DJ Furth

Trench Spools

WE USED TO SPEND MILLIONS TO GUESS 💸 Traditionally, development is slow, expensive, and abstract. Studios spend one to three years, sometimes more, and anywhere from hundreds of thousands to several million dollars, with teams of writers, producers, and executives trying to answer a single question: is this worth making. And most of that happens without ever truly seeing it. What Generative AI is unlocking right now is the ability to make parts of that process tangible much earlier: script writing remains a bottleneck, but everything around it, tone, visual language, pacing, emotional weight, can now be explored and iterated quickly, turning development into something far more recursive. It becomes a loop between writing, generation, editing, and design, shaping the project as it evolves. The closest analogy I have been using lately is sculpting. Instead of perfecting pieces in isolation, a rough block is formed and continuously reshaped, with decisions driven by how the work feels in motion, not just how it reads. What used to take years and millions can now be compressed into months, not to finish, but to understand if something holds, if a world is coherent, if a story even has a reason to be... At the same time, development no longer has to follow a single track. Multiple directions can be explored in parallel, different tones, different visual identities, different narrative paths, allowing ideas to compete early. So, THIS, is where AI becomes a development engine. It doesn’t have to replace production or artists, but it CAN tighten development, reduce risk, and align stakeholders faster...which in return is a lot less money spoiled.... It’s hard to imagine that some version of this isn’t already happening inside The Walt Disney Company, Pixar Animation Studios, or Netflix, and if it isn’t....well, it probably should...( and I am also happy to chat with them :)) Because this isn’t only about making things faster, It’s definitely about knowing sooner whether they are worth making at all...

Fresh off of speaking at the Runway AI Summit yesterday in New York. A few thoughts after many fruitful conversations. I don’t come directly from tech. My goal isn’t to be a “tech or AI bro.” I come from film sets, edit bays, and storytelling. I come from film and art school, drawing naked figures for 6 hours a day. After incredible conversations I’d figured I’d share the real state of the union regarding AI and the art and film industry. What’s clear to me is this: AI isn’t waiting to “arrive.” It’s waiting for storytellers and artists bold enough to define it. Both old and emerging. Right now, we’re still in the phase where people are reacting to the tools and to tech demos. Not understanding the complex workflows that are developing to tell stories in new interesting ways. But the real shift happens when creators start bending the tools to their voice. When we are seeing more people who have been crafting stories their whole life start to emerge. That’s when this becomes something bigger than just click-bait content. That’s when it becomes cinema. And I assure you, many of us are doing just that. We need more storytellers in this space. Because without them, it takes longer to move forward in a meaningful way. When people start seeing the real voices and the real stores, it’s all she wrote. Coming sooner than you think.