Nik Kleverov Reveals The Truth About AI in Hollywood

I think there's a lot of misconceptions about AI. A lot of the hate that I see for AI is because people think that you walk in and you press a button and a thing comes out and it's done. There is no magic button. The biggest misconception is if it comes from AI, it's not original. That could not be further from the truth. You do need creatives. More than ever, it's the artist's job to keep pushing the boundary of what's possible. If you have a story to tell, you will be successful if you dive into these tools just because its artificial intelligence doesn't mean you can't be authentic. That is completely false. Dude, we are living in this insane golden age of opportunity. I mean, if you have an idea and the gusto to make it happen, anything is possible right now. Hollywood's gonna end. You know, they're not gonna need any actual people acting that can generate them all from AI. Some may say that's unfortunate. What's up, everybody? I got a good one for you today. We're gonna dive deep into AI and how it is impacting the entertainment industry. We have an individual today who's an amazing storyteller. We're gonna dive into his story, dive into his world, and maybe he can give us a peek behind some of the things that he's working on that we can look out and even in the movie theaters for, but also how AI is assisting the world that he's in right now. So, man, without further ado, Nick, welcome to the show, buddy. Thank you so much, Sean. I'm really happy to be here. I'm happy you're here too, man. You were bragging before we hit record of being in Big Barrier, your cabin home, and I'm a little bit jealous, man. I need some of that in my life. You know, growing up in LA and being a city kid, we used to come up to Big Barrier to the desert quite a bit. So, that is one of the things I do love about Los Angeles is there's this kind of ability to escape the concrete jungle and get out to actual nature and the geography of being in a city to a desert, to mountains, to the beach, all within a couple hours is something that never gets old. You know, it's crazy because when people ask me, what was like growing up in California? I tell them that. It's like I can be in Tahoe in two and a half to three hours. You know, I can be in Vegas in six or however long it's okay. It's like I can be in LA. I can go to San Diego. There's so many different climates within that state that you can get to within a day. And in a lot of cases, to your point, two to three hours. Yeah. We do have to pay the price for it though, unfortunately. Yeah, it's not cheap to live there, right? It's the worst. And the state tax is crushy, man. Yeah, it's pretty bad. Oh my gosh. No getting around that big guy. I know. No getting around that. They're, those are, they call that, it's like, I don't know if you have kids, but like, you know, for Halloween, there's a dad tax. You take the candy, right? That's, that's the dad, that's the daddy tax. I've got a six year old and dad tax is not reserved only for Halloween. It is pretty much for everything. Well, it's on when we get a bite of that, you know, like happy birthday when we get by your plate, make sure it's not poisonous, right? You gotta make sure it's, it's healthy for them to eat. But, but dude, I'm really excited to have you on the show, man, and diving into your career and everything like that. But, you know, here at the Disharmony Society, we, we like to tell stories, right? Of hardships and, and how people of, of your level of success have been able to overcome those adversities and, and trials through determination and discipline. Do you have anything that you've gone through in your career or early on that you had to really dive into and say, you know what, I need to take care of this so I can move forward? Absolutely. I'll give some background and some context. So my dad was, was a pretty famous artist in Soviet Russia. And in Soviet Russia, you were not able to paint the things that you wanted to paint. There was, there was kind of this law of socialist realism, which is essentially, if you're going to paint something, you better paint it in a favorable light for the government and for our society. And so abstract expressionism, anything that skewed even remotely political or critical of the government was, was pretty looked down upon. And he did paint some pretty provocative pieces that, you know, featured Lenin and Stalin and, you know, other, other topics that weren't necessarily okay. So him and his group of artist friends that were, were quite well known, they had a pretty rough go at it with the government, with the KGB. There was a, there's a very famous exhibition that happened in a park in the Soviet Union where these artists kind of got together and the KGB rolled in in bulldozers and they trampled and they stomped the yard and, and, you know, it's called the bulldozer exhibition. And, you know, eventually, you know, it was literally that they had to hide paintings under the floorboards of, you know, their apartment or friends' apartments, hide artwork. And, you know, at one point he even did