The Machine Cinema Times - July 18th, 2025
... still wondering if robots have celluloid dreams.
Edited by Elizabeth Kealoha. Pod Digest by Ant Neely
In this issue:
Real Creative “Pick of the Week”
“Overheard in Basecamp” for the week July 10 - July 16, 2025
Too busy to read? Link to the NotebookLM podcast below.
“GenTalk” July 16, 2025
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:
“The Hidden Power of Veo" is a brilliant short from Martin Nebelong that shows off one of Veo 3 i2v’s coolest tricks; its ability to carry the same subject through totally different scenes using a simple prompt: “Instantly jump/cut on frame 1. [Describe the new context].” In the video, Martin uses his own sketch as the main character across all the scenes, and Veo keeps it perfectly each time.
About the artist:
Martin is an illustrator and 3D artist on the forefront of tech, VR, and AI with 20 years of experience as a creative professional. He is exploring new avenues of storytelling and is prototyping the use of state of the art tools to do so.
Follow him on X, Instagram, and Youtube.
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 in Basecamp – Week of July 10-16, 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.
Too busy to read? Have a listen instead.
🎭 Runway Act 2 Is Here—
And It's Scary Good
Runway quietly rolled out Act 2 to its Creative Partners—and the results feel like a genre shift. AI acting is no longer hypothetical.
Combines voice, lipsync, gesture, and emotional nuance in a single pass
Paired with Moonvalley or Marey, it’s a quantum leap for character work
Community tests started dropping immediately—blurring lines between indie and industry
Shout outs to Kimberly Offord, D. Ryan Reeb, and Chris for posting their tests in the chat
Shout out to Josh Olufemii for his interview with Runway’s CEO, Christobal Valenzuela
💬 “This isn’t VFX. It’s performance.”
📱 Vertical Is Viral: Microdramas Go Mainstream
What started as low-budget mobile bait is now a serious format. Vertical series are gaining followers, views, and—most surprisingly—real revenue.
Projects like Drama Wave and ReelShort are pulling in millions
Kimberly Offord’s indie micro-series is set to stream on an actual platform
Creators shared tips for pacing: think turning points every 15 seconds, not every act
💬 “People are consuming these like they used to binge sitcoms.”
🎥 GenJam LA: Full House, Full Chaos, Full Joy
150+ creators packed into Kartel Studios for a generative filmmaking sprint. From rainbow couches to alien pregnancies, the output was delightfully unhinged.
Tools like Dreamina and Veo3 powered real-time experimentation
A public archive of the films is in the works
More GenJams are planned—get ready
💬 “We made a soap opera in 3 hours. And it slapped.”
🎙 AI Acting = Voice + Face + Metadata
Want a character to stay consistent? It’s harder than it sounds. The chat dissected their go-to tools:
Veo3 and Kling nail lip sync; ElevenLabs still best for voice
Metadata injection and synthetic LoRAs offer deeper control
Everyone agrees: we’re in the Andy Serkis era now
🎨 Experimental Film Still Needs Defending
A thoughtful provocation: Why are AI films expected to follow traditional story arcs when cinema itself was born from abstraction? The group didn’t just engage—they rallied.
Maya Deren, Man Ray, and Stan Brakhage got their flowers
Artists shared frustrations with industry bias toward “three-act conformity”
Others noted audiences do embrace the weird—when given the chance
💬 “If it moves you, it will move someone else. That’s enough.”
🔍 Google’s Entertainment Play: Trojan Horse or Genius?
Google quietly announced a new entertainment studio. Is it a play for IP… or for your psyche?
Theories flew: from Top Gun playbook to dark UX experiments
Others say it’s just a smart way to own narrative infrastructure
One takeaway stuck: This is about data, not drama
💬 “They’re not chasing Oscars. They’re chasing insights.”
🎮 Discord or Die? The Platform Dilemma
As the chat nears WhatsApp’s limit, the community faces a decision: stay cozy or scale up?
WhatsApp = warmth, intimacy, noise
Discord = structure, scale, cold UX
Telegram was floated, then collectively shrugged off
💥 Fast Food Diss Tracks Are Now a Thing
First it was Popeyes. Then McDonald’s (and more MickeyD). Then Wendy’s fan-casting herself as a superhero assassin. The group spiraled (in the best way) into brand warfare with Five Guys and this banger from our friends across the pond.
