AI Cinema: The Future of Independent Filmmaking

C&C Interview with PJ Way.mp3

John Gauntt [00:00:06] This is Culture and Code, a podcast about Creativity and Artificial Intelligence. I’m John Gauntt. Culture and Code explores innovation across storytelling, technology and audiences to help professional creators collaborate better with AI and each other. Support this podcast by subscribing to our newsletter. Visit our website, Culture and Code.io. This show is a conversation with PJ Way, who is the founder of the AIFilm3 Festival in Glendale, Arizona. He’s an award winning innovator, a Marine Corps veteran and a leader in Arizona’s creative and technology ecosystems, especially as they relate to Web3 and AI. Now in this conversation. PJ and I will talk about the AIFilm3 Festival and what it means as a general trend in media and entertainment, both locally and beyond. We’ll work through some of the nuts, bolts and bruises that come from putting together a community event like this and how the work and connections made through these kinds of experiences become the seeds for massive innovation to follow. So PJ Way thank you so much for speaking with the Culture and Code podcast.

P.J. Way [00:01:14] Thank you so much, John. It’s such a pleasure to be here and be able to speak with you today. I really do appreciate that.

John Gauntt [00:01:20] So to start. Tell us about the AIFilm3 film festival and what makes it unique in today’s film and technology ecosystems.

P.J. Way [00:01:28] Well, that’s a great question, John. I think what makes this Festival very unique is it’s about the creators. Many times we have creators that are putting content out and they’re hoping to be seen. They just want to be witnessed for their creativity, their innovation, the work they put into their their films and their storytelling. And this isn’t a competition. It’s really about being able to demonstrate what your skills are, your talents, and what you want to actually express to the public.

John Gauntt [00:01:54] Right. So would you say that for a while it was a bit like putting a message in a bottle if you were an independent filmmaker?

P.J. Way [00:02:01] Absolutely. A lot of times independent filmmakers or creators when it comes to technology in the use of AI, they’re they’re trying to to be to be seen right. They’re trying to demonstrate their skills. Yet how do you break out of what we have is typically the Web3, the Web3 spaces. People tend to know each other. They know who’s in what circles. They tend to go to a lot of the similar events. And one of the common conversations is always, how do we expand that? How do we get people to start seeing what we do? Is is being creative, innovative and unique in in and of itself. So that that was kind of the premise of be able to get that message out and have the public engage with it in a format where they can come in. Nobody has to approach them. There’s no guards up. It’s a low barrier. People of curiosity can come in and start learning.

John Gauntt [00:02:49] Well, what was it specifically about filmmaking and artificial intelligence that you said, okay, this is the way we’re going to frame this experience.

P.J. Way [00:03:00] The work that I have created and the work that I had done personally, I was very privileged to be able to have a lot of artists, a lot of well-established people within this space have seen my art and actually carried it into other areas. And when when I was in Paris, to me, I felt like that was a major accomplishment, that my work was actually put into a set piece collection that was curated out and there were a lot of people as submitted. So I knew that there’s a story to be told that people can connect in a different way. And when I came to AI and AI filmmaking, looking at the tools, there is there was almost a race. There still is. There’s almost a race between all the platforms to demonstrate what they’re capable of developing, how they’re able to to get more people onboarded into the tool sets. And they’re sometimes they don’t, let’s say, work in collaboration from a primary standpoint. So the creatives have to figure out how the technology works. So it’s not just about storytelling, but they have to know the tools they have. They’re the sound person, they’re the writer, the author, the idee, they’re creating the ideation. All of that context comes from an individual perspective. So I wanted to make sure that that’s what made this different, is to demonstrate how I communicate. It takes that the head, the brain to a place where the hands cannot typically go. And it’s a it’s a great tool.

John Gauntt [00:04:20] So if you come up with this idea, you say this is where we’re going to do. Who was the first person you took that idea to and what was their reaction?

