Is AI a Tool? w/Sarah May Bates and Susan Song - Just Shoot It 516

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hey, welcome to the 516th episode of Jeff Shoot It, a podcast about filmmaking, screenwriting and directing. This episode is brought to you by patron Brian Hough. I'm Matt Enlow.

1:03

And I'm Warren Kaplan. And today we have Sarah Mae Bates and Susan Song on the podcast. Sarah May was on the podcast a few years ago talking about commercial directing and narrative directing and a lot of different directing. She was part of a duo and now she's doing some more directing and part of what she's kind of dabbling in is some AI stuff. And her friend Susan Song, who is also an actor, accomplished actor. I had a lot of questions for Sarah, and Sarah thought, oh, hey, why don't I just go on a podcast, answer these questions for Susan and Matt and Oren and kind of do this all in one fell swoop and maybe she point people to this podcast episode to get the answers.

1:12

If my smart actor friend Susan has these questions, then I bet lots of other actors have similar questions. And maybe we can shed light on the way that on what what Sarah's noticed, the trends in the industry and the way things are changing and evolving and the ways that maybe they're staying more the same than we realize in the world of AI commercial directing. She's kind of on the bleeding edge and like, you know, working pretty actively in that space.

1:50

Yeah, and she definitely is working. At least from our conversation. It Seems like she's working in, like, the Hollywood friendly route. Like, hey, let's check in with SAG on this. Let's check in with, you know, the DGA or whatever, all the different kind of people on what she's doing and trying to do things ethically, but also not ignoring the fact that the tools of the trade are changing and changing fast. And, you know, everyone I talk to, not just Sarah, I just talked to an editor friend of ours that I just saw on the street and he's like, oh, yeah, they're just like, all the temp ADR is now just being done by AI. And he's like, I was trying to fight it forever, but the execs heard it and they're like, oh, this sounds great. You know, they're still hiring actors for the final edit, but they're not bringing them into temp stuff, I guess. Or the editors aren't attempting things themselves and it's. Yeah, I don't know. I'm still on the fence of whether it's a tool or, or is there a difference? Like when we got our, you know, Panasonic DVX100, did that kill the film loader? So who knows?

2:17

Yeah. Well, we have a great conversation. I can't say that we definitively come to any of those big answers, but we ask a lot of questions and Sarah has a lot of really interesting insights, I think. I do want to reiterate your point, Oren, that I think Sarah is coming at it from a place of really working in with major brands and real budgets. And so I think the calculus is very specific for her on when it makes sense for something to be AI and when not. That is a different beast than scrolling on social media and seeing someone say, we're cooked and then Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt are punching each other or something like that. And I think that a lot of our frame of reference is those clips that are designed to go social or to go viral, that are really socially conceived and meant to feel different. That feel like, oh, one edgelord in their basement made this over a weekend with like a bunch of dumb prompts or whatever. She's working in a very different idiom.

3:18

Yeah. That are built out of like all ip. Stolen ip, sure. As well.

4:22

Yeah. Or not some, you know, like, I, I, I see a lot of stuff on LinkedIn that's like, I really tasked myself to make a compelling story with these tools. And here's what I made. Not to. Those people, I think are doing interesting experiments perhaps, but Sarah is coming at it from a space where people are prompt engineering. And like she has a team of people kind of working, working actively. And she's burning through tokens in a different speed than one guy in 250 bucks worth of credits is. Is doing, basically.

4:27

So it's. Yeah.

5:02

It's not an apples to apples comparison, just as a qualifier.

5:03

Yeah. But it is a potential pathway for the future.

5:07

Absolutely.

5:10

Filmmakers, maybe so.

5:10

Or. Or the. The end of us all. Who knows?

5:12

Yes, one of those. Well, let's get into it. It's a fun conversation and I think you guys will, will, will. It'll raise some fun questions.

5:14

But before we raise those fun questions, let's raise. I've got one question. Are you. That's raised the budget of the show or an. Are you a Patreon member? No. You're not of our Patreon.

5:22

Yeah. Well, more than you are.

5:32

Is that true, Pastel?

5:34

My wife is a member. That's true. That's true.

5:35

Yeah. Yeah. So your bank account is a member of Patreon.

5:39

Yeah.

5:42

You should. She canceled it a long time ago, didn't she?

5:42

I don't know. I never asked her to cancel it.

5:45

I think it's. I think it's no longer. I think your credit card changed.

5:47

That can be. Yeah, I don't think it's still my credit card. I had to cancel.

5:51

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was just in Aruba for a while. I went to Switzerland. That was great. Patreon.com Jessupod is a place where you can throw us a buck or two to support the show. It is truly meaningful. We are doing all sorts of stuff to grow the community. We've got some giveaways coming up that are going to be really exciting. We're going to throw more events like we've been doing in the past. And Patreon is the lifeblood of this show. If you. If we did not have Patreon, we would not have. Just shoot it. So if you're getting something out of the show, if you've learned a thing or two, if you want to contribute to the community in some way. Patreon.com justshootapod is a place where you can support the show and keep it going.

5:54

Yeah. And someone was just texting me about. Yuki was just asking me when the next event is.

6:32

We should throw one.

6:36

Yeah.

6:38

And we might give away something real cool.

6:38

I. Oh, yeah, we have. We have some good stuff coming up. Okay, here we go. Sarah and Susan. So is the format going to be. Susan's going to ask you questions and then we'll just like kind of.

6:41

Well, Susan and I worked together. We were chit chatting at lunch one day and Susan's an actress, very talented, and she was like, you work in AI? What is the future? Am I going to have a job? Am I. Like, these auditions have gone down dramatically and I'm like, you are? Everybody in Hollywood right now is feeling the same thing. It's like the jobs have completely dramatically reduced and everybody's freaking out and everybody's kind of thinking it's AI and is it gone for good? And like, what. How can I pivot? How can I evolve? What are the ways that actors can change the way they work? I'm curious though, Matt and Oren, like, do you guys. Have you guys had like, kind of a similar freakout and like, have you noticed people changing the way they ask for treatments? Like, has treatments?

6:55

Absolutely.

7:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

7:45

I mean, so to answer, like, Oren freaks out daily. Yeah, right.

7:46

It's just. Those are just our roles. Like, yeah, as a, as a duo.

7:51

Yeah, yeah.

7:55

I'm the freak out one.

7:56

Orange freaking out. And like, I, you know, every once in a while I get nauseous and want to die. But like, for the most part, you know, I've got a handful of. Of arguments that I make that, you know, assuage my fears a little bit. You know, basically centering around like, human connectivity and the effectiveness of these ads and all of that stuff. So I think that we'll probably land in some version of, you know, a hybrid model basically, where not everything is 100% AI, but like, that we're actually absolutely using it on the daily all the time. But like, it's not a full supplement of what we are doing. It's kind of my, my hope and hunch.

7:57

Yeah, totally has a weird, tiny little story which is my daughter is in fourth grade and she's taking this motion or stop motion animation class. And so they all, you know, everyone's parents have iPads and you know, they all installed this app on their iPad and they, they're taking one photo at a time. And I kind of showed her like, you know, if you take some Legos and you like just move them, you know, they're learning stop motion animation, whatever. But today she's like, hey, dad, I want to make like a short film. Can we just like pull up ChatGPT and have it draw a bunch of frames for us and then we can like take photos of each one? And I was like, absolutely not. Like, what? Like, how are you gonna learn, like, let's just draw a bunch of stick figures, you know, and let's and it. So I don't know, I, I do feel like there's a little groundswell today too. We got pitched like some AI artist or something, like for the 10th time. And I'm like, we, we do not want to talk about AI anymore.

8:38

I think what happened, honestly, truly. And this is like a perfect counterpoint. I think that because we posted an episode that had the conversation about AI that all of a sudden a bunch of bots scanned our iPad, our podcast, and said, oh, there must be an AI podcast. And so we're constantly getting pitched without any context or understanding.

9:29

Oh, no.

9:50

I mean, I do wonder if.

9:50

Are you going to get more of that now?

9:51

Yeah, because ChatGPT is like reading all these transcripts of millions of podcasts and saying, oh, oh, Orin and Madder. Great place to talk. So, I mean, I think there is a pushback. And like, even like my parents yesterday were like, these wh came to visit us and you know, all these self driving cars are just like kind of really annoying because, you know, you can't even get mad at them because there's no one to like flip off or anything, you know. No, I think there is like, it like a little bit of a groundswell that's just gonna like, kind of getting annoyed.

9:53

Yeah, I mean, we are recording this. We are recording this Monday, February 9th, the day after the Super Bowl. And like I went to a Super bowl party with lots of friends, mixed company, some filmmakers, but many, many just like civilians. And the AI groans and complaints were so much that I had to leave the room. I was like, I can't, I don't, I don't need to have this conversation. Like, you guys don't understand.

10:23

Like, also, all the money I put into AI stocks last week is down 20%.

10:47

Oh yeah, everything's down.

10:52

Yeah, yeah.

10:53

AI is. It's really. That's it. Podcast over. I'm out of here.

10:54

Yeah, well, I listened to your episode with Sergio and I know you guys were, you know, concerned about AI and like, if you guys, if you directors are going to have a job. And it sounded like you guys were like, yeah, we're good, we're good on that aspect, right?

