The Machine Cinema Times - August 22, 2025
... still wondering if robots have celluloid dreams.
Edited by Elizabeth Kealoha. Pod Digest and Artwork by Ant Neely
In this issue:
Real Creative “Pick of the Week”
Overheard in… “Basecamp”, “We Love Robots”, “Jobs, Collabs, & Opportunities” for the week August 14-20, 2025
Too busy to read?? Listen to the NotebookLM recap!
“GenTalk” from August 20, 2025
Machine Cinema is running an ongoing survey to help understand how AI artists/creators are being compensated for their work. This is part of our effort to advocate for AI artists and AI work. If you’re an AI artist making money with AI, please fill out this survey.
Real Creative “Pick of the Week”
Each week the Machine Cinema members + the Real Creative team obsess over social feeds in search of the world's best AI creative video, gaming, and music projects. This week one project stuck out:
About this project
Matt Zien's "Forgive The Haters" is fantastic. Like all his videos he manages to use AI in ways that feel like they haven’t been done yet, but the video quickly becomes a stunning tribute to creatives who have poured their soul into their craft. Or as the top comment on reddit.com/u/aivideo described it "WTF? I didn't come here to feel the reals."
About the Artist
Matt is building KNGMKR "an award-winning storytelling lab specializing in cinematic and narrative experiments that span form, format and technology."
You can find this and over 300 AI filmmakers and their projects over at realcreative.ai which features some familiar faces from the Machine Cinema community.
Overheard - Week of August 14-20, 2025
Our Machine Cinema Community is a firehose of activity and even the most diehard members can feel overwhelmed. This weekly digest brings you hot topics, links and articles shared and discussed in the “Basecamp”, “We Love Robots”, and “Jobs, Collabs, & Opportunities” channels to make sure you never miss a beat. If you’d like to join the community, 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.
“Basecamp” Channel 🔥 HOT TOPICS
🎥 Vibes vs. Stories: The Meme Economy Debate
Are memes just vibes, micro-stories, or something else entirely? The community wrestled with where “story” begins in internet culture.
Hollywood struggles to adapt to fragmented half-stories.
Memes blur the line between emotion, humor, and narrative.
💬 “Memes are perfect for people who are not story literate—low attention spans roll by emotion and vibe.”
📺 Microdramas as the New Indie Frontier
Creators shared early launches of vertical microdramas and the challenges of sustaining them.
Distribution ranges from TikTok to EscapeAI.
Branded content may be the most viable path forward.
💬 “This is the new frontier. We no longer need massive entities to create our stories.”
🎬 Cinema vs. TikTok: Which Holds Cultural Relevance?
Debate flared on whether cinema is losing its edge to TikTok and memes.
Cinema = shared, crystallized experience.
TikTok = ecosystem of the immediate and participatory.
💬 “Cinema crystallizes the human experience years later. TikTok represents the now.”
🛠️ Worldlabs & Generative Environments
New beta lets users turn 2D images into explorable 3D worlds.
Strong for environments, fragile for characters.
Highlights the coming wave of “generative environments” in storytelling.
💸 Adobe Firefly Costs Spark Frustration
Firefly 3’s pricing drew ire for charging full credits regardless of frame count.
Extending just 2 frames can burn enterprise packages.
Compared unfavorably to cheaper, more flexible models.
📰 Consolidation, Compute & Survival
Members speculated on acquisitions and the high cost of compute.
Consolidation seems inevitable—likened to VHS vs. Betamax.
Smaller players may struggle as subsidies dry up.
💬 “Are you asking how much runway Runway has?”
🧠 Platforms, Distribution & the “Matrix” Future
Some imagined a world where TikTok, Discord, and Facebook merge with immersive AI environments—a real-time “Matrix” layered over social feeds.
Streaming and VR are stepping stones, but true bidirectional interplay is still missing.
Raises the question: what happens when short-form content becomes spatial, explorable experience?
💬 “We’re racing to build the Matrix—but what we don’t have is a vision for Facebook, TikTok, and the Matrix all happening at once.”
🎤 AI Voices for Kids (and Ferrets on Crystal Meth)
When asked about AI children’s voices, members pointed to Fish Audio and ElevenLabs—but not without humor.
💬 “That’s like taming ferrets on crystal meth.”
🔗 Link Drop: What the Community Shared
🧪 Tools & Industry
🎥 Film & Art Projects
The Finch Files – Microdrama pilot episodes
📚 Reading & Thought Pieces
“We Love Robots” Channel 🔥 HOT TOPICS
💼 The AI Job Market Freeze
A shared essay argued that the expectation of AI displacement is already slowing hiring—even before full automation arrives. Companies holding back in anticipation of disruption may be triggering a self-fulfilling freeze.