P.J. Way [00:04:30] Man. You know, obviously the first person was my wife. It was honestly, it’s hard to my family. So this is after I came back from NFT NYC and having collaborated with so many people in conversation, having lunches and and watching, I look at different people’s art and watching how New York City moved and how people wanted to be part of that. I came back and I told my wife I was really inspired by the stories of people from all around the world that came, and the common thread that I had was how they were all looking for the next thing they were looking for, the next person to collaborate with and and become very social with. That’s one thing I can say about this space is that it’s very community driven. It is about the community. It is about our the way we can lift each other up. It’s not a competition with one another, it seems. So when I shared that idea with my wife, she was very supportive. And if you think this is the way to go and what you want to try and do. Go for it. Give it a shot. And I think that when you have a foundation of support, whether that’s from a loved one, your spouse, a brother, sister, a close friend, somebody that can support you, it helps to really deliver on that, that execution of what you’re trying to achieve.

John Gauntt [00:05:41] So let’s dig into the festival itself. Some of the some of the mechanics, like roughly how many films were submitted and what were some of the common attributes among the submitters?

P.J. Way [00:05:53] Looking at the films, we had over 200 films that were submitted. It was curated down to about 157. So nearly everything that came through managed to find a home. And the reason for that is as a festival, again, it’s not a competition. We’re gonna celebrate all the different talents and make it indeed an event where people can find something unique for themselves. Maybe not everything is somebody’s cup of tea, but at the same time it might be somebody else’s. So how do you how do you illustrate that in a way that you find? I’ll tell you, going through all of them, I found common threads of humanity. I found common threads of people just being people and telling stories. And I think that’s what was powerful about it, was that people were giving their own vision, their own I mean, everything from tales of a lost a lost love as a child or a spouse as you grow old. And they passed away to serious health issues for an individual to the most enlightening, pleasant, lighthearted, funny, clever, witty, I mean, just musical. It was across the gamut. But what it showed across all of those is human condition. That’s all about who we are as people. And I think that’s what I found very powerful about what it was. We had about 157 were curated in. And again, that was that was the film side. We had another 40 music videos that were curated in and then we had about 200 pieces of art that were curated in as as art. Now we have with that, we had probably close to 600 pieces that were submitted. So it was hard to to cut those down was very difficult because everything was everything was great. I mean, every had their own spin on it, but we had to make sure that it was palpable and we had so many screens to show so many days now to make sure everybody had an update of their work scene. So I didn’t want to have be overwhelming load.

John Gauntt [00:07:51] Now, roughly speaking, what was the time box between when you started this process and when you more or less had the first kind of rough cut, what the weekend would would look like? Now, the the festival ran from a Thursday through a Saturday, so it ran over three days. How long did it take you to put out the submission, get the initial waves of content coming in and then organize and package it?

P.J. Way [00:08:19] From initial concept. It was about May. I started around May. I really decided I was talking about in April with my wife. And then in May I decided I’m going to do this. So I took to the streets of contacting all of the venues, the places I thought we would need. I just kind of ideated about what what does this look like? And looked around Arizona, I checked different cities, different venues, and it occurred to me that Glendale was really the ideal spot, simply because it had a hotel convention center, which I participate in. I know what conventions they hold there. I’m familiar with the hotel, they have an entertainment district, and then they had the AMC Theater. So I approached AMC, I approached Harkins and other independent theaters. I did do some research. I went to other other film festivals to see how they how they worked, what were they doing? This is not a traditional film festival. I mean, honestly, it’s just not because none of this is traditional film. It’s it’s really individuals, as storytellers. As I mentioned, 52% of the films that we had came in from overseas, not within the US. So the stories were some of them were in French. Some were in in Italian, but they had subtitles or they were in Korean, but they were or they had dubbed English voices over top of it. So driving through from the time I talked to the theater, I talked to the convention center, I got some ideas of what that budget would look like. Budgets are always the hardest part. I think that anybody could give anybody a piece of advice. If you’re going to do something, try to have a budget and keep yourself from getting scope creep, because I know there are things that I wanted to do that I didn’t include initially. And when they popped up, I was like, this is a golden opportunity. But without the budget, it’s very hard to sacrifice one thing for another. So you have to make good judgment. I didn’t start actually doing open calls until probably July. We started calls in July, August and September. For film and videos and they just came pouring in brochure from day one.