go to prison for his views and, and, you know, had a pretty rough go at it. So, they finally got out of the Soviet Union. It was kind of just like they wanted to just get out any way possible. And they got out and I was actually born on my way on the way out of that. They got to America. So I kind of, I'm also an immigrant, but I, you know, I got here when I was a baby, basically. And, you know, they hung out in New York for a bit, but it was my dad's dream to come to America because he knew that he could actually have freedom of expression here and, you know, be able to paint the kind of paintings he wanted to paint. We hung out in New York for a few years before we got to LA and that's kind of where my childhood was. But, but the context of that is, you know, my dad was a really, who was a really talented actual artist and he did abstract, but he also knew how to paint like anything, right? He tried to teach me how to paint and it did not go so well. It's just like, you either got it or you don't, I could not draw a stick figure pony, you know, if my life depended on it. It just, it just didn't get passed down to me. That being said, I've always been a storyteller and I've always loved telling stories. I've always been fascinated with movies and shows and, and cartoons. And my expression of that was I was this kid that always walked around filming everything with the video camera. It was a high eight, digital eight, mini DV. That was kind of my era. And so I was, I was quite literally the American beauty kid, you know, filming plastic bags floating in the wind, all sorts of artsy shit that, you know, I've got to chuckle on. But I was like the documentarian. I mean, I have all this footage of my childhood. I have all this footage of LA in the 90s. I've got my high school, I mean, it's kind of wild the amount of footage I have, which is, I actually have interesting plans for that, that when I'm slowed down at some point, I'll look at that man. But, but that I just always knew, like I used to shoot little short films and edit in camera and, you know, produce them and show them to my family or friends. So I've kind of always been determined to be a storyteller and to enter Hollywood, mind you, with essentially like immigrant, you know, being an immigrant myself and immigrant parents that assimilated into American society, but like slower, it took them time. I mean, you know, we hung out in the Fairfax district of LA, which is where all the Russians are. And, you know, my dad was Russian moms, Ukrainian, you know, they would rent VHS tapes with Russian cartoons on it for me and watch Russian shows. And we would eat Russian food and make Russian food. And so my knowledge of pop culture took a while to catch up. Like, you know, I didn't know who Led Zeppelin was until I was 13. And my friends who had grown up listening to that from their parents were like, check this out. I was like, what is this music? I didn't try to eat until I was 13. I had like this very kind of strangely sheltered upbringing within Los Angeles, within America, completely different experience than my child is having now growing up. You know, I kind of compare my childhood to his obviously. And I'm like, wow, I was just in a whole different state. So I knew I wanted to be in Hollywood, but I knew nobody. I mean, literally starting from absolute ground zero. And I was just like, how do I enter the field of professional storytelling? And for me, that was to go on Craigslist to get any job I could try to possibly find. I mean, some of my earliest PA jobs in our business, that's production assistant, you're the gopher, they call you the gopher coffee gopher gopher that, you know, getting coffee, cleaning trash. I mean, I was doing 16 hour days for like 50 bucks under the table, you know, like, I'm sure none of this was legal. What people were asking me, that was the industry back then you just did it. You were so happy to be in. I remember I did this like bank commercial that was put on by a Korean production company that was based here. And, you know, it was a long day and there was like confetti or glitter or something. We were shooting in someone's house. And, you know, I was always the first one in last one out, there was like all this confetti in the cracks of the concrete. And I had to like just get on my hands and knees and pick it all out. And I'd be like, look, I did it. So I did that. I then graduated to the art department, which is, you know, essentially everything you see in a frame is art department, right? So if there is a couch in it, if there's a painting, if there's plants. So, you know, I had my job as a shopper, I would drive around shopping all these prop houses. And that job is it. And when I did it, you got a disposable camera at the beginning of the day, you go around, you're like, okay, we need a rubber fish for the wall. And I went to like eight places all over Los Angeles. And I would walk in like, I need this rubber fish, I take pictures of them. Then you go to the one hour photo, you develop the pictures on the backside of the pictures, you're writing down, okay, this is at this prop