10:58

Sure, sure, sure.

11:12

That's a false confidence and the scope may change or whatnot. But then I was like, well, still, as an actor, like, I don't know, like, I still have. We're kind of like, I mean, it depends obviously on what type of Commercial it is. And if it's, you know, a human or performance driven commercial or, or whatnot. But there's still some fears on, on my end where AI could see AI just taking over a lot of that.

11:13

All right. It's like this is like my living, you know, this is what I do. I want to do a job this month. I want to do a new job this month. I want to get excited by something else the following month. And I want this industry to exist. And I. And my joy. I love my job. I love being on set and I love shooting and I love working with people and like, what it means for humanity is like, much less important to me than that I have a career that I like and that I can go to set and be with people and then I can get free food.

11:40

Yeah, well, I think there is also a little bit of, like, you want Los Angeles to thrive and be the city that we love too. You know what I mean? Like, there's something special about the sun rising as you're driving into set and you see all of your buddies and the guy makes your burrito the right way. And you know, like, you see you're passing trucks on the street and, you

12:04

know, you know, taking Polaroids in front of the Hollywood sign.

12:25

Sure, sure.

12:29

That, that's my fear. It's nothing like moral or ethical or, you know, I just, I'm just. It's like being a coal miner when freaking electric vehicles are. Those two things aren't connected to each other. But like nuclear power plants are. It's like, I don't. Maybe what we do is not actually that important. Maybe being a grip, you know, I was a Dolly grip for like a couple years. I boom up. Like, maybe those jobs don't need to exist, you know, But I like that that they exist and I like to be with those people and I like hanging out with them and I like the hierarchy on sets and the stories and the, you know, finding, you know, like a sound guy that's, you know, hot boxing the grip truck.

12:30

It is our culture. Do you know what I mean? They are our people.

13:08

And so I'm afraid that that's going to go away. But I do use AI all the time. And I'm like, I'm. I do it in crazy ways. I'm like, oh, this performance. I've worked with a kind of famous person that does not act recently and was. Did not really like the performance and was not really given an opportunity to do much about an onset by their people. And I'm like, Can I feed this person's voice from one VO read into 11 labs and create a voice clone and do the performance myself in their voice. And I would use humans, you know, like, I'm all for. And I'm. We shot on green screen and it's like we need a very specific background. Like, that would be very expensive to do in Maya or whatever.

13:12

Yeah.

13:55

And to render it out and let's AI but, but on the other hand, we've like, I've gone with like our vfx artists like 50 times. We've done a thousand generations and none of them are quite exactly what we want, you know, so, you know, I don't know. I, I, I appreciate, I think it's super neat. And I used to be an engineer, so I, it's like, to me, like, the tech stuff is exciting, but I, Yeah, I would happily trade it for knowing, for the security and safety and comfort of knowing that the people I work with will still have jobs five years from now.

13:56

I think about the, I mean, I'm worried about the same thing. Worried about so many industries too, outside of even ours. It's like it, I think it's, yeah,

14:28

like the Uber drivers. Like, how pissed off would you be if, like, you're surrounded by 20 Waymos or like DoorDash drivers? My street is just filled with freaking little robots.

14:36

Those robots suck.

14:45

Yeah.

14:46

And they have like, red and blue lights every time I come to my house. Like, am I getting arrested? Nope.

14:47

It's just I'm not a violent person, but I do fantasize just like kicking those things over or setting them on fire all the time.

14:51

Yeah.

14:58

I think it's okay.

14:58

Those guys like to hang out with each other sometimes. I'll be driving down Beverly and they

15:00

have, like, cuter names than our kids.

15:04

Oh, really?

15:06

It's like Etienne is here with your pad time. What, what I was saying earlier is like, as directors in Hollywood, like, a reason someone would come to Sarah or Matt would be like, hey, you know, the casting directors and you know, the actors and, you know, you go to UCB shows and you've seen these, you know, you worked with it. Like, the fact that we have access to people like you, Susan, is like part of why someone would come to us and makes us valuable. And so once it's like, oh, we just like, type, you know, Susan song type into the.

15:07

So the flip side to that is like any person who's ever directed, especially something dialogue driven and been like, you learn how hard it is to get a person who's thoroughly trained and understands all the context and understands what it is to be a person. How to get them to say the line the way you want them to say it. Like, imagine trying to get a robot to do that.

15:35

Right.

15:58

Feels a little trickier, for sure. Sarah. I'm curious though.

15:58

Yeah?

16:02

Yeah.

16:03

I mean, 100%. And like, in my opinion, it's the exact same thing as vfx. I think of it as exactly the same toolset. It's just a lot more efficient for certain things and cheaper for certain things. But it's definitely like oven mitts. I think of it as like, working with like, you know, I can get roughly what I want in certain cases, but I always have to use traditional posts in. In addition, like, there's no getting around that. But it's. For me, the use cases are very specific. You know, it's like, I'm going to use it for rotoscoping or I'm going to use it for a background replacement, or I'm going to use it for, like, expanding the scene. It's like, for those things, I'm like, of course I would use it. Why would I not? It's like, why would you not get the new version of Premiere? And I don't, I don't see, like, why. But outside of that, the ramifications of it are a hundred percent earth shattering and terrifying. So I get why people are like, no, I'm not going to believe it because it's pretty terrifying. I mean, it's like so overwhelming how fast it changes and how big the implications are for job replacement. So I get why it's like something that people just really want to hate and, like, draw a line in the sand to not use. But at the same time, I'm like, that also disables you from possibly surviving, you know, so that's, that's my M.O. is like, I'm trying to stay on top of all of it and see what it can be used for, but also stay completely centered around my ethics and what I believe and, like, why I work with people and why I like art and why I'm passionate about what I do. So same person is steering the ship. It's just now I have a bunch of new tools that do a lot of crazy stuff. So I was trying to tell Susan about this because she's like, well, what does this mean for talent and the actoring? And I'm like, it means the exact same thing. We still need people who are characters who are. Who like, create the character. I'm still Gonna go and cast people to create a character who breathes a life into that character. Because that is why I'm doing. What I'm doing is I'm trying to be original. That's not gonna change. How I use your footage and how I shoot your footage will be very different in a lot of circumstances, because what I've noticed on the creative director side, so, like, as you guys know, I have fractured roles in my life, and one of them is I head up our AI production at my agency, and I'm a group creative director, so I do creative as well. Develop creative as well as direct. On this side, what we're doing is we're developing a lot of pipelines that allow us to create. I would call it a funnel. So it's like, a lot of work that could be targeted to an audience can now be targeted to an audience. And that is where these tools, I think, are appropriate. So I feel like when we're versioning things, it's awesome.

16:04

I'm not sorry. And give us a specific use case on, say, versioning.

18:53

Right.

18:56

Let's say you wanted something to be in. We have a market that's out in the east coast, and it needs to be in the snow, and it needs to be in a different aspect ratio. Those are, like, great ways to just transition whatever footage you have into that setting. And then I can be.

18:57

You've got your surfer talking about, you know, how great this deal is, and bing, bang, boom, all of a sudden, now he's a snowboarder and, like, there's a mountain behind him. Is that kind of.

19:15

I mean, you could do that, but.

19:25

But I guess I'm. I'm saying, are you. Not you specifically, but are you seeing that in. In the workspace?

19:27

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19:53

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20:01

B.

20:03

I don't know if you guys watched what was. Susan and I were just talking about that Toyota. Was it Toyota? Like, is this AI and because one of the great thing or things that AI is so good at is, like, face swapping. It's like, what would have taken a Very long time in, you know, cg, like the Benjamin Button technology is like pretty freaking great with like the like off the shelf tools. And so that Toyota spot with the athletes, the like with their like baby cells. I'm. I would guess they used AI because it'd be kind of crazy not to just.

20:08

Yeah, there's a Jurassic park spot too. Right. Like where. Yeah, they're younger versions of them.

20:39

Yeah.

20:43

I mean, which I thought did look pretty weird, to be honest.

20:43

That did look weird too. But I agree, but I'm like they're kind of, you know, if you have a like two week timeline. Yeah, it's kind of similar using traditional cg. A lot of like as you, I'm sure you guys know, like a lot of film studios are using all of the tools for all of these things and have been for a while.

20:46

Yeah, Every VFX house I talked to is like just deep into AI.

21:04

Yeah.

21:08

Tools. But you know, I don't know, it's just weird. Even like the rotoscoping, like, oh, awesome. Now I can just. I don't even need a green screen. I'll just shoot someone, you know, in my living room and then I'll relight them to be standing outside. You know, it's great, but it is. You are like 250 people in India are out of a job, you know that they've like just fought their way

21:08

to G. I would argue it has created so many jobs. The amount of work we do now is exponentially more. So it's like an opposite curve, different job.

21:27

Is it like not? So is it not being used to cut costs or whatnot or it's just more for efficiency and then. Yeah, like at the end of the day, how does it balance in terms of costs?

21:38

In my experience, it has created so much more work. Like I do 10 million times more work. The people that I work with are doing 10 million times more work. It's way more output. I don't see that it's reduced.

21:50

But you're not. But you're hiring different people. Like the people that were trained to rotoscope and nuke or silhouette or whatever are not. You're not hiring those people anymore. They're hiring.