John Gauntt [00:10:28] Now, what was their initial reaction when you spoke with AMC? Because obviously they’re a member of the traditional film distribution ecosystem and complex. You know, they work hand in glove with Hollywood and you’re saying, hey, I want to show a bunch of films made with AI. What were some of the ways that you that you spoke with them and what were they? What was their response?

P.J. Way [00:10:52] So reaching out to somebody like the Convention Center convention, there was like, yeah, what are you. We’ll do it. Just tell us what you want. But going to the theater was indeed a little different, right? And then I approached the City. I approached the City of Glendale. I approached the Arizona Commerce Authority, and I wanted to get some. Finding the legitimacy, right? How do you legitimize something where people have this curiosity about it rather than they understand it? And I wanted to start with the foundation of getting some of those those institutionalized organizations, such as the City that get the local government or local government to support it, get the state and the state to support it and share a vision through storytelling. You know, if the whole premise is storytelling, right? That’s what artists are creators are doing. That was my chance to storytell I got a chance to share a vision with these with these other individuals that are very focused many times on business models. They want to see X, Y, Z. Can you do these following things? Check these boxes. I went in there with a story rather than a check box. I said, Here’s what I see and here’s what I’ve experienced, here’s what I know. I want to be able to do these following things. And I think we’re going to discover that there are people within our community that we are unaware of. They have these talent skills and they don’t even know the people in the spaces on X though, the people that build together in communities and platforms on LinkedIn or other places, they don’t know where each other are. So if we can develop this in a way that we put it publicly, the public can engage with it. We may find new pockets of opportunity for economic development, you may find new pockets for employment, employment for people. They’re looking for those types of careers. And they they understood that. They actually were very receptive to that. And talking to AMC challenged them, you pointed out already, which is traditional. They were very, very cautious about. There was there could be no branding with AMC on a four in support. They were a venue, not a supporter. And I made it very clear and that’s okay. But I’m and I knew from my perspective is that as much as I’ve been privileged by every person that gave me a piece of art or film to put in front of other people. They trusted me with their creation, so they had to trust me also that I going to those led them, going to those local leaders. I’m talking to the state and I’m talking to AMC in a way that makes them want to do business with somebody else that comes up and says, Hey, I’m an independent film maker. Whether you’re using AI or not, that should be the question. But when you’re an independent filmmaker and you are put on a presentation, you want to demonstrate what you put out, that they’re going to listen and pay attention and be part of that. You’re not going to be resistant. So I knew that was part of my responsibility going in. And I’ll tell you what AMC was was very helpful on the ground level. The AMC upstream perfectly understand what they’re following, the protocols. They have their management. They don’t want to upset their Hollywood partners. That’s wonderful. Locally, the people that were there that work in those in those areas, the concessions, the reception area, the management, they were blown away. They they gave I mean. One comment was made to me that they haven’t had this much fun since Justin Bieber was in in 2009. I mean, I’m like, wow, We’re comparing the Justin Bieber event in the height of his career. This is amazing, right?

John Gauntt [00:14:14] Yeah. No joke.

P.J. Way [00:14:15] Pretty fun.

John Gauntt [00:14:16] So now how about the how about the Commerce Department or the State Film Commission? I mean, on the one hand, Convention Center, people, with all due respect, are rather straightforward. Have airplanes land with people who are going to stay in our hotels and eat in our restaurants. And we’re happy. That is a bit different when you’re looking at a film commission which is trying to understand how best to position Arizona. So can you contrast those two conversations please?