💬 “The longer companies wait to hire in anticipation of AI, the deeper the economic freeze becomes, and the harder it is to thaw.”
🤯 Emergent Communication in AI Models
Higgsfield teased a new “emergent communication” strategy that may outperform Runway and Veo, sparking debate about whether UI and workflow design will be the true differentiator in next-gen models.
🎢 Experiential Entertainment as the Next Wave
Community buzzed around examples of entertainment that “feels new and fresh,” highlighting how audience immersion and surprise might matter more than traditional storytelling in the next creative era.
🏃 Humanoid Record Attempts
A humanoid robot ran a race nearly matching world record times—raising questions about benchmarks, sportsmanship, and whether robotics competitions could develop into mainstream spectator events.
🚗 Driverless Cars: Safety or Stunt?
The viral clip of a child in a self-driving taxi drew comparisons to early elevator automation. The consensus: still too risky—unless every car on the road is autonomous.
🤖 China’s Robot Olympics
Reuters covered China’s large-scale robotics showcase: robots racing, playing football, collapsing, and crashing in spectacular fashion.
🇯🇵 Japan’s GenAI Open Innovation Program
GenAI Fund announced a Tokyo edition designed to connect enterprises with startups for co-created AI proof-of-concepts, building on 100+ matches made in Singapore and Vietnam.
🦿 Exoskeletons & Mobility Tech
Hands-on testing of the Hypershell ProX ($1,199) revealed real promise alongside hot gears, fast battery drain, and plenty of curious stares. Debate centered on whether insurance or government adoption is needed to unlock mass-market potential.
🧪 AI in Scientific Discovery
Wired profiled AI systems designing bizarre physics experiments that actually work, with optimism that LLMs may soon automate hypothesis generation—bridging pattern recognition and theory-making.
🚁 China’s Drone Leap
Drone footage out of China left the community stunned, with some calling it “legit mind boggling” and far beyond what’s visible in the West.
🧺 Household Robotics on the Horizon
Predictions that folding-laundry robots will look “crazy fast” within a year or two—an early taste of domestic automation hype.
🧩 Big Tech AI Orgs Under Fire
Critiques flew over Meta’s restructuring: separating “superintelligence” from “AI research,” odd leadership picks, and whether Apple was right to delay its rollout entirely.
“Jobs, Collabs, & Opportunities” Channel 🔥 HOT TOPICS
📊 Rate Survey & Pricing Tools
Early results from the community’s AI creator rate survey were shared, with plans to build charts, publish raw data (anonymized), and eventually launch a standardized pricing tool. This could become a living reference like the UK’s RATE app.
💸 What to Charge for AI Work?
Vibrant debate on day rates vs. project rates, with a push to establish pricing “floors” to prevent a race to the bottom.
Some advocated $1,000–$1,200/day minimums, comparable to colorists.
Others noted beginners charging €350/day but risk undercutting the market.
Suggestions included adding a 10–15% “tech fee” to cover subscriptions/credits.
💬 “If we all say the same numbers we’ll get paid the same and you can have American rates.”
🌍 Global Standards vs. Local Realities
Members noted wide disparities: LA day rates ($400–$1,100), London (£350–700), Milan (€1,000–1,500). Calls emerged to develop unified benchmarks while respecting regional economics and client size.
🧾 Billing for Compute & Credits
Discussion on how to pass subscription/credit costs to clients. Proposals included:
Splitting invoices into labor vs. “burning cost” of credits.
Flat monthly subscriptions billed to clients.
Adding transparent line items for tech expenses.
🧮 Shot Counts & Scope Creep
Some advocated moving toward pricing by shot count rather than finished minutes, since AI projects often involve far more iterations and cycles than clients expect. Listing all services (VO, editing, LoRA training, VFX) helps demonstrate true scope.
🎤 Community Strategy Session
Several suggested dedicating a Wednesday group call to compensation models. The idea: compare union standards (WGA, SAG, IATSE, etc.) with emerging AI benchmarks and create defensible, professionalized rate cards.
🎨 Women’s AI Film Residency
A new initiative was announced: the first Women’s AI Film Residency & Creativity Festival in Florence, seeking sponsors and funding partners. A sign that alongside pricing battles, members are also mobilizing to build cultural infrastructure.
Machine Cinema “GenTalks” — August 20, 2025
Our GenDojo Community Call is a weekly digital get together to connect on how we are all making our way through this new era for creative industries and AI among other emergent technologies. Each week we invite artists, builders, thought leaders to share their knowledge, their works in progress and their ideas on this emergent space. If you’d like to be added to the recurring invite please DM.