22:05

A lot of those people have pivoted to AI. So I mean, most of the people I work with in this capacity are former VFX sups. So I would say like, as you probably know, like a lot of the industries, like the way that they are training people is like you either have a background in like flash or you have a background in, like, Nuke or Blender or Maya. It's like the interfaces are really similar, so it's. It takes a very specific skill set. And the thing I noticed the most is it requires curiosity. Somebody that is really interested in trying things out and experimenting relentlessly. But it's very. I mean, it's almost the same job as a VFX supervisor or somebody that works in compositing. There's, like, overlap with all different jobs, and I think they're. They're so incredible. Like, what they can do is so incred. If you know exactly what you want out of them. Their. Their capabilities are amazing. I. I don't know if you guys have met any of the guys from Obsidian. Like West Walker, who used to be at Tool, started his own thing with. What's his face from Kyle. Let's forget his name. His daughter's in Jurassic park, the new one.

22:14

Yeah.

23:20

Ron Howard.

23:21

Ron Howard. I was like. I'm like. He was on his show when he was a kid.

23:21

Opie.

23:25

I always wanted to say Brian Grazer, but yeah. So he started a new production company that's like AI production. And their work is stunning. It is, like, absolutely gorgeous. And the new process is not necessarily going out and shooting on location, but you train Loras, but all of those assets are in camera. They're all, like, owned, beautiful, elegant assets. And then you're now making your world inside of a computer. So I think it all comes down to the individual.

23:25

And it seems like, Sarah, for you and what you're doing, a lot of it is vfx. And, you know, we've had that conversation. I mean, even that NFL Toyota spot, those kids. Are those. Even though you had mentioned they probably cast kids and then did a face swap. But are those kids getting paid or. You know what I mean, I'm just. Or are they.

23:53

Yeah, I mean, it all comes down to sag, because every single thing. I mean, as you know, everything we do has to be vetted through sag. SAG has lots of policies, and they're actually doing quite a few projects with directors using AI or they're. They have supported projects, and I think it's. Because it's, like, imminent. It's one of those things you can't step aside from. So it's like, how do you embrace it? What comes out of it as. As you embrace it? So a lot of the projects, I think that use AI quote, directors are using talent for the performance, for the. For the action, for, like, the basis of what then will be Overlaid with a character, for example, or relit or placed in a different location. But like the, we still need the, like, creativity, like the original, you know, material. So like, I think the way actors are integrated is probably more similar to like gaming. If you think about like game movies, you know, or motion capture, that kind of thing. It's sort of like that where it's not exactly live action, but it's pretty close. But yeah, like SAG has.

24:10

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, just. I don't mean to be so negative, but, but I feel like, I mean, first of all, Matt and I do a lot of non SAG jobs. You know, like, SAG is not a given on any thing. And, and it's very easy to see a company saying, like, well, why on earth would we work with SAG when we have these limitations? You know, crowd of 500 extras. I want a scene of a high school where a kid, every kid sings a different word of the song. You know, 10,000, you know, SAG featured extras or whatever. So I, I feel like, yeah, I, I don't know. I. I guess so. I think SAG is doing what they can. I think they're always in danger. All the unions are dga, WJ Iatsi of like overburdening corporations with their requirements to cut, like I. Obscurity, basically. I think a lot of the LA production issues, you know, stem from the strike and the recovery and the.

25:17

A lot of people just completely agree,

26:11

just saying, like, hey, it's just like not that easy for me to work in la. I just lost the location because of just all the extra things we needed for it. But the other thing to me, and I'm curious what your take on the Sarah, and I'm sure I can guess, Susan's sake. But there's something exciting about what we do. You're going to be in Mamma Mia. You're going to go to Chin and you're going to film, you know, at the Amalfi coast and you're going to sing with Meryl Streep and you're going to ride a horse and you're going to do all this stuff. And now Sarah Bates is like, oh, don't worry, we just, just send us a zoom video of your head doing the performance. Or actually, you know what? I'm going to do the performance. Just give me your face. You know, like, to me that's, that's the fear. Like, I think there's still. I, I agree with you, Sarah, that like, and I think a lot of us that work in film think that the best movies come from this collaboration of like a thousand people. And that's what makes it good. But I think the direction that things are being pushed, especially when I am in Kentucky doing a non union commercial and I have an actor that has the right look but doesn't have the right performance. And I'm like, I could just do the performance and just make their face do it. Like, like the, you know, I think like a lot of these auteur AI filmmakers are going to be edging out a lot of like the thousands of people that we hire.

26:13

I don't, I don't necessarily agree. They're just tools. And it's like, what's the easiest way to get to the result? You know, sometimes the easiest way to get to the result is to shoot it. And I feel like if you're, if you're the auteur, you, you decide that. Cool.

27:26

So. So I. That's heartening to hear. And it's a thing that, you know, we've kind of been skirting around for all of these conversations. Right. And certainly there is on one end of the spectrum, you know, I always joke, I do a lot of like two guys on the couch, you know, like to get the comedic timing. How hard is it to find two funny actors on a couch and just, you know, shoot it? Right. That's easy. So that's one end of the spectrum, especially if one of them is famous, right?

27:43

Yeah.

28:09

If it's two guys on a couch and one of them is Will Ferrell, we're just gonna shoot it, right?

28:09

Yeah.

28:13

But the other end of the spectrum is like your Kalshee ad from the super bowl where it's like you've got the Spartan army and like pirates and people are running through, you know, New England. You know, something that would be so massive. It's meant to feel like. And I'm sure they probably used Christopher Nolan references in their prompts. Right. That obviously is. Would be so expensive that it would make more sense for a strapped startup to try and spend all of their money on the. The ad spot and the placement and not the actual production. Right. So. But. But I'm curious where you think the line is. Right. Because maybe it sounds like it. We're. There's more time, we're more likely to shoot things than maybe we fear. Which is really kind of what we're all anxious about, you know.

28:14

Yeah. I feel like you, you will decide with, instead of meeting with like your post house, you'll probably meet with your AI team, post house. And they will. You'll break out. How are you going to do it for the budget? And you'll say, like, I want to do this scene for sure. Live action. And then we'll composite this background. This location is like 30% of the budget. So we're just going to do it in AI. And this one we're going to do on a green screen and we're going to do the crowd in a. I don't know, I don't think they could possibly prompt that because that's like, there's so much litigation. There's like, you know, prompts have to be so stringent and cannot possibly. I'm, I'm not talking like, you know, mid journey where it's like, they're like, peace. Whatever you want to do, you can do here. And like, we're not, we're not claiming any. We're not, we're not protecting anybody. We're not claiming anything. But on the other platforms, yeah, you, if you were to do that, why

29:04

wouldn't people just use that then?

29:57

Because you, your prompts become public. Like, if you're doing that for a brand and it's paid like you, you can be called up in court and they can read your prompts and they can make. You can, you can be sued by that artist. So it's like, for somebody to do that would be so incredibly dangerous. And I don't think any brands are entering into this arena unless it is so buttoned up the way it's produced. I mean, there are a lot of insurance policies that get taken out for the process of production in AI because of just how wild west it is. So I, I mean, it feels like that's happening left and right. I would say it's probably happening in left and right on social media, but for like legitimate companies, it's. I think most people have to be so, so, so buttoned up. But yeah, I think the line will be. If you think about it in terms of like, what is the ultimate creative goal? The ultimate creative goal is best achieved by looking at all your tools. And like, I know for myself in just being a creative, I still want the best director on any job, the end. And that director is going to ultimately decide. I really need the heart of this to be this person in this location and like this scene, I really want it to be practical because I want to rig the camera in this place and like, for, for me to just decide, oh, I'm going to take that out of your hands. I'm going to generate. It would. It would never happen. You know what I mean? So I feel like autours are more important than they've ever been, and somebody having a. A style that is unique to themselves is more important than it's ever been. And also like memorable talent, you know what I mean? Like, I feel like just pitching shows, I. I look at all the people in my pitch deck and they're all people that I found through UCB or like Groundlings or they're real on YouTube because it's them and that's who I want. It's not like I would never farm that out, because why would I? My goal is to make something good, and that has not changed. I do think, however, to your point, there's like a proliferation of derivative content that is like, that's what I'm calling like the bottom of the funnel. There's like a ton of that stuff that just has become kind of like white noise. There's just tons of it. So that's, if anything, I think gonna create a greater divide between like, very compelling, engaging, memorable storytelling and stuff.

29:59

So you think that maybe, like, you can see maybe more AI usage, maybe for actors in commercials where the intended use may be more traditional digital or social use, versus like big campaigns where they're using linear and you know, have a whole multimedia type of campaign going on.

32:29

I mean, so you're. You were asking if there's more work

32:49

because, you know, you're just saying there's just all that stuff and there are going to be people who are just going to be using. Is that kind of what you're saying? Where they be. They may be more prone to be doing more, I don't know, like.

32:53

Like that the junkie stuff is just kind of AI generated actors?