P.J. Way [00:14:49] Yeah, absolutely. You’re 100% right. Reaching out to the the convention center in the hotel. It was about butts in seats. They want to know how many people they have coming in. Do they do we need food, set ups? What type of catering? I mean, they did a great job of really trying to walk me through all the options and doing this alone in that those areas, it’s sometimes a little daunting, too, because you think you know what you want until you get talking about it. And the more you think about it and you go out and physically see this site, that’s the other thing is don’t do this without going out and see the place. Because I envision one thing and I get there and I’m like, it’s something different. And it may not work the way I wanted to, where it might work better than I imagined it could have. I just can change my plans with the film commission. That is a place where there was this interest because it piqued their interest, because it’s a subject when they start talking about Hollywood. Now, Arizona. Knock on wood, is great in its capacity to try and bring in new film. It’s got it actually has its own film department. It has commissioned for film. It has our film media group, and they run things very well. They’re always trying to incentivize, bring new film industries into the area. With that being said, I’m coming asking, Hey, will you support me for AI film? And that was that on the list of festivals. So the here’s our cover story keeps a list of all of the festivals in the state of Arizona that are film or media related. This was the only one they ever had and said, AI in like, we don’t even we don’t we’re excited to put this out because nobody’s done this. We don’t know what it had. How do you think it’ll be received then? I’m like, Well, I think it’s going to be great. I think it was cautionary tales of all people. What if people protest? What if there’s somebody angry? I can’t worry about that. If I can, we can’t stifle the growth opportunity for fear when we’re offering is not aggressive. It’s really just the reception. Bring people in that want to see it in the film. The come the commissioner. So actually, to answer your question. The commissioner for film in the state of Arizona came out to attend the event. We had a red carpet event on the second night, which is November 1st and Friday night, and he was supposed to be over ten minutes. He ended up staying for about 2.5 hours. Now, we had a delay yet he could have left. He could have done anything you want. He didn’t have to be there. So in that delay was due a camera crew so that the production company was coming out to film everything and get runway, get this stuff recorded. They were running a little late. Yet for him to stick around for 2.5 hours and listen to people and talk to people and shake hands and get photos taken. That’s pretty remarkable because he’s not it’s not like he doesn’t have work to do and he’s not a busy man. So not just him, but his director that works directly under him. She also came out and she spent 2.5 hours. So they talked to people. And I think what they overheard in my conversation separately was that the cultures, their culture is real, that it is a group of people that really are wanting to know how do they make their way in doing their storytelling. And so he took to that. It really can I feel it connected with him in the response that I had in my one on one discussions with him that when he was speaking to to the to the interview piece, the run on the red carpet for runway TV was. He found the connection between AI being a form of adoption into Arizona. He wanted to make it so that there was a welcoming opportunity that that type of an industry is welcome here, that it should be being brought and it should be encouraged and not discouraged, should be seen as a as an opportunity, not as a medium is going to displace others. And I really appreciated that.

John Gauntt [00:18:41] Sure. Well, if that’s on the culture side, let’s start a little bit on the code side now. You know, one of the premise behind this is that we’re making films with artificial intelligence and some festivals say, it has to be 100% or, you know, They throw in all these different goofy rules. But in general, in general, because you were able to see literally hundreds of submissions, did you see some common tools or common types of building blocks that people were using to make their films?

P.J. Way [00:19:13] I think that comes with commonality of the tools. And I think what’s interesting is if you look at the tools that if you really sat down and were to break down every one of those, they had disclosed what tools they were using. You would find that things like Midjourney, Midjourney is a great tool. It’s utilized by many people. It has mass adoption. There were others, they had lesser known toolsets and the quality was just as competitive, just as great because so many took the time to curate their work. It’s that that just demonstrates the skill in the output is from the creator. It’s the tools are the tools, but the creator makes the content what it’s what they envisioned. They can take it as it comes or they can work on it until they get it just perfect. And it’s amazing how people work until they get it just the way they want to be. So I think that the tool is kind of agnostic to the storytelling process. It’s a matter of people finding what tool works best for them.