Prompt idea: “AI Death Match: The QSR Universe”
Could become a jam theme or mockumentary pitch
We’re still waiting on Burger King’s rebuttal
💬 “Tom and Jerry, but with fries.”
🔗 LINK DROP
🧪 Tools & Industry
OpenArt.ai launches new feature on Product Hunt
Welcomed the folks from Ecco into MC this week!
🎥 Film & Art and Everything In-Between
Act Fast, Submissions for the AI Media Festival close July 20th, followed by the AIFF on July 21st
My Wife Left Me for Ozempic music video
Alex Patrascu’s Nightfall Crossing: Higgsfield-only trailer
Ari Kuschnir heals for all of us
Strange Matter using Fuser Studio
Felt That- Game
📚 Thought Pieces
💪 Job Ops
Renard T. Jenkins dropped a note this week about a job op. “Solid AI Developers” should DM Renard T. Jenkins for deets
This one is for the ladies - A&E Factual Studios reaching out to female AI artists skilled with realistic recreation scenes.
GenTalks Community Call 7/16 - recap
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 – View 84 mins
Featured Guests:
Ezra Li – Actor, writer, and award-winning filmmaker behind Poem, the Grand Prix winner of Runway’s Gen48.
Russell Palmer – Co-founder of Saga, a collaborative AI storytelling and screenwriting platform.
COMMUNITY MOMENTS
Ezra’s story prompted broader discussion on artist-led workflows, performance capture ethics, and emotional storytelling through AI tools.
Fred, Adam, and others discussed the challenge of solo creators wearing too many hats—Ezra noted he’s just now hiring an assistant.
Russell’s demo sparked an important rights & IP conversation, with WGA member Fred Graver drilling into Saga’s backend protections and Microsoft Azure’s API sandboxing.
Minh shared an idea to partner with Paris-based Prompt Club for a month-long thematic AI film jam.
EZRA LI: "Artists First, Tools Second"
Ezra gave a deep-dive artist talk walking through his workflow and philosophy behind his AI-generated short film Poem. Key themes included emotional storytelling, actor-informed performance design, and embracing imperfections over aesthetic polish.
Key Takeaways:
Story as Core: Ezra emphasized grounding the work in emotion and human voice, even within an AI-generated aesthetic.
Visual Consistency via Sora: Leveraged image presets and reference sheets for character design. Used V2 preset with rich visual and emotional detail to maintain animation style and continuity.
Acting through AI: Used Runway’s Act 1 for facial performance capture, reversing clips in Premiere for more control (e.g., having characters close their eyes, then playing it backwards).
Eyelines & Film Grammar: Demonstrated using over-the-shoulder and shot/reverse shot dynamics to simulate dialogue scenes—citing character continuity and eyelines as surprisingly difficult challenges.
Photoshop + 11 Labs + Premiere: Tool blending was essential; from hand-retouching eye color to generating voiceovers to editing together final visuals.
Hot Quote:
“I'm not trying to make the coolest images. I’m trying to tell a story with emotional truth.”
RUSSELL PALMER: “Saga: AI Writing With Guardrails”
Russell introduced Saga, a screenwriting app built for filmmakers by filmmakers—his co-founder is his brother, a working AD on shows like Suits and The Boys.
Core Features of Saga:
AI-structured screenwriting UI (beats, acts, character arcs, storyboards).
GPT-4o + Claude-powered assistant that doesn’t generate entire scripts but supports creative iteration.
Integrated image & video generation using top models (Google Imagine, Flux, Veo 3), storyboarding tools, and export formats (.txt, .fountain, .pdf).
Legal & Ethical Assurance: Uses Azure’s API endpoints and maintains strict “no training on your data” policies. Designed with artist rights in mind, reviewed by DLA Piper & WGA advisors.
Big Announcements:
Free month of Saga Premium: 500 image credits + 50 video generations
60% off screenwriting course by Saga co-founder
Plans to add advertising formats + deeper visual consistency workflows
Hot Quote:
“I built Saga for my brother. If we can't protect artists' rights, what's the point?”
CLOSING REFLECTION
This was one of the richest “walkthrough” sessions to date—blending practical tips, artistic vulnerability, and future-facing tool insights. Ezra embodied the ethos of “AI as amplifier,” not replacement. Russell’s presence grounded the session in trust and usability, proving that structured tools and artistic instincts can coexist beautifully.