Category Archives: Coming Soon

Hollywood vs. Tilly Norwood

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Lily Ford of The Hollywood Reporter reports that the Creator of AI Actress Tilly Norwood Responds to Backlash: “She Is Not a Replacement for a Human Being”.

A new AI-generated actress named Tilly Norwood has caused a stir in Hollywood, with her creator, Eline Van der Velden of the company Particle6, claiming talent agencies are interested in signing her.

The news has sparked a fiery backlash from human actors, who see the creation as a threat to their livelihoods and the integrity of their craft.

In a response on Instagram, Van der Velden defended Tilly as a work of art and a new creative tool, not a replacement for human performers.

“To those who have expressed anger over the creation of my AI character, Tilly Norwood, she is not a replacement for a human being, but a creative work—a piece of art.”

Van der Velden argued that AI characters should be judged as their own genre, much like animation, puppetry or CGI, and could coexist with traditional acting.

The Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA), however, disagrees, stating, “To be clear, ‘Tilly Norwood’ is not an actor, it’s a character generated by a computer program.”

My take: Still less robotic than some of the Transformers cast.

 

Netflix confirms 14 day theatrical run for Knives Out 3

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Jack Dunn in Variety reveals that ‘Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery’ Sets Two-Week Theatrical Release Before Netflix Rollout.

The third instalment in the ensemble mystery franchise featuring Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc will screen in selected theatres globally for 14 days starting November 26 before streaming on Netflix on December 12, 2025.

In 2022, “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” played in 600 cinemas for one week one month before streaming.

My take: kudos to Rian Johnson for putting this in his Netflix contract. Could this become their new norm, after Netflix’s success with its two-day KPop Demon Hunter theatrical release?

Advice for Indie Filmmakers from Stephen Follows

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Stephen Follows offers Practical advice for indie directors who want to keep making films.

Here are the topics he discusses:

  1. Stay flexible and keep moving
  2. Start small but start now
  3. Think like a micro-budget filmmaker
  4. You need to create your own opportunities
  5. Learn by doing everything
  6. Understand where indie films truly live
  7. Consider if film school is for you
  8. You never know what an opportunity looks like
  9. Find your thing
  10. Learn what people want to watch
  11. Build the right team
  12. Stay ahead of the game
  13. Keep going, no matter what

I particularly like this:

“The filmmakers who get noticed are the ones who don’t wait for permission. They write, shoot, and edit their own work. Even a no-budget short is better than waiting for the perfect offer that may never come.”

My take: good advice! TL;DR? Just do it.

Funding + Screening, together now

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Brian Welk reports on IndieWire that From Film Funding to Distribution, This Partnership Gives You Control: ‘Anyone Can Do This’.

The partnership in question is between Seed&Spark and Kinema.

Unlike other crowdfunding platforms Seed&Spark is purpose-built for film & TV projects. They have a phenomenal 82% success rate.

“Kinema is a tech platform that enables non-theatrical exhibition — what you may call grassroots screening tours — of films in person and online. We make it easy and rewarding for anyone, anywhere to organize moving showings and share in the proceeds.”

Brian states:

“Those who fund programs on Seed&Spark get a dedicated Kinema account manager and custom distribution consultations. Fees are waived for filmmakers with over 500 followers or over 1,000 campaign backers.”

But hey, if you want to DIY, at least check out their free online resource The Distribution Playbook.

My take: well worth further investigation!

Indie TV: self-financing your own series

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Elaine Low writes on The Ankler that Indie TV is a viable model to self-finance shows.

She writes:

“In Park City for the (Sundance) festival is Cooper Raiff, the writer and director of Cha Cha Real Smooth, which just three years ago was a festival competition title that got snapped up by Apple TV+ for $15 million. This year, he’s shopping Hal & Harper — not an indie film, which would be a tough enough sell in 2025, but rather an independently financed TV series, whose path is even less clear.”

Zack Sharf quotes Raiff on making Hal & Harper in Variety as saying:

“(Selling your second movie for $15 million to Apple) makes you too confident. Because of that deal, I thought, ‘Let’s just do it with television.’ That’s what I told everyone. We’re really braving the storm with the series. ‘Cha Cha’ was sold on the backs of so many indie movies. With this, we’re trying to sell this show… so it has to be this undeniable thing to these streamers and these networks. But it made me too confident.”

See the Collider review.

Wikipedia info.

My take: this seems extremely risky, unless your budget is practically zero, you have all the locations, and everyone is volunteering their time. Or, you’ve made so much, you need write-offs? I mean it’s a great way to keep total creative control — until Season Two, that is.

Why so many movies are shot in British Columbia, Canada

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Edward Vega posts on Vox “Why your favourite movies fake their locations and why so many of them are shot in Vancouver.”

It all boils down to money.

Some of the reasons he points out:

  1. Locations: Vancouver has got it all: downtowns, suburbs, rural areas, mountains and forests, all within easy travel times
  2. Infrastructure: officials, crews and the general public are film-friendly and eager to make movies
  3. Tax incentives: provincial and federal dollars are readily available as tax rebates.

btw, the whole video is sponsored by Destination Vancouver.

See also:

My take: Another reason is that British Columbia and California share the same time zone. And a further reason is the exchange rate — the Loonie is worth 69 US cents, so every dollar Hollywood spends automatically goes over 40% further north of the border. (btw, you get even more tax incentive to film in Victoria or on Vancouver Island!)