John Gauntt [00:20:12] So one of the things that I’m curious, based on your experience, is like, what would be one of the problems that you want specifically the technologists to help solve? You know, maybe it’s a we’re talking about consistency of characters or some kind of some kind of thing that right now. The creators deal with it and work around it. But you really wish that we could get a solid, stable solution for.

P.J. Way [00:20:40] I think I’ve had similar dialog too throughout the that the actually then those three days that came up several different times. And I’m going to point to one thing which is funny to tell a story real quick about the tools. So there was a there was a submission called Mysteries of the Supernatural Dating Secrets and Beyond. It was amazing. So funny, clever. But the premise is that there’s a news reporter reporting on mythical creatures that are in a dating looking for dates. So we’re doing like video dating service, and it’s really clever. The group that submitted that when I did sign, I said, This is wonderful. This is in congratulations. I can’t wait to showcase this. It. There was literally within that four week window a new tool or two that exists had done a revision change and an upgrade. The new release of that new tool changed could change some of the output. So they redid a sequence within that same film with the new tools. And it’s a noticeable difference. And what I thought I wanted to keep both of those in the showcase and I and we did because I wanted to have this be the starting day. And we had on the last day so people could see all the different things throughout it. But it also gave a demonstration of what happens in a very short window from the day they submitted it. Less than four weeks later, they had managed to get a new tool while it upgraded the same tool and redo the work and then resubmit it. And it was same story, but certain pieces were just much, much different. So one thing I would ask that I think would be good for any developer to create is a single, single point dashboard. I think the challenge of being able to migrate something from one toolset to the next toolset to the next toolset, if there were a way to uniformly just pull into a single dashboard and then move all the tools around into one thing. I think if somebody does that, they appear to have a golden ticket on their hand. Be able to bring in all the different tools at one place where people could just move it from screen to screen or panel to panel without having to save low. Yeah, I think that’s the biggest thing.

John Gauntt [00:22:53] Now, when we are looking towards the future, I’m assuming there will be another edition of the AIFilm3 film festival already starting to plan next year.

P.J. Way [00:23:03] Oh yeah, there absolutely is. And I’m already starting to plan next year and have had several different opportunities to possibly bring this as more of a micro session smaller in capacity around the country and maybe around the world at some point. It really is on the table. Certain things have popped up, new developments. And we’ve had distributors that were in attendance for that, new distribution channels for this type of work of art and medium of filmmaking. I think that that was one of the things I really loved about being able to do this in Arizona, and I’m going to do it here again, but I want to be able to do it around different places in the country because I think there’s there’s other distributors, there’s other channels for creatives to be able to be connected and and having people well, we live in this remote world and we live in a place where the work we do is on a computer anyways, bringing people together in front of a large screen and watching things tells a different story of what’s possible. And the people that are looking for innovators and are looking for those creatives, they don’t have to go and search people’s individual records. They don’t have to search for, you know, it’s it is the. Pro athletes, you know, and they have a scouting combine. They bring all the athletes out to one combine and all every sits there and watches. This is the same thing. This is your your chance of being at this combine to demonstrate to the world and showcase what you’re capable of and tell your own story in the way you want to tell it. And they don’t have to be realistic. It doesn’t have to look like a human being or a person. It could be very morphic. It can be. I think that’s what makes it so, so great is that the limitations really don’t exist. And by and large, again, I think that there is a just a human condition in storytelling which is easy to see. It’s the now you want to find out who connects with you and what audience are you representing to frame those connections?

John Gauntt [00:24:59] When you are looking at this this next evolution. Well, let’s talk about what potential new allies you’re looking for. We’ve already talked to the theater owners. The convention center wants the the film board. Those, believe me, execution wise, very difficult. But conceptually, yeah, you kind of figure those are the doors and you start knocking on. What new doors do you think you need to knock on to help expand both the scale and the scope of what you’re trying to do?

