
Emmy award winning director, AI filmmaker & Dad. My grandpa played for the @Nuggets https://xitter.cf/t.co/BBl85XG1nR
Los Angeles, CA
Joined March 2024
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TOXO (Pet the Kitty) | Metal Warrior – Alien assassin cats executing revenge on some of the world’s worst people. Music by @StoneGreg @kerikelli @MetalWarriorOFL. I had a blast directing this one!
Righteous retribution has never been this cute.
Full 4K version on YouTube
youtu.be/dqmx0dqYjag
And it’s only gonna get better. Just like I said in ‘22, ‘23, ‘24... Why doesn’t every existing prodco in the world have a dedicated AI person/dept in their pipeline? 🤔
💯✊
There's a quiet kinship among those of us who started making AI video before anyone was watching. Nobody talks about it, but the early AI video crowd shares something real. We remember the melting faces, the six second clips, the late nights chasing one usable frame. We remember being told this wasn't art.
We kept showing up when the tools barely worked and the outside world didn’t yet believe in what we were building.
That's why a win like this hits different. When one of us rises, we all rise.
Congratulations @JeffSynthesized on taking the Future Vision prize.
You earned every bit of this, and you carried a piece of all of us with you. 🏆
🎯! Making TV shows was 16hr+ days when shooting, 100hr+ weeks during post and 20 of those hours spent figuring out how to give the “network” what they wanted.
For me, AI is mostly about how to articulate your ask. Like working w/ talent, DP’s or editors. #showrunner4life🤘
People never understood what indie productions have to do to work.
On Earthworm Jim I worked 14 hour days 7 days a week for a year. I was 27, so doable.
Neverhood took 14 hour days, 6 days a week for a year. I was 31.
22 graphic novels always took 10 hour days, 6 days a week for 6 months, I was age 35-55. Doable.
NFTs I worked 12 hour days, 6 days a week for 5 months. I was 56. My body broke down.
Ai I’m working 14 hour days, 6 days a week and after 2 weeks I’m about to throw in towel. I’m 60 and can’t do that any more.
I know Josh Daws and Mary Sue took him every waking hour for a month to do 11 minutes.
The reason why we go indie is because you want to make something and studios are often not funding the front end of things. They wait until Obsession is already made before they get it. The big budgets are what allow the work hours to be dispersed to a bigger team.
Ai is a work multiplier so anyone using can do more, but it can’t do everything. You still need people to push it into useful production.
Here’s to the indie producers out there, no matter what project you’re working on. Respect the grind.
For my AI filmmakers — here’s the stack behind TOXO.
Music by @kerikelli & @StoneGreg
Story by me and @StoneGreg
Apps used:
Magnific for all images
Seedance 2.0 across the following platforms
- Runway
- Hailuo
- Higgsfield
Upscaled in Topaz Astra
Cut in Adobe Premiere Pro
If you liked Catch-22, 2001:A Space Odyssey and the Assassination of Jesse James, you're gonna LOVE this! Great job, @heavypulp 👏
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Sticking with @brianjamesgage's theme of cats in (from) space, get ready for TOXO! It might be the most insane thing we’ve made yet.
@MetalWarriorOFL premieres TOXO (Pet the Kitty) TODAY at 4PM PT on YouTube.
Here’s the PROLOGUE. 👇 (Inspired by my favorite childhood film, "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi")
Watch the premiere / hit Notify Me:
youtu.be/dqmx0dqYjag
#TOXO #MetalWarrior #HeavyMetal
This is SO good! 🙌
An 8-minute animated film . Generated in 14 minutes. Crazy ! very soon and only on @fal !
( lora made for this in 1930 style Fleischer Studios for that will be share as well very soon )
There’s something so much more REAL about this than anything that could’ve been re-cast and recreated on film. The first doc I ever shot went to Sarajevo. One of the most haunting and beautiful places I’ve ever been. Well done, Marko 🙌
My son works full time here in Florida. Let me run his numbers.
State minimum wage is $14/hour. He's at $15.
40 hours a week = $600/week
That's about $2,600/month before taxes.
Florida has no state income tax the thing they sell you on. So after federal and FICA he takes home roughly $2,200.
Average one-bedroom in our area runs about $1,600.
That's 73% of his entire paycheck gone to rent before he eats a single meal.
Leaves him around $600 a month for:
- groceries
- gas
- car insurance
- health insurance
- phone
- emergencies
- savings
Car insurance alone eats a third of that in this state.
He works 40 hours a week and cannot save a dollar. Not because he's careless because there's nothing left to be careless with.
I spent thirty years paying off a house here. He's doing the same job I did at his age and he can't afford a one-bedroom.
That's not a discipline problem. That's not avocado toast.
The floor moved and nobody lowered the ceiling.
Working full time should cover a roof. In Florida it barely covers the rent on one.
Thanks, Tallinn. 🇪🇪 What a rad city! Sushi Plaza wins best restaurant of the trip. Gallery Cafe a close second. You might run into @MartinDickie on the roof at Issei, feeding spicy snacks to seagulls.
Jared Cotton retweeted
I spent 25 years directing crews. The transferable skill was not camera placement. It was orchestration. Clear intent. Specialized roles. Tight feedback loops. Daily review. That is also how useful AI agents get built.
Truth.
This is true and I lived it for 20 years working in Hollywood. Anti-Ai people almost certainly don’t have the values, art integrity or experience to know how difficult it was to get anything made… and I have one of highest % of graphic novels ever sold into Hollywood… none got made.
Convincing mid-level managers and execs to back your pitch to grant you the gift from in high that you’d get to tell a story was what stopped nearly every great artist.
Two anti-art limitations now end with Ai:
1. That your stories were rejected because an exec said they weren’t good.
2. That you can’t tell your story because you don’t have big studio budgets.
Jared Cotton retweeted
Replying to @BrianRoemmele
Really appreciate your thoughts here! I share a lot of similar sentiments here.
As someone who has funded/produced/directed/written/edited actual feature films and worked in that industry, it’s been absolutely incredibly freeing to now be able to from idea in your head to viable end deliverable product entirely on your own, outside of any external investors/producers/extra meddling hands.
Makes for some very fun free flowing creations! The AI slop argument will always be there I think, and I certainly don’t intend to stop filming things with real cameras, but I’m certainly not afraid to dive into AI and use it for all it’s worth 🧡

