33:03

I think so. And I don't know many people or I don't know many brands that want to do that. Like, honestly, the stuff on social that is AI actor based is very much about the fact that it's done in AI. Like, there's so much policy coming out right now about like disclaiming that it's made in AI and like that if it's a story that's coming from a person that's endorsing a product, it has to say, this is like an AI generated person doing that policy. I mean, definitely not the current government, state by state. Yeah, there's one that like, I think New York passed the first one. There are like three or four. They're being rolled out one starting in like May or June. I can't remember. But yeah, they're. I think they're going to be more common and, and a lot of them are surrounding fake influencers and like that, having to have legal copy on it. The way a lot of people on. Or brands on social media get around it is they make them into a cartoon. If it's like a slightly animate person, then it's like the gray. A gray area. But I think there are a lot of brands that really don't like it and are not ever going to do it. And it's not going to be replacing anything.

33:07

I mean, I think so. So I think, like, there's. There's kind of the, the top tier, the best brands in the world where they don't want to be associated with slop. Right?

34:20

Yeah. Coca Cola, Nike.

34:30

Yeah, sure. Right. And then there are those, you know, smaller brands that sometimes will do like a UGC buy where they're trying to, like, get influencers to weigh in. I think, like, that there's kind of two categories. There's the stuff where you're just like, I've never heard of this person. They're on a fake podcast. And like, maybe that messaging works, maybe it doesn't. And then the other half where it's like, oh, no, I actually love this influencer and really care about what they have to say. And, and so when they endorse something, it really means something to me. Right. And so I'm curious to see how the efficacy, like, how do these spots work or not? Which is always another one of my big arguments is like, you know, if, if people decide to buy the product and it's an AI ad, then absolutely, corporations will just do that because it's easier and cheaper. But my, my hope is that we need to feel like a real person is telling us a real is. Is using a real product in order for us to be influenced. We'll see. That's tbd. But, Susan, I suspect that your fear, your apprehension is kind of in the middle of the sandwich that, that I'm outlining. Right. Not, we're not worried about, you know, Wyn Kennedy's latest Apple campaign or whatever.

34:32

Right.

35:43

And we're not worried about, you know, somebody's nephew just cranking out a million AI ads and hoping that one of them works on meta. Right. We're talking about that, that middle, the working actor sort of zone. Right, yeah, sorry, yeah, go for it.

35:44

Go ahead, go ahead.

35:58

Oh, I was going to say, I think Oren and I are both married to actors, so we're very sympathetic to this.

35:59

Yes.

36:04

I think different actors.

36:05

Your first. Yeah.

36:06

Right.

36:07

So, baby, no, a lot of the work is gone because we're just shooting other places.

36:07

We're just shooting other places. Yeah, yeah. There's also, I mean, I know. I was talking to Sarah about this too. A lot of the work is gone because of that. Also, you know, a lot of advertisers may be doing more non union work. So SAG actors are, you know, competing against a whole sizable non union crowd. Also, I know advertisers are also trying to do more influencers. Right. Like we discussed.

36:13

Sure.

36:38

So there's multiple things and then also. I know, yeah. With AI, it's another added thing of like, oh no, it's just another thing that I need to be worried about or whatnot. But it sounds like from Sarah's POV that a lot of it is more AI is being used more for vfx. Anything that's more performance driven. Yeah. Like you said, trying to get an actor to do nuanced performances is even hard for a real person, like human being to do, let alone a robot or whatever. Synthetic. Yeah. So. Yeah, but I mean, even like things like background actors that are, know, background actors, it sounds like that could be something that could be possibly replaced by AI. Right.

36:38

Yeah, 100%.

37:18

I keep thinking about the Lord of the Rings, like when that crowd generation technology came out and like every scene in Lord of the rings was like 8 billion people running. And I was like, I feel like that's kind of what's happening right now, but in a new way where we're just going to see new use cases for what this is really good at and then it'll all kind of the water level will settle and we'll be able to see the, the landscape again for what it is, which is we're still making the best story we can based on a budget, a timeline, and like our vision for it. And yes, Susan, I mean, like I, I do think for a lot of really, really busy talent, you know, there is a lot of AI being used just to like, so they don't have to go to Thailand to shoot a pickup shot of a blah, blah, blah, like digital, Please.

37:20

I don't care. I was like, I can be sleeping while my digital replica works. That's fine because I'm still getting paid. You know what I mean?

38:07

Yeah. That happened to happen to you?

38:14

No, but I wanted to. I want like multiple campaigns and I just.

38:16

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

38:20

We just hired James Earl Jones for our latest.

38:20

Yeah, yeah, sure, sure, yeah. Digital Replicas, I think, is such a funny thing. Sarah, I'd love for you to weigh in. I. I remember when, like again, married to an actor who was striking like every day, you know, and like. And so like she's just on the picket line talking to people or whatever. And there was a lot of hear about digital replicas. And I think from Oren and my perspective, I'm like, no, that's a digital double. Like, yeah, you're just not going to be in front of an explosion. Do you know what I mean? We're just like putting you're just a puppet on a VFX shot so that like, you know, no stuntman gets hurt.

38:22

Right, exactly. Or we didn't cover that one line and now we can finish the scene or whatever.

38:57

Those are two very different things though, right? Like the. Oh, we didn't cover the. That one line. Now we can finish the scene.

39:03

That's like taking agency away from an actor.

39:09

No, an actor would never not have agency over the replica, though. Like you. It all comes down to the way you designate the use of it. So that's part of like SAG usage.

39:12

That's why there's more. Yeah. Regulations for SAG for any kind of digital replica.

39:22

Yeah, yeah, go ahead. You guys have. I don't know about you, Susan, I think you're more on my side. Sorry. I feel like Sarah has way too much faith in government policy and producers, corporations. Yeah. Than I do. Look at every single one of these companies that's valued. You know, valuations are in the billions of dollars have all stolen all this data. Like every single thing that it knows about is from stolen things. New York Times has been suing open AI for like two years. Like nothing's happening. Yeah. And they're still making it. Disney now just get. Just gave up and is like, okay, Sora, give us some money. You can just have it off. Like it's. It's inevitable. And then there's China. Like, you think they are going to care what our SAG wants? You know, sure. If you're George Clooney, you can be like, okay, I guess I'll do GrubHub. Even though I've never done a commercial in America before. But if you're my wife, you know, you want. You're on. Actively on the hunt for jobs. You're not like, oh, sorry. You guys are not like exactly doing things by this policy or you're not filming in California. You're not like, they're still gonna.

39:27

They.

40:29

Yeah, you know, they want the job I mean, just. Just to put it. They don't have a lot of power.

40:29

And Oren, stop me if I've told this story already. My wife was just in a commercial that shot in December, and I was like, oh, fingers crossed. It's a Super bowl spot. We'll see. And she showed up to set, she's a redhead. And the makeup artist was like, hey, did they talk to you about your hair? And she was like, what? And they were like, I'm going to dye your hair brown right now. Or we're going to call the other actor who's ready to go.

40:33

Oh, my God, that sucks.

40:57

Like, so either you're gonna have brown right now, Barbara over here, or. And, and yeah, poor brunette Barbara is like, please, redhead, hat, please.

40:59

Like.

41:07

And of course, my wife is like, okay. They said, don't worry, it'll rinse out. She had brown hair for two weeks, you know what I mean? Like, until she. But like. And I tell that story to, like, give you the context of, like, hey, it's okay for us to add, like, put some words in your mouth. The edit might slide around a little bit. Don't worry, it's no big deal. Actors just sign dotted line. Right. You've been shooting verticals for two weeks and you're so excited to have, like, a commercial that pays an extra thousand dollars, you're going to walk away from that? You know what I mean? Are you going to be like, well, I. Oren seems nice. You know what I mean? Like, truly, though, right? So, like, I think, like, you know, that's where the. To me, there's a big difference between facsimilating a likeness for stunt purposes or VFX purposes. But I think that the reality of, like, Sarah, what you were outlining of, like, shoot, we needed a pickup shot, or it'd be really helpful if we had another angle.

41:08

Yeah. I mean, especially with product copy. Yeah, it's so.

42:02

By the way, we used to pay people to come back to pick up.

42:05

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

42:08

I can do ADR for product copy.

42:09

Is it just that it's easier for you? Like, you don't have to build the set, you don't need the production team. Right.

42:11

Like, it all comes down to. Yeah. I think, like, travel. I mean, for the most part, if it's like remote locations. Lots of remote locations. I mean, it's something sometimes. Yeah. Crew, production, and then sometimes if there's not enough time to do something. But in. I would rather shoot everything, always. It's way more Fun. It's way more visceral and, like, you know, it will be something born on the day of the thing. And, like, that's how I think film should be done. Is something that's, like, to be made and to be realized that hasn't been. We don't know what will. What it'll be. My. My friend, one of my best friends growing up. Her dad is Caleb Deschanel, a cinematographer.

42:16

Is your friend Zoe Deschanel?

43:03

Oh, have you heard of her?

43:04

She's the one of the new girls.

43:05

Yeah, yeah, she is the new girl. That's right.

43:07

Who's that girl? Yeah, that was Zoe.

43:08

But he always said his favorite thing in production was, like, the surprise of, like, what it will be like. Like Black Beauty having no idea what that was going to look like. And I'm like, there's such a magic in just having no control over what will be. I like that character myself in a production of just the time of day and where you are and, like, what the people are going to do. I mean, that's the organic nature of filmmaking. It's just. You cannot replace that. So it's. I don't know. I think it all comes down to, like, why you're doing it, why you do what you do. And that is kind of the compass. It will decide everything.