P.J. Way [00:25:31] If we look at what’s been traditionally done and we look at how platforms like Google has. Has. They create these little micro development places where people can learn and grow inside of using their tools. Same with same with like. I think if an institution were to to develop a way to adopt a AI openly without having this this concern about. All the things you’re concerned about, right? The fears that grow out of having AI as a developmental tool. Partners, I think would be great is to when we see developments like Lionsgate, Lionsgate, building a partnership with Runway, I think that’s remarkable. I think that’s a great step forward. Finding people like I would have A24, I’d love to have Blumhouse, somebody else that I’d be able to connect with and say, Hey, look, you do a lot of great films. You have a lot of great content creators. There’s there’s an avenue to start bringing in these people to be seen. So I really would like to try and figure out how we bridge that gap. Finding finding the financial solutions to help support this in a structure that allow creators to be seen in these markets that travel around much like I mean, let’s put in comparison to like traditional film, traditional film people. People go to Academy Awards, they get awards based on attendance, the ticket sales feedback. They have all these different criteria of how they decide. What’s nice is that we live in a time right now with what we’re doing, and if we look at that, the Web3 space. People can vote. It’s it becomes not a select group of people that have the power to nominate or select, but really the people that attend and watch and participate. So we have a really unique opportunity to see how that changes in this environment from a traditional environment. But we still can can advance, we can advance every storyteller. And the way that they’re doing it from around the world in a single and a single instance of awards of recognition. But it can be done globally because we have taken we’re making the world smaller in a way with the way we’re doing Web3, the way that everything gets built. This freedom of economy concept helps to give. It democratizes our storytelling so that there is no there is no gatekeepers. We don’t have to worry about somebody saying, we don’t like your script. We have to have as much money. You have to have this budget. So if we can do that in a manner that gives other people the voice to start making the votes, they start giving that that recognition, too. I think that’s how we get into better entertainment in general. And entertainment is a is a gateway into other areas of AI, right. If we want to about AI’s general term outside of film entertainment, in art or graphics, we use it to start using it for health care, or we use it for quality of any quality of life endeavor. Those AI tools happen when people start recognizing the value proposition in some other way. If you if you show somebody, Hey, this is AI in health care, they’re not going too excited. If you say, Hey, this is AI in film and entertainment. Whoa, that’s kind of cool, right? It’s visual. It’s stimulating. It’s part of. They might want to learn those tools as well. I think that partnerships are going to be finding the right partners long term starts with finding those that see the same value proposition and what I’m trying to share. So I think that’s the hard part. I don’t want to I don’t want to compromise the thought process or vision of being able to achieve things by turning it over to somebody else so that they can try and do it and then create new gatekeepers. I really think this is a great opportunity for us to to keep it open for people.

John Gauntt [00:29:13] So how do people find AIFilm3 and then what’s the best way for them to find you?

P.J. Way [00:29:21] AIFilm3.com is the website and actually I have some some people that are developing other work there were so inspired by this and they’ve been starting up and say, Hey, we have some ideas for you, so we’ll see how we integrate all that together. I think that’s a fascinating opportunity to demonstrate other people’s skills and talents and build this community together. AIfilm3.com is the website you could find me at. PJW <at> AIfilm3.com. You follow me also on Twitter. It’s an old old X handle, which is another variety one. I don’t know if you can actually change those without losing everything. You could change your name, but you can’t change the handle, I think. Still so.

John Gauntt [00:29:58] Okay. So PJ Way, founder of the AI Film Three Festival, thank you so much for speaking with the Culture and Code podcast.

P.J. Way [00:30:05] Thank you so much. I’m so glad to be here and I look forward to listening in to all of the things I hope people tune in all the time.

John Gauntt [00:30:13] You’ve been listening to the Culture and Code podcast, Creativity and Artificial intelligence. You can find us on all major podcasting platforms and our website CultureandCode.io. That’s one word CultureandCode.io. To support this podcast, subscribe to our email newsletter for a weekly round up of analysis, news plus AI training and growth opportunities for creative professionals. It’s all there at CultureandCode.io Culture and Code is a creative studio and professional education provider that’s part of the Augmented City LLC. I’m John Gauntt inviting you to the next episode of the Culture and Code Podcast. Thanks for listening.