shop, this prop shop, and you go back to the production company, then you show it to them. And then, you know, the director or producer, somebody's kind of vetting, okay, we like that when you'll go back tomorrow and get that. Then, you know, I became an actual art department guy on sets on like lifting couches and stuff. I was like, I don't really like this too much. So I was like, what else, what else can I do in this in this business? And, you know, got into the camera department. And then I was like, loading bags. And that's a second AC. And then I was the first AC, which is pulling focus, which I was actually really bad at. So that's your really specialized skill that that is kind of tricky. So I didn't make it at that. Meanwhile, all the while, I'm of course still making my short films, right? I'm still doing the things I'm trying to find editors to edit them for me. Eventually, I'm like, I'm just going to start editing this stuff myself. So then I taught myself how to edit. And, you know, maybe it's in my blood. There's a, there's actually a very famous story that essentially, you know, the Russians did invent editing. There's kind of the, the famous example of the woman's face and the woman's faces is playing each time. But depending on whether you put someone tripping down the stairs before that shot, or a piece of cake before that shot, the audience would infer a different emotion from that woman, even though it shot each time. So the sequencing of editing in that way was, was developed by the Russians in the early 1900s. And so, you know, what I kind of quickly learned in the process of teaching myself editing, I was like, man, editing is really the cornerstone of storytelling and filmmaking. And, you know, you can make something bad good. If you don't do it good enough, you could ruin something good. It's, it's so critical. I really refined that skill. And that kind of became my trade for many years. I edited many, many commercials. And I love commercials because it's short form storytelling. You have 30 seconds, you have a mission and an objective, you have to sell a product, you have to the call, you know, provide a call to action to the viewer to do something. And so it's really good at getting good at storytelling, you know, and I encourage young people I talk to, like get into commercials, get into advertising, because it is the best training ground. And some of the best directors of our time now started in commercials, if you look back at their early careers. So did that for a long time. And I finally, like finally after I think this, what I just told you was probably like 12 to 15 years, I finally started getting opportunities to direct. And I would, I would work with actors, I would go on set. I think it made me a better director, having done all of these other things that were really hard. And I got to be honest, I mean, I had times where I was like, why am I doing this? This is really not actually fun at all. But I always had this bigger vision of like, I'm going to get to where I want to be. I had to start from scratch, but I'm going to make it happen. And how am I going to make that? I'm just going to put in the work. I'm going to keep my head down and put in the work. After directing for several years, I got an opportunity to move up to being a creative director. And creative director is now you're actually, you're dealing with the scripting, you're dealing with the concept and the strategy of what you're doing. You're also in my world, you're dealing with design and designers. A company I was a creative director at, Digital Kitchen, it was very famous for brand storytelling, but also main title sequences. And so we did the intros of TV shows. The company is very famous for doing one of the first ones ever. It was for Six-Bit Under for HBO. You know, everybody also did Dexter, did True Blood. And the one that I'm personally most known for is the Narco Centro. And, you know, when you're thinking about a show, it's almost the same process as a commercial. You're thinking about the themes, the ideas of a show. And then you're trying to distill that. And you're distilling into 60 seconds or 30 seconds. And you're presenting it in an artful way. You know, you get to blend high design with storytelling and bring that back, get people excited about what they're about to watch. So it is a little mini commercial, isn't it, for the show you're about to watch. And in many ways, where we are now with AI, it is that same kind of size team, 12 to 24-ish people. That same kind of team I got really good at running, creative director, art director, designers. Now you have AI artists thrown into the mix along with animators, edit, post sound, music, VFX. That's the team. That's the dream team. So many ways, somehow, totally randomly, or maybe not. My career has led me into understanding how to work with this concentrated force of people. And that is the process of creating with AI now. Hey, guys, we're going to take a quick break. And we're going to slide into our recovery segment brought to you by TheraBody. What an amazing technology that TheraBody has. And it was