Attend platform will allow filmmakers to connect directly to cinemas

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Jeremy Kay reports on Screen Daily that Former top exhibition sector lobbyists unveil digital marketplace to boost theatrical supply.

“The Attend platform will champion mid-range films that have largely disappeared from cinemas, as well as international films seeking release in North America, and films that typically receive limited theatrical release and could reach broader audiences through data-driven theatre selection, scheduling and marketing.”

Some features:

  • Filmmakers will be able to upload details and materials of their films directly
  • Exhibitors will be able to search the database
  • The platform will recommend films to exhibitors based on the preferences of their theatres and audiences
  • The platform will facilitate the logistics of projecting films in cinemas.

The Attend platform is being developed by The Fithian Group of John Fithian, Jackie Brenneman and Patrick Corcoran.

Dozens of filmmakers support the concept, including Ted Hope and Steven Soderbergh.

Read an in-depth interview with The Fithian Group for more.

My take: this solves the “supply to theatres” issue, by cutting out distributors. I’d love to see some Canadian cinemas join — not that I have anything against Canadian distributors — it’s just that Canadian filmmakers have historically been shut out of Canadian cinemas by American distributors. How ironic that this American initiative might solve that for us.

Kling is redefining CGI, with Grading up next

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Tim Simmons from Theoretically Media just released a new look at Kling AI’s new 1.5 model:

In it he relates what’s new:

“1080p Professional Mode: Kling 1.5 now generates videos at 1080p resolution when using Professional Mode. While it costs more credits, the output quality is significantly better and sets a new standard for AI video generation.

Motion Brush: Kling has introduced Motion Brush, a long-awaited tool in the AI video generation space. Currently, it’s only supported in the 1.0 model but will be available in 1.5 soon. Stay tuned!

End Frames: End frames have been introduced in the 1.0 model and are coming soon to the 1.5 model, allowing for smoother transitions and more control over your videos.

Using Negative Prompts: Improve your outputs by adding negative prompts to filter out undesired elements. Copy and paste the following negative prompts into your settings:

ARTIFACTS, SLOW, UGLY, BLURRY, DEFORMED, MULTIPLE LIMBS, CARTOON, ANIME, PIXELATED, STATIC, FOG, FLAT, UNCLEAR, DISTORTED, ERROR, STILL, LOW RESOLUTION, OVERSATURATED, GRAIN, BLUR, MORPHING, WARPING”

Of particular note is the emotion it’s able to generate.

Plus, Tim signals that Kling is about to add a full-featured Video Editor. Stay tuned indeed!

My take: of course, some will lament these advances. Yes, tasks that workers once spent their lives performing are now accomplished immediately. Looking at you, Medieval scribe, hot metal typesetter, telephone exchange operator. More job transformation is sure to come. We are well into the Digital Age and its promise is bearing increasingly wondrous fruit.

New Generated Video pipeline?

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A couple of very recent videos point to a potential new Generated Video, or GV, pipeline.

The first is “Create Cinematic Ai Videos with Kling Ai! – Ultra Realistic Results” by Seattle’s Yutao Han, aka Tao Prompts.

The second is “How-To Create Uncensored Images Of Anyone (Free)” by Lisbon’s Igor Pogany, aka The AI Advantage.

Imagine combining both into a new GV pipeline:

  1. Train custom character models
  2. Create key frames utilizing these custom models
  3. Animate clips with these key frames
  4. Upscale these clips
  5. Edit together.

My take: a lot of people will immediately claim this is heresy, and threatens the very foundations of cinema as we’ve come to know it over the last one hundred years. And they would be right. And yet, time marches on. I believe some variation of this is the future of ultra-low budget production. Very soon the quality will surpass the shoddy CGI that many multi-million dollar Hollywood productions have been foisting on us lately.

Reality check: LTX Studio mid-2024

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You’ve seen the Sora samples. The Dream Machine videos. How does LTX Studio, touted as “the future of storytelling, transforming imagination into reality,” stand up?

Haydn Rushworth posted this review:

“There are whole bunch of things it does not do, but I love where it’s going and where I hope it’s going to go…. It’s brilliant for keeping track of all of the shots that you really do need to keep track of. It’s brilliant for scene wide settings and project wide settings, something I’ve been craving, and it’s really, really good at that. It’s great for casting. It’s brilliant for allowing you to then kind of just drop those characters in. I love the generative tools that will allow you to erase bits that you don’t need in your starting shot and to add other bits that you need that will help you tidy up the shot…. My two big gripes and I don’t think these are bugs that they’re going to fix, this is just fundamental features that it needs to be in there. One of them is every shot is slow motion…. Secondly, breaking the fourth wall. It drives me out of my mind!”

Note that LTX Studio can do lots of things:

  • Pitch Decks
  • Storyboards
  • Animatics
  • Videos

Check out the video at the bottom of the corporate webpage.

Here’s a peek at actually using LTX Studio by Riley Brown:

My take: In addition to Haydn’s slo mo and fourth wall gripes, I would add these requirements as well: movement and expression control including blinking and lip-sync. Mid-2024, one has to use each of the many AI tools for what it does best and then bring all the bits together in post. As an early proponent of Machinima (using video games to make movies,) I’m watching this space with interest. My conclusion: advances are being made but we’re nowhere near lucid dreaming.