VIEW RECORDING (75 mins)
TL;DR
Packed community call with two stellar guests. Cameron Kostopoulos demoed Lovebird—an AI‑powered, personalized reality dating game (“storyliving” meets Love Island)—and unpacked how short‑ and long‑term AI (dialogue, memory, TTS, text‑to‑3D) drive it. Vanessa Rosa toured her Little Martians worldbuilding practice, Eden.art creative agents, and Mars College—showing how ceramics + LoRA + text‑to‑video pipelines become daily, automated micro‑stories. Plus: LM Arena for model matchups, provenance-by-design workflows, new meetups in LA/Seattle/Philly, and a reminder that kids may out‑ship us all.
Highlights & Observations
Community & Events
Recent WIP Night drew ~60 people; multigenerational vibes (Adrienne’s 8‑year‑old demo’d a “vibe‑coded” game).
Upcoming: LA – Sept 7 (Gen Jam music video); LA – Sept 25; Seattle AI Week – late Oct (80‑ft LED wall screening + Halloween party); Philly Gen Jam – early Sept; Bombay Beach Biennale – early April.
Food sponsorship ideas floated (Susan Feniger name‑check); in‑kind preferred over cash.
Tooling & Process
LM Arena: compare LMs/video models; A/B test prompts; design multi‑model workflows (“virtual writers’ room”).
Provenance: capturing human vs. machine input at capture and in metadata; likely industry requirement.
Storyliving: personalization as a medium—experiences that know you and remember across titles.
Guest 1 — Cameron Kostopoulos
Background: USC → VR Body of Mind (embodiment empathy piece) → haptics‑driven In the Current of Being (vest/sleeves/gloves) → now Lovebird (Steam).
Lovebird: you date/eliminate AI characters; multiplayer “sniff out the humans”; host Willa the Swan (nod to William Dorsey Swan).
Under the hood: short‑term AI for dialogue; long‑term AI for memory/scene design; TTS; text‑to‑3D for models; laptop first, mobile/VR later.
Fermata framework: cross‑title continuity—characters remember you from previous experiences.
Guest 2 — Vanessa Rosa
Practice: ceramics → 3D scan → LoRA‑driven image gen → text‑to‑video → lip‑sync; Little Martians world with evolving lore.
Platform: Eden.art as creative‑agent wrapper (11Labs, Kling/Runway/Hedra, etc.) for chat‑driven image/video/music pipelines; daily automated shorts (Verdelis.world).
Mars College: off‑grid desert residency (Sonoran/Salton Sea/Bombay Beach); AI filmmaking + decentralized making; applications open.
Focus: coherent worldbuilding + memory; local culture craft → scalable media (children’s books, immersive installs, festivals).
Action Items
All
Wishlist Lovebird on Steam; follow @lovebird.show.
Join interest threads: Philly Gen Jam (coord: Aris), Seattle AI Week (coord: John Gauntt).
Add yourself to a WhatsApp micro‑group for regional pop‑ups (Philly/NYC/Seattle/LA).
Fred / Machine Cinema
Share Linktree again in follow‑ups.
Lock venue ops for Sept 7 and Sept 25; explore in‑kind food & beverage partners.
Post guest links (Cameron/Vanessa) + “how‑to” on LM Arena model selection.
Community Tech Track
Draft a provenance checklist (what to log: prompts, human edits, model versions, assets, TOS).
Pilot a “storyliving” lab: persistent memory across short experiments (character remembers returning players).
Notable “Hot Quotes”
“Sometimes the real battle is what to prompt—LM Arena helps rethink the task itself.” — Fred G.
“What new genres are only possible because a story now knows who you are?” — Cameron K.
“They don’t feel; you can program the illusion of empathy—use it for story beats, not truth.” — Cameron K.
“Design the world, then let agents publish daily; fix memory and variety over time.” — Vanessa R.
“Kids might be the ones stealing our jobs, not AI.” — Fred G.
Opportunities & Asks
Sponsorship (in‑kind): interesting food/bev for LA events (warm intro paths suggested).
Volunteers: LM Arena “prompt showdown” segment for next GenTalks; provenance playbook contributors.
Educators/Hosts: Mars College applicants; talk proposals on embodied storytelling, ethical agents, local craft → AI pipelines.
Resources & Links
Lovebird (Steam) – wishlist link
Lovebird IG – @lovebird.show
Cameron portfolio / Body of Mind / In the Current of Being – link bundle
Eden.art – agent+tool wrapper
Little Martians / Verdelis.world – world & daily shorts
Mars College – program + apps
Machine Cinema Linktree – events hub
LM Arena – model matchup/workflow helper
Next Up
Sept 7 (LA): AI Music Video Gen Jam (big theater DTLA).
Sept 25 (LA): Community event
Late Oct (Seattle): AI Week + Halloween screening on 80‑ft LED.
Early Sept (Philly): Gen Jam meetup.
Early April: Bombay Beach Biennale.