founded on a really cool story by Dr. Jason Worslund. It was founded on pain. He got into an accident and had this extreme pain in his arm and found that percussive therapy really helped. So he created the very first version of the TheraGun with a Makita Drill, just a pilot and test to see if his pain could be relieved by percussive therapy overall. And surely it was. So now, birth to the TheraGun and now TheraBody, who has a multitude of products to help you recover emotionally and physically. And some of the products even help with stress, meditation, and better sleep, and just overall better wellness. And when I had Dr. Jay on the show earlier in 2025, it really spoke to me because his platform was founded out of physical pain. And the Determined Society was founded out of emotional pain. And so it felt natural for us to partner up. So here we are, an official partnership with TheraBody. And I want to talk to you about some of the products today that I've been enjoying, that I think you need to understand and know more about so you could potentially implement them into your life. And I'm not going to get into a big deep dive of the actual science and everything like that. I'm just going to give you some anecdotal information based on the products that I'm using and that my wife is actually using too, that is helping us out a great deal at home. Because a great thing about these products, guys, is you can use them anywhere. You can use them in the gym, you can use them at home, in your bed, in your living room, hell, you can even drive with a TheraGun Pro Plus in your car and use it on your quads, use it on your arms, whatever that is. The first thing I want to talk about is the TheraGun Pro Plus. I bring that in my gym bag every day to the gym. And when I'm warming up, I use it to warm up. I put it on my arms, whatever body part I'm using that day, I activate those muscles. And what I find is, I'm able to move my body a lot quicker. And I'm a lot stronger on those days that I do actually bring it and utilize it. I just think it's a great way to understand your body and the connection between your strength and your muscles and being warm and being able to perform. Because it's one thing to go work out, but it's another thing to perform while you're doing it. And the TheraGun Pro Plus helps me do that. Another thing that I really truly enjoy is the Jet Boots Pro Plus. These things are wire free. There's no hassle. There's no cords. There's infrared LED light. There's that compression therapy. And I've been having bad pains in my ankles, both of them actually, for about a year. And I don't understand where it's coming from. But when I started using the boots, religiously, after a leg day or after a cardio session, I throw those boots on and I find myself a lot looser afterwards. I find myself lighter. And then the next day, there's no pain in my lower extremity, like my feet. The other thing that I really enjoy is that product really helps me recover a lot quicker. And let's face it, that's the most important thing when we're trying to move our bodies or we're trying to succeed in life is we want quick recovery emotionally and physically. And these products help me do that and it can help you do that as well. One of the other things that I really want to go into, because it's helping my wife out a ton with headaches and being able to distract from the noise in her mind. And honestly, it helps me with that too, is the smart goggles. Whenever we feel a slight headache coming on, or things are getting really heavy just in our minds, just thinking about all the stressors, all the things out there that we can't control, we throw the goggles on, getting a quiet place. And there's different cycles on there and different intensities of vibrations and massaging that you can either turn it up or turn it down. And what I really enjoy is it allows me to focus on what's going on with just me and I think about things. And the massaging with the smart goggles relieves either headaches and it relaxes me and relaxes my wife to a point where we can fall asleep better. We are preparing to kind of downshift and shut down and slow down for the evening. So I heavily recommend them. The other thing it's really good for is just creating a peaceful time in your day. And what I've found since using the smart goggles and then the other products is it works for me, it works for my family and I know it can work for you too. So I want you guys to think about things that you are struggling with. If it's lower back pain or you wake up in the morning, your neck is tight, I'm going to tell you the TheraGun Pro Plus will help that out. They have cold therapy on it, hot therapy. I mean, think about that. When I open that box and realize that I could have heat therapy and cold therapy and the TheraGun changed everything for me and also really made the thing that I hate doing the most is warm up. Made that very easy for me. Just by applying it to the muscle group that I'm going to use before I do it and in between sets, which promotes quicker recovery between sets. So if you're looking to go high volume or to