43:11

Right.

43:45

Have no other means to do something. Sometimes it's really nice to be able to, like, complete a word that you couldn't hear very well, you know, with a tool that just makes it perfectly.

43:46

So then would that be like, I'm curious to know, like, have you done digital? Digital, like replicas of actors when they shoot commercials now?

43:56

No, but I watched a demo by a guy who does pretty awesome ones for a very famous actor who uses his body doubles to do, like, pickup shots. And, like, they look fab. I mean, you cannot tell at all. This was like a year and a half ago that he was showing me this. But, like, it looks. You would. You'd not be able to tell. And then this person who is not in need of money does not just say it. Sorry to.

44:05

Wherever was this? Was it Johnny Depp? Did I get it right? No, no.

44:31

Jack Black.

44:34

I don't want to. Out.

44:35

I'm right, everyone. I nailed it.

44:36

You're in debt.

44:38

I know. It's surreal, though, to think about that, though, with, like, people who don't want to age, you know, sure have to anymore. It's like you could be a icon forever at then.

44:39

What point are you using, like, a synthetic. Is it when like you said, you need something last minute or whatnot.

44:47

Well, it's different for every person and very. Every different brand. And everybody has their own policy. So like, I think for me, a good use case of a synthetic talent would be a crowd, you know, or like background just to feel motion like that. That those types of use cases would be the same for, you know, a plugin, like a VFX plugin.

44:54

What's a VFX plugin?

45:16

There are all sorts of like, you know, Premiere has like, there's all these like different, like stock versions of a crowd shot.

45:18

Imagine the clip art version of it. Okay.

45:25

Okay.

45:27

Yeah, yeah. Like a library. I mean, it's kind of like library music, you know, like.

45:28

Yeah.

45:32

Which basically replaced like musicians for many, many, many commercials that are like, oh, we, we need this track by tomorrow, you know, or our editor is going to pull some temp music and then the client likes it. Let's just go with it. And I mean, you think being an actor is hard? Like, try being a composer.

45:33

I don't think that any person making commercials likes that. Like, I don't think anybody prefers it. You know what I mean? I know making commercials, I'm not like, yeah, stock library, like, it's not like sought after.

45:49

No, no one. But at the end of the day, when you used to have a million dollars to make a commercial and now you have $100,000 to make that same commercial, then you better bet that you're going to be using stock music, you know, art list IO or something.

46:03

But then again, I mean, I agree with you, the budget very much dictates the outcome in a lot of these cases. But I, I also find in a lot of circumstances that when everybody makes something they really, really like, then they can see with their own eyes what it should be. So often with clients, they'll be like, oh, wow, we should get a really cool vintage track for this. It'll become obvious, like, if we really want this to be great, it deserves to have blank. And it really needs the rest of the context for people to arrive at that. So I still approach everything the same way, which is like, what does it want to be? Like, if I'm completely being truthful about, like what the story wants to be and like, who are we talking to and how are we going to tell that story? It's like the, the ingredients kind of arrange themselves around that, you know, I know that the technology is big and it's a lot of bad things went into them when they were made. And I'm like, not denying that. I'm just trying to move from today. Where are we and where can we go from here and survive? That's what it comes down to.

46:17

Yeah.

47:24

How much of this AI stuff is, do you think is like client directive? Or like, do you think it's more at the commercial, like at the creative agency and their production? Like, do clients even care? Or are clients being like, you need to do this or.

47:24

I'd love. Sarah, I'd love for you to chime in, but I'll say anecdotally, I have. People have used it around me as a way, like, as a buzzword for clients to be like, oh, don't worry, we have a, a affordable solution to this potential problem that we never ended up actually using. But it was just like, oh, they know how AI works, so they could fix it that way too. It's a. They have their. It's another tool in the toolkit. Was, was kind of like the move there, basically. But like I said, we'd end up using it.

47:41

So, you know, I agree with you 100%. I think that's a lot of it. I mean, a lot of it is just being in a conversation and like, showing that you're staying current. I think a lot of people are just like, talking about it constantly. Want to like, walk the walk, talk the talk and show that, like, they're evolved and that they're staying in the know. But I also know a lot of. A lot of industries are constricting and like, dramatically and I think I get very post apocalyptic about. I think the world is going to change a lot. A lot, A lot, a lot, a lot. So I do think a lot of brands are being really aggressive about, like, use it as much as you can. How can we cut costs? How can we come.

48:12

They're trying to stay competitive too, right?

48:55

Yes. And like, in all spheres of, at every layer, it's like, how can we use this and how can we reduce costs? And so I see that coming from a lot of brands internally and then asking, challenging us to do the same things. Big news. Wayfair's tax refund sale is on now. Right now, through March 2, you can score up to 70% off furniture, decor, appliances, rugs and more with fast and easy shipping straight to your door. Plus amazing flash deals. Shop Wayfair's tax refund sale now to make the most of your refund with huge savings through March 2nd@wayfair.com Wayfair Every style, every home.

48:57

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49:46

It was funny, I was talking to a friend of mine last night and she was like, you know, she was working in like, like a lot of customer service. And she was like, we already have templates. Like, I don't need AI to write me an email for like the six different types of emails that I have to send clients all the time because we wrote them already. They're templates.

50:16

Right.

50:37

You know, and I feel like there's a lot of like.

50:38

Yeah.

50:40

Redundant redundancy.

50:41

Yeah, yeah. Well, that's what I've kind of. So I just, for context, I've come full circle on it. Like at the beginning, when I first discovered AI, whenever that was a few years ago, I like made a report on it and it was called the Death of Art. And I gave it, showed it to everybody I work with. And I was crying and I was like, this is the worst thing that's ever happened to the world and we need to stop it and we need to sue these people and this needs to be stopped. And it was like, I was just really depressed, like really genuinely depressed. And like that lasted a very long time. And as I started to just accept it and like really learn like how it works and play around with it and then like try and force myself to like adopt it and think about like, well, if I was going to use it, how would I use it? I think I just kind of processed reality and then got to the point of like, okay, where do we go from here? Like knowing that like this is reality, not gonna go backwards, what is this really for? In my ethical stance, like where I come from as a human being, what do I think this is good for? And now in that process, what I've arrived at is like the human oversight is never gonna go away. Like, that is the only essential thing in any process is the human to human connection and the person that is overseeing that message and that understands that message and that can elevate that message. Connecting to another human being who fully is moved by that message. And those things, there's no reason to automate them. Like what you just described, there's absolutely no purpose. Yeah. You can do it. But we don't need that because why would you. Because it's just as easy to write an email yourself. Like, why would I automate that? I don't want to replace my brain thinking about the thing I'm going to say. Why would I want to do that? The same reason I would never automate writing a script or coming up with an idea. Like, but why would I ever aspire to that? There's no win in that equation. Human oversight is the core of what we do as creative people. And, and once I like really understood that, like, that's a hundred percent true, and that is you cannot remove it because then it's just bots talking to bots. What, what money is there to be made with bots talking to bots? They don't have like a soul. They don't want to go on vacation and hang out with each other.

50:42

They do hang out with each other.

53:06

I know.

53:07

On that Reddit.

53:08

Yeah.

53:08

Mod and the molds.

53:09

Moles.

53:10

Yeah, yeah.

53:11

And I think some waymos, like, are next to each other. But Sarah, I'm curious what you think. Sure. Human oversight will always be necessary. Creative. That's what creativity is all about. That's a. Humanity. Matt, you know, talk about. Humanity will always be important. Actors and all that stuff, performances. But like, if you're a grip right now, you're a graph gaffer, you know, you're a script supervisor, you're a makeup artist, you do craft service, you do catering. Do you think if you're one of those people in one of those positions, kind of blue collar Hollywood job, one of hundreds of thousands, potentially million across the world, but definitely hundreds of thousands in the US and a lot of concentrate in Los Angeles. Would you be worried at all about.

53:12

I'd probably diversify all these things. I'm worried all the time. I'm constantly anxious about all of it. So yes, I would be and I would probably diversify my side hustles, but I would still assume that I would be working because, like, I don't under. I don't imagine why anyone would not shoot. Like, I can't think of a reason.

53:51

I think the scale though, right? Like, there's a huge difference. You shoot. Yeah. Like if it's all looking for less green screen. Right. If it's green screen, then there's no sets to build. You can light it with two people. You light it with fewer lights. You shoot for one day instead of 10. So you left less food that you need to eat. That's less, you know, like, it all scales down for sure.

54:12

So, like, if it exists, why wouldn't I shoot it? I just. I don't see there's a world where all of that. I think.

54:34

I think we'll just. We can agree to disagree on that.

54:39

You know what I mean? Like, it's definitely not an easier medium. It's so finicky and frustrating and, like, it has, like, it takes so much longer to get to something simple. So I'm like, I don't. I cannot imagine a world where that would be unnecessary.

54:41

And just to be clear, because I think, like, I think all of us desperately want you to be right. Do you know what I mean? Like, to be clear, and I think, like, you know better than we do, right? Like, I think that at least my point of reference is, like, the AI. Like, AI that I. Because I use it quite frequently as well. But, like, you know, it's for treatments and, like, you know, kind of organizational stuff and, you know, all of that. And so, like. And then also my exposure is a lot of, like, you know, some jackass on LinkedIn, like, being like, commercials are cooked. Look at this bad video I just made. You know what I mean?

