-up
🚀 Kontext vs. Midjourney:
The Image Gen Throwdown A debate unfolded comparing Midjourney's painterly perfection with Sora/Flux's versatility. Most agreed MJ is now a niche aesthetic engine, while Sora and Kontext serve broader, utilitarian use cases.
MJ still reigns for static art; Kontext wins in editability
Tools like Fuser aim to integrate it all on a single canvas
Quote: "Kontext basically killed 1000+ Comfy workflows, but also made new ones."
🚀 EVERTRAIL:
First Real-Time Interactive AI Film Jack Bonavera dropped news of EVERTRAIL, launched at Cannes: a real-time, audience-driven AI film where every scene and outcome is unique.
Viewers guide the story—a game-film hybrid
Multimodal AI generates scenes on the fly
Community invite is open
🎨 Artist Shoutouts
ECHΩLESS got re-uploaded with new shots: “If you are code, are you not artificial?”
Burnee Creativo’s hybrid music video and reel were praised
Adrienne Lahens published a must-read essay on GenJam & the AI-powered creator economy
🔗 Link Drop
Tools & Industry
Film & Art Projects
Thought Pieces
Podcast: Cinema’s Napster Moment?
How the future of Cinema Have something to learn from Music.
Links to longer conversation on Youtube, Spotify, and Apple. Follow us on Instagram.
Minh and Fred have a wide-ranging, exploratory conversation about how AI is transforming filmmaking, drawing powerful parallels with the digitization of the music industry in the Napster era. They reflect on the cultural, economic, and creative disruptions underway, and speculate about what's next for artists, audiences, and experiences.
At the heart of the dialogue is a key question: what if AI is not just a new tool, but a new creative medium — as revolutionary to visual storytelling as MP3s were to music? They consider how live experiences, personalization, audience participation, and synthetic media might reframe the creative landscape. There's also an undercurrent of hope: that AI might lower barriers to expression and deepen human empathy — not erase it.
Key Highlights & Observations
Napster vs. AI: AI’s disruption of filmmaking is compared to what MP3s did to music — breaking business models, democratizing tools, and unlocking new creative behaviors.
Speed & Prototyping: AI radically accelerates production. Filmmaking, once slow and resource-heavy, is now entering a phase of rapid iteration akin to music production post-digitization.
IRL Value Goes Up: As AI floods digital spaces, real-life events and human performance gain new value — echoing how concerts became the main revenue stream for musicians.
Web3 Parallels: AI resurrects dreams from the Web3 era — immersive worlds, fan participation, decentralized creativity — but without a clear economic engine (yet).
From Product to Platform: Film may follow music's trajectory, shifting from being the product to being the platform for building broader experiences, merch, or community.
Discovery is Dead, Long Live Iteration: The dream of being “discovered” is being replaced by the hustle of content iteration, niche audiences, and affiliate-like engagement strategies.
Participatory Futures: Pickford’s audience-generated film experience and Gary Hustwit’s regenerating Brian Eno doc hint at storytelling that’s alive, unpredictable, and communal.
Synthetic ≠ Soulless?: Music has already embraced machine-made aesthetics. Can synthetic visuals be received the same way if the emotional intent is clear?
AI as Empathy Tool: Beyond industry impacts, the hosts dream about AI as a tool for deeper human communication — even imagining its role in couples therapy or intergenerational empathy.