54:58

Yeah.

55:34

And so. So tell us. You said, like, oh, it's. It takes so much longer. Walk us through the realities of one of these. These shoots, right? Because I think that maybe working at a high level and delivering what you need to deliver will kind of help illuminate what we're talking about, right?

55:35

I mean, you need, like, such a powerful machine. First of all, like. Like, the amount of processing it takes is, like, huge and then a lot of time.

55:53

But let. Let's go.

56:03

Let's.

56:04

Let's start. Let's start at the beginning. Oh, Sarah, we just got a brief in. A client wants a new spot. Right. Are you. Are you. Or here. Here's a new product. Like, are you guys ideating? And if so, are you ideating things that would only work in AI or would work better in AI or walk us through the very genesis of it?

56:04

Well, what I usually do is I think about it. I slice it, like, four different ways. So I. I think about, like, what's the budget? What. How do I max it out? And I know for me, like, on a project, like, I really want talent to be focal. I want the performance to be vocal. I want the. These certain performances to be folk.

56:24

I don't know.

56:43

I'm trying to think of, like, a hypothetical. And then I really want the stunts to be in camera, something like that. I also have, like, an insane location that would be like travel, like it would cost so much money. So I know I'm probably going to try to do that either with a, an AI generation or I'm going to try and maybe I'm going to generate the whole thing in like all of the locations in AI and that's going to be Aurora. I'm going to train, so I'm going to like, I really want this look that's like, you know, French 90s magazine style, whatever it is. So I'm like going to train Laura. It's all going to look like this thing. So that's one approach I might have. Another approach I might have is like, okay, maybe I'm going to make it very small scale, very intimate. And I'm just going to do a one day shoot. We're going to go to one location that's got five different types of rooms and like that's going to be all of my budget and I'm not going to have the big location. So both of those are cool. Both of those spots are cool. I think it's like if you can, if you tackle it in that way, you're kind of like watching it in your head and you're thinking about like, which one's the better spot, which one's, what's the heart of the story, what's the tone of it, what requires more cleanup. So it's like everything is its own equation, you know, it's always a compliment though. And as soon as it takes over, as soon as like a medium is leading, you failed. Like it's not creative anymore.

56:43

But correct me if I'm wrong, you're working specifically in AI, right? So like, would they be disappointed if you were like, well, we should just shoot this in a bedroom.

58:00

Well, I'm, I, I direct in all things, mostly live action.

58:10

Sure, sure. But I mean specifically you were saying like you were, you were kind of heading up the creative side of this. Yeah, yeah.

58:13

When something is done in AI, it's never the whole thing. It's usually for post. And so it's a, it's a supplement to a production. And the stuff that has been like, there have been a few projects that have come through that were almost gonna be all in AI and there was like a lot of hesitation either internally or from a brand that's like, because like stock photography is like pretty comparable in cost, so there's not really a real motive necessarily. And the other side of it is like the ownership piece, you know, for something to be ownable, you have to be able to. To have created it. And therefore, it's like you have to go through quite a few steps in order to make something in AI ownable That almost like erases the. The need in some cases to do it at all. Should we do that or should we just use stock?

58:20

Can we just send Tim to go shoot the plates?

59:08

Yeah, exactly.

59:11

Yeah. Yeah.

59:12

Cool. Well, Susan, what else you got? I feel like I wanted.

59:13

As I was taking over for a

59:17

second, so I was like, no, no, no, Susan, please.

59:18

This is a podcast.

59:21

Yeah, People.

59:22

People always. I should. I should put it in my spiel. People are always like, too much. And the answer is no. It's a podcast.

59:23

You're talking too much.

59:29

We are talking too much.

59:30

We literally get notes on comments that we talk too much and interrupt people too much.

59:31

That's true. That's true, though. I'll bring it up now. Oren, did you read the comments on our Sergio and Christina?

59:36

Did they say we didn't interrupt enough?

59:41

They fully people. No, they were like, multiple people said that because Sergio was mostly talking in the clips that we pulled that we were AI. They're like, it looks. It looks like three AI jerks listening to Sergio. Multiple people said that. And so I'm like, trying to actively listen.

59:43

And, like, I should try making a podcast with an AI with this. Sarah. Sarah Bates, synthetic folks.

1:00:01

Oh, my gosh. Somebody asked me if I made my podcast in AI and I was like, why would I want to do that? Be the reason and who would listen?

1:00:09

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I guess I do think, like, just as two takeaways from this conversation, one acting related, which is. I do think you kind of said this in a different way, Sarah. If you're an actor and you're up against the AI, the synthetic actors, like, if. If you're debating whether to do it as scripted, kind of as expected, or putting your own, like, crazy Melissa McCarthy spin on it. You know, I would put the spin on you because the AI is really good at making generic.

1:00:17

Oh, totally.

1:00:47

Character. Hunky boyfriend. Like, well, it doesn't. Scared cheerleader.

1:00:47

Right. So, yeah, I think, like, you don't. Or. And I like this pitch, but also, like, the subtle version of that is just as good. You know what I mean?

1:00:52

Like, yeah, but finding nuance or kind of making choices that you don't think that the average.

1:00:59

Not the first choice.

1:01:04

Yeah, if you're playing a teacher that. Yeah, it's not the average. Because, I mean, my wife as an actor, sometimes she's like, I Just feel like they wrote it like this and it's so specific. And I should just do it like this. And we'll do a take. And I'm like, every actor is. Is gonna do this. Like, you know, you gotta like, let's just. Or at least let's send a second take where you're just flipping the table over.

1:01:05

You know, like, 100 should do that.

1:01:26

Yeah, I did that last time. And then I just did a risk with this one character. And then Mike manager was like, yeah, we're just gonna send the first take. And I was like, that's fine.

1:01:28

Well, but your manager's not watching the other 99 tapes, though.

1:01:38

Like, so true.

1:01:41

Yeah, Matt, Sarah and I have probably watched way too many auditions, so always

1:01:43

add in a crazy teacher.

1:01:48

My wife. My wife's secret, which we give away on the podcast every episode, is that she always comes in with some business. You know, she's a server on an audition for Law and Order. She's always like. Like, Mikey, the order. You know, it's a linguini, not the fettuccine or whatever. She always, like, kind of comes in with like, a little attitude, you know, at the head of the scene. You know, buttons are. Who cares about a button? Like, 90% of us don't make it to the end of the.

1:01:51

Oh, really?

1:02:16

Oh, no, I love my buttons, Larry.

1:02:17

No, I. I like a button. I like a button. And I think it is a good. Yes.

1:02:19

Keep the button, too. But also start off, Bring something. Start.

1:02:24

Start strong for sure.

1:02:28

And especially if it's like a dramatic scene and it's like, just really kind of emotional up front, it's like, really hard to earn that, you know, And I think if 10 great actors are auditioning, then it's going to start being like, the look and the, like all these things that, you know. And I've met actors that book. I used to work did this show with Alison Bri, and like, she wouldn't. She's like, so good. You could have her audition for a part that you would never in a million years select her for, and she would probably book it, you know, because they just bring some special sauce to it. So I don't know. So I think that's like one takeaway is just like a extra special sauce. And the casting, if you don't want to be, like, just replaced by generic synthetic actor. And then my second guess, but it's a weak. It's a weak guess, is that the production value is going to just become a lot less important. Not just for us as filmmakers or clients, but like humans. I mean, we already seen this on social media. I worked with this guy, Jason Derulo, who's like an influencer, pop star guy. And he had told me and he, he, when I worked with him, he was like the 14th most popular person on TikTok. And he, and I was like, what do you shoot your stuff on? And he's like, dude, I own an Alexa, like a hundred thousand dollar Alexa package with like master primes and all this stuff. And I shot like 5 videos with it and no zero views. Switched back to the iPhone. That's it. Back to the millions of views.

1:02:29

Yeah, but I think the other way of saying that is that authenticity is important. Right. So in the same way that like adding that humanity is there. Right?

1:03:49

Like I think so. That's for social media. But I think the production value thing is it's just going to be. Every football game has the 10,000 people in the crowd. You know, every person walking down the street, there's 80 extras. Every car chases like crazy angles, you know, right on by the tire.

1:03:57

It's like, this is so crude. It's like sex on ecstasy. I feel like it's like when you're numbed out, it's kind of like where do you go from there? It doesn't mean anything anymore. And therefore, how does art evolve? It's some. It's like we're gonna react to that and something new will come out of it. That's what I think is exciting about it. It's like. It doesn't mean creativity dies because there's a proliferation of like shiny shit. You know what I mean? It doesn't mean talent goes away. Okay, There, there are a ton of startup services like Luma AI is one of them that's offering. I forgot what it's called. I think it's called Dream Machine. You put in a brief and then it generates all of the scripts, it generates all of the commercials, it generates all of the out of home boards.

1:04:16

I'm not worried about that at all.

1:05:03

I think of that as the, the threat though is like that content is the threat. That person that uses that was never gonna hire Susan anyway.

1:05:05

Right.

1:05:15

You know what I mean? Like, they don't.

1:05:15

Yeah, you're too good for that person.

1:05:17

I got dirt.

1:05:19

They were never gonna watch it themselves, you know what I mean? So I think of it as kind of a similar equation.

1:05:21

I'm. I'm hoping it's like VR, you know, we'll get to a place like five years from Now I'll be like, I don't know why we're worried. It is just for vfx, you know.

1:05:27

Yeah, yeah.

1:05:36

Plus. Yeah. Or we won't even have to write that because our cloud bots will do it for us.

1:05:37

Oh, I know. When all of our bots are just. I mean, what will we do when all the bots are the ones talking to each other?

1:05:43

We're going to Wally. We're going to Slurpee on our

1:05:48

guys. That's the good version. The. The wall. The. An egalitarian world where we're all just kind of like, boring and entertained is the good. Like I said, the good version. Like, the people making this stuff, they're not like, out there to help us. Like, none of this is, like, for the good of mankind. We're not going to live. We're not headed towards the Star Trek universe, guys. We're headed towards the Star wars universe. Right?

1:05:52

I know you think it's more Terminator.

1:06:19

Yeah, I used to think that was good. The goal is like, efficiency is the most important thing. And now with all this AI stuff and just seeing things just become a million times more efficient, I realized that the goal is, is not efficiency. It's like, purpose. You know, humans need purpose.

1:06:21

And I think maybe AI radicalized Orin a little bit.

1:06:35

It did. It definitely swung me way left on this thing. And Ezra Klein had this pretty good episode about. He was talking about how people would rather, like, have jobs that are not important, like maybe working in kind of dying natural resource mining or something. Then they would. They'd be happier having that job than having the government give them money. Like, hey, we're going to take down this coal mine, but we're going to give you all the money that you were going to get. We're just going to send you a check every month. You know, it's like in Alaska, how they get, like, oil. And he was saying that, like, and a lot of. He was talking about it in the context of, like, policy, like, kind of Democratic versus Republican policy and how, you know, Democrats are kind of very much free for equality and equal opportunities and giving people money that maybe don't have the same opportunities. And I think kind of people on the right are a little bit more about, like, every, you know, liberty and every person for themselves. And you should have the. The freedom to do what is right for you without having to subsidize other people. But he talked about how, just from a humanity point of view, the people that are asked to work and get paid for that work are just much happier than people that are given money.

1:06:39

Totally. I used to be a therapist. And if you gave away therapy, people wouldn't show up. You had. They had to. If they paid $1, they would actually would work because they would care. They would be invested in it.

1:07:45

Right. And so the AI, where it's like, hey, good, you know, Mr. Jones, you work at the IRS. Congratulations. We're going to keep paying you your monthly fee. But now a robot is going to do your job and 10 other people's jobs. Fast, way faster. Audit more people and you get to just go to Mexico on vacation. Like, this guy is now like super depressed. He's has no purpose, you know.

1:07:57

Yeah.

1:08:17

And, and so that, that's kind of my. My big picture fear of like AI in the world, not just film related, is like, are we gonna have work left in you?

1:08:18

Well, I think there's all an also like an opposite kind of current that is so massive in the world, which is like the telepathy tapes and like consciousness. And where does. What is the beginning of life? And like, what is the beginning of the soul? And like.

1:08:27

Sorry, I have no idea what the telepathy tapes.

1:08:42

Oh my gosh.

1:08:45

Are you kidding me? That is.

1:08:45

Hold on, let me, Let me tell you.

1:08:46

Homework. To listen to that show, okay, you just, you have to listen to the entire thing.

1:08:48

Am I, am I in the dark here? Everyone else knows.

1:08:53

No, I don't know. I was like, what is telepathy?

1:08:56

Okay, we are of course, yes, the telepathy tapes. Sure. Yeah.

1:08:57

Most shared and I read this number one podcast of 2025 on Apple and most shared podcasts on Apple 2025 most shared single episode also on Apple 2025 it is. Has changed the world and everything I know about it, for me, it's like changed my life. I talk about it nonstop with everybody I can possibly share it with. Just listen up until at least episode seven.

1:09:01

But what, what is it?

1:09:25

It is all. All based on like research. A lot of Stanford research, a lot of Cambridge research. And it's about consciousness. So the pyramid of science.

1:09:27

Oh, okay.

1:09:38

And now what we used to think was like, life starts with, you know, the brain and animals and biology. And now what has happened to the pyramid of science is like, it all starts with consciousness. Consciousness was the first thing.

1:09:40

Yeah.

1:09:55

And then everything came after that. So all of that has so many amazing ramifications and it has changed the way I think about everything. But it really, what it comes down to is like energy and how we are all connected. So that is so exciting, and it's so powerful and so wonderful. And what is created for me and what I talk about on my podcast a lot is just the energy that you bring to anything you do and how, like, that very much embodies it with its power to connect to other people. So for me, as an artist, what that means is the more I can feel truly embodied and passionate about what I do while I am doing it, the more strongly that will connect to other people. And I know for people in my audience that there's like, a huge movement of people that are also kind of waking up from what I think is, like, the popular paradigm right now, which is, like, very masculine energy of, like, manifestation. And, like, I'm going to achieve and I'm going to get so much wealth and I'm going to, like, make all the money and get the highest cold plunge. That is not actually what gets people to a stage of, like, feeling very rewarded and happy. And I think a lot of people right now are waking up to, like, maybe I don't actually want this, like, super type A, like, sure schedule and

1:09:55

jump into a cold bath.

1:11:16

Yeah, maybe I actually want to, like, be, you know, I want to do practices for. For not a lot of money and, like, put on, like, a performance that's very, like, new and weird that not a lot of people are gonna like and like. But I love when I do it, like, so the energy itself is the currency. And I think that movement is becoming so much bigger. I'm excited for you guys to listen to that podcast because if you ever get depressed about, like, the news and the world, like, that will make you feel so excited and optimistic about humanity.

1:11:17

Also, the Melania duck, She's such a sweet.

1:11:50

Well, on that note, guys, on the note of connecting, do you guys have a second to.

1:11:53

Sorry. On the note of connecting, do you guys. If people want to connect with you all. Are you guys online? Is there a place that people can find you?

1:11:58

Yeah. Where's the best way to find me? I guess you could go to Yay with me.com is probably the easiest. That's my. My podcast website that's got all my creative work.

1:12:04

Yay with me.

1:12:16

Or you can go to Sarah Bates dot com. Those are my two what URLs.

1:12:17

I didn't even know about this.

1:12:22

For me, you can, I guess. I have an Instagram. S U j j a n g012 sujang012 oh, come on.

1:12:23

S u j a n012 hashtag_ you gotta update that. That's gonna be.

1:12:32

Oh, I know, right?

1:12:41

Do you know how many bookings you didn't get? Because people can find you for real?

1:12:42

We do look at people's Instagrams. No, we do.

1:12:47

Yeah. I don't.

1:12:50

I need to know what you look like. I don't care about you See my

1:12:51

audition and Mike's and.

1:12:54

No, but I want to see what you look like in a suit. Yeah, yeah. You don't want to see in a Walmart commercial.

1:12:56

Yeah, yeah. You know, you're like, oh, wait, does she look kind of young? It's hard to know. Or like, hold on.

1:13:04

You just kind of funny reels. That's what I always look up.

1:13:10

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:13:13

Are you funny?

1:13:14

Yeah, yeah.

1:13:15

So change my Insta handle.

1:13:16

Yeah, yeah. I mean, make it a little bit.

1:13:19

It's fine. They're easy to find.

1:13:21

Whatever. Susan song. No. Is it weird that I actually don't.

1:13:22

You know, you don't want people to find you.

1:13:27

I guess they all look right. I think.

1:13:29

Yeah. Not to derealist, but like, I think that there is the reality of, like, sometimes we're looking because we're. We're trying to make a final decision. We don't look at everybody's. It's like, oh, we're in between two people. I think Susan could be the one. Let me see.

1:13:32

Susan playing mom. Or does she seem.

1:13:48

Yeah, hold on, let me see. You know, like, it's, it's. It's for your benefit. So, like, I, I like, I don't post about my kids. Like, you know, I used to have two Instagrams, but it was too much work. If you're an actor, I think it's worth it to. To have one that you're okay with being public facing, basically.

1:13:49

Right, right.

1:14:06

Yeah.

1:14:07

No feet picks on that one.

1:14:08

Yeah, sure.

1:14:10

Yeah.

1:14:11

I mean, unless that's your thing.

1:14:11

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've got a New Balance campaign coming up, so.

1:14:12

That's right.

1:14:15

Yeah, yeah, Subway. Well, do you guys have a minute to endorse something?

1:14:17

I think I endorsed my thing.

1:14:21

Sure, sure.

1:14:23

That's true.

1:14:26

Oh, yeah, that is. You can double down on it.

1:14:26

Unpaid endorsements. Awesome. So I've got two unpaid endorsements. One is I just saw Send Help today, you guys.

1:14:29

Oh, where'd you see it? How'd you see that?

1:14:37

I saw it at the Regal in

1:14:39

North Hollywood in a movie theater.

1:14:42

40x, baby. And it was so fun.

1:14:44

What time did you watch this? I heard it was fun at 1:50.

1:14:46

It's really good. But for the uninitiated, yeah, we, like, played hooky today, basically. For the uninitiated, 40x is like, you know, it's a premium format screen. It, like, rocks you around, but also sprays like fog. If you're underwater, there's bubbles in the air, and it squirts you with water. Anytime there sort rain, blood, vomit, and Send Help has got it all, baby. It's like.

1:14:49

It's a.

1:15:15

You know, it's a Sam Raimi movie.

1:15:16

I love Raimi.

1:15:17

And it's. It's real Raimi. E. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I've heard great things. I would advocate if. Because it's so campy, getting squirted in the face while, like, you know, somebody stabbing someone or whatever.

1:15:19

Lily, a second clip of the frontier.

1:15:34

There we go. It's. It was really fun. So send help. I. I think it would be great. Not in 3D, and not with a moving chair and pyrotechnics, but always in 3D, I think. Almost always. Yeah, I think so. But it's always just kind of like, whatever. Like the big movie of the week is more or less.

1:15:36

And it's.

1:15:51

Look, it's not a cheap movie ticket, but it was really fun. Yeah, I had a great time.

1:15:52

And then just. Yeah, Melania, Doc and 40x also just call back to that.

1:15:56

Yeah, a lot of retching in that one, too.

1:16:01

Wait, did you watch that for real?

1:16:03

I know, but I read some reviews. I think I get it.

1:16:04

And then my other endorsement is. It's kind of a twofer as well. There's a Nashville musician named Nick Lutzko, L U T S K O, who I think I maybe have endorsed on the show before. Before. I think he's quite funny. He's like a funny little lyricist. Funny little lyricist. He's a funny lyricist and, like, kind of went viral a few years ago, which is how I first found him. Like, he dresses up like a gremlin sometimes. He has a running gag where he talks about how he wishes there was another Gremlins movie. Anyway, he wrote the song for the manscaped super bowl spot.

1:16:07

Pelorian spot.

1:16:42

The Praorian. Yeah. The Pralorian brothers did it. It's so good. And it's like, basically, like, clumps of hair.

1:16:43

I love that spot so much singing.

1:16:50

And it's like a sad song about, like, oh, you know, we used to be together. You were my best friend. Like, anthropomorphized hair. So that spot's great. So funny. And also, Nick, let's go I realized was the person who wrote that spot and he's saying he's one of the hairballs. Basically.

1:16:54

The voices. The thing that stood out to me was the voice talent was so spectacular. Like incredible singers in that spot.

1:17:10

Yeah.

1:17:18

And the stop motion or whatever they did was so cute and adorable.

1:17:18

Yeah, it's pretty excellent. So. So those are my two.

1:17:22

Yeah, those guys that made that spot, the Pelorians brothers. Do you know them? They actually make really funny AI.

1:17:25

Yeah, they're great.

1:17:31

Sarah, what you got man?

1:17:33

You gave such good ones. I'm going to give a shout out to an UP or it's not out yet. Pending documentary on upa which is like a mid century animation company that was like down the river from Disney.

1:17:34

Yeah. Yeah.

1:17:45

Cool.

1:17:46

I just went to see like at the Old Town Music hall in El Segundo, which is my hood. I went to see a film festival of old UPA cartoons with like awesome. A panel of like David Silverman is that. I forgot his name. And he's the director of a lot of Simpsons episodes and also the Simpsons movie. He was one of the panelists. A bunch of nerds and they were just nerding out hard on like animation and this guy and this one story and then he said it's like one of the most amazing environments. But one of the cartoons that just blew my mind. Rudy. Toot toot. It is like the most incredible. It looks like it was made today, like a Barry McGee style animated cartoon. All of it, all of their cartoons are very musical and like the musical narration, it creates all the action and like the music is so raw and like jazzy and like I had brass, a lot of brass. It's. It was so inspiring. That was my favorite cartoon of the night and I just, I'd never seen it and I was like, I want to show this to my kids. Highly recommend all of their cartoons, but that Rudy 2. Two, just amazing. That's one. And then watch the documentary whenever it comes out because I'm sure it'll cover a lot more really cool stuff. And then I. I know this is random, but I just read Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird, which is. She's a. A writer, famous writer, but like it's a book written for writers. And it was like, it's just written in a way that like really gets to the heart of like the pain of the creative process and like picking yourself up again and like waiting for feedback and like being in that vulnerable stage of putting your heart on the line and like Wanting so bad to make something that's good and not being able to control that process. So I. And it's funny. It's so funny. Have you read it before, Matt?

1:17:46

You know what's so funny, Sarah, is that I. There's a. There's a copy back here. I'm sure. It was assigned to me freshman year screenwriting, and I never read it.

1:19:36

Oh, really?

1:19:46

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:19:47

And I know this is a movie.

1:19:48

I think it's like a sacred text. I think, like, people really, really love it. It's so Sarah. I think I might pull it off the shelf.

1:19:49

Oh, man. You're going to love it. I've underlined it more than, like, most things I've ever read.

1:19:57

Yeah. People truly like it's a. Yeah. Deep.

1:20:01

Yeah.

1:20:04

I've slept on it for 20 years. What a chump.

1:20:05

Telepathy tapes and that. Those are my.

1:20:07

Yeah. Homework.

1:20:10

Thousand thumbs ups.

1:20:11

Love it. Awesome. Thanks, Susan. What you got?

1:20:12

I also probably have Bird by bird somewhere. And I never read it. It's highly recommended.

1:20:14

There you go.

1:20:20

Yeah, highly.

1:20:21

You got.

1:20:22

It's one of those, you know. Okay. After this day after super bowl. And guess who's back.

1:20:22

All right.

1:20:28

Backstreet Boys. Yes, that's right.

1:20:28

That's right. I saw their concert at the Sphere and Lucky.

1:20:30

One of the best.

1:20:37

It was so good. And I feel like the Sphere is also. I don't know if it 40x, but it was like.

1:20:38

It's even more 39.39x.

1:20:44

And I think this weekends are the last schedule, but I'm pretty sure they're going to come back again in the summer. I don't know. Have you guys seen the show at this year?

1:20:47

No.

1:20:55

No. Kicked out of the Cosm, actually, but.

1:20:55

Or, you know, Square.

1:21:01

How'd you get out of the Chasm?

1:21:02

Let's just say the moms were not regulating the children. And what is the.

1:21:04

Is the Cosm like the LA Sphere or. What is the Cosm?

1:21:10

Yeah, okay.

1:21:14

Yeah, it's. It's. It's pretty cool. I went. We went to see Cirque du Soleil and it was pretty impressive. Yeah, we did. We didn't stop the kids and they were playing and we got kicked out.

1:21:15

You're like, all right, sorry, gotta go.

1:21:24

But yes, that was an amazing show. You should go check it out. And they're all over the place. They were, like, in two super bowl spots, weren't they? Or it was the Coinbase song.

1:21:27

I. I saw the teaser and then. Yeah. The T Mobile. Yeah.

1:21:35

Cool.

1:21:41

With the Sphere. They didn't they never do it without the band? It's. There's always. It's. You can't just like, watch a concert film there, right?

1:21:41

Or is it maybe like wizard of Oz?

1:21:49

Yeah, they've been playing wizard of Oz there.

1:21:51

Sure. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's cool. Awesome.

1:21:53

Yeah.

1:21:55

And I think that one has effects like 4:40.

1:21:56

Yeah, yeah. There's a. There's a. An inflatable flying monkey. I've seen pictures of Kaplan. What you got?

1:21:58

I follow this person on Instagram. I think I mentioned her before.

1:22:04

Her.

1:22:08

Her account name is Stuff about Advertising. She, like, one thing she does to ideate when she gets like a. When she's trying to come up with a campaign for a brand is she tries to think about who would hate that brand or who would hate that product and, like, what they would say about that product. And is there an angle from there? It's like kind of the default thing is like, let's talk about what's great about this product. But there's something fun about approaching the creative from the opposite direction. And like that.

1:22:09

The Mucinex guy.

1:22:35

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And on Manscape, it's like, who would hate.

1:22:36

I love them.

1:22:39

A razor, you know, that shaves your body hair off. Well, the body hair.

1:22:40

The body for sure.

1:22:44

Like, so let's. And I just thought it was like a.

1:22:45

It's like a little toy story too, right?

1:22:47

Yeah, like an insightful way to. Like sometimes when you're trying to come up with like an angle on how to, you know, write about something, it can be useful to just look at how to write against that something, you know, come up with fun ideas. So stuff about Advertising. She's. I mean, I've been following her forever. She is very insightful and she reviews, like, ads and she. And campaigns and I like her.

1:22:50

I follow her. Sounds cool.

1:23:11

Well, cool. Well, if you guys have anything you want to tell us about you all, you are our listeners I'm talking to. You can email us@justrutapodmail.com or across all social media at DPOD. I'm on Instagram @O. Kaplan.

1:23:13

And I'm @MrMavinLo. Across all social media, including letterboxd. This episode is edited by Kevin Oyang. Thanks, Kevin. Social media is by Lily Bouvier. Thanks, Lily. Produced by Tyler Schmall. Thanks, Tyler. And you're listening to music provided by the Free Music Archive and the artist Jazzar saying goodbye.

1:23:26

Bye.

1:23:41

Bye.

1:23:42

Thanks.

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