lift heavy weights, I strongly consider that. All these products are there to help you move along in your day with less pain and recover quicker. So go check it out because now, like I said, the official partnership has begun. And from now until the end of March, in your first order, you get 15% off your first order, not every order. So if you're going to buy some stuff, load up there in that cart for that first time and you get 15% off, go to TheraBody.com and at checkout, the code is determined. So let me know how you guys like it until then. Stay determined. That's amazing. First of all, before I get into some of the things that I found were enlightening from what you said, I wouldn't discount your work on Bloodline. That intro was sick. Thank you, dude. Thank you. You want to know the story about that one? Because it was... Please, dude, that was literally my favorite show and still pissed off. It's not. It's no longer. It's such a good one. It's three seasons in. It was a good one. Isla Marathe. We knew that we wanted to represent this story of the inner turmoil behind this perfect situation, these perfect people and everything's together, but it's not. There's a storm inside. So we were mapping when there's going to be a storm and we knew that we wanted to do this time lapse on that pier, but we wanted it to go from a beautiful Florida day to the storm and the turmoil within and then seeing the aftermath of that storm. We got there and I'd done a lot of time lapses. One thing I forgot to mention, I also did a ton of work for AT&T. We used to do these TV shows for them and I was the second unit director. We traveled all over America. It was actually awesome because I got to travel all over America and we stayed in really nice hotels on the AT&T budget, which was funny for me because I'd prior traveled all of America doing music, staying in the worst hotels or the worst parts of town. So I got to see every city in America twice. So this is what it's like. Okay. But anyway, and my job as a second unit director is it's essentially B-roll. Like if you know, if you've heard the jokes about people, that was actually what I had to do. I had to go around, get B-roll of iconic things. And so I always ended up finding myself in some perch looking down on a city with this motorized time lapse slider thing that I had. I'm like half a nerd. So I'm smart enough to figure out some nerdy things, but stupid enough to be happy. And I would film these things and I got really good at time lapses. So I had a ton of this time lapse stuff on my reel and we knew we wanted to do a time off. So I was like, great, I got this. I know how to do this. So I, anyway, we're there in the sand. I set up my tripod. I turned it on. I'm like, great, this is, this is not so bad. This is going to go okay. And I had one assistant with me who unfortunately was, was not the best. He kind of just like fell asleep. Thanks. Because it was, it was the 48 hour time lapse. So like we got to see it. So it kind of ended up being mostly me. But when the storm came in, it was so intense that I was standing with an umbrella because the wind and the rain was kind of coming in sideways. So I had to protect the camera and the lens. I would lift it. I'd look at my intervalometer as it was counting down from 30 seconds. And I'd lift up the umbrella. It was the shutter would snap, get the photo and instantly the lens is wet. So then I've got a lens wipe and I've got 30 seconds to wipe off the lens, you know, double check, make sure nothing got bumped before I have to lift up the umbrella again. And I mean, when you do that for hours on end, in the middle of the night and into dawn, you're just like, what is my life, man? You, you like, you go places, you start thinking about things. But in the end, it did turn out good. And we were all happy with it. And it just does goes to show that, you know, there's always more to it than meets the eye and success isn't easy. See that, that I really enjoyed that because when we're in our day to day, whether you're directing or I'm building out, you know, the show and doing all the mundane day to day things, we can all sit there at that one point and like, am I really doing this right now? Like, is this really what my life is? But then you see the finished product and you're like, that's exactly why I did that. That's why I stuck with it and kind of fell in love with the monotony side of things. And I just think that as we look at all successful people, and even look at people that aren't having success, one is focused on doing what they're supposed to do. Like, if you got to be up for 48 hours, because it's a 48 hour time lapse, then damn it, you're awake for 48 hours because it's what you have to do. There is that no point in that story. See, I see things differently, right? When you're talking, you're saying like, well, yeah, I just flipping it up every 30 seconds, cleaning it off and making sure nothing got bumped. So the shot still good. That is a process. That is something that you that you are having to do because of the elements of the weather. And a lot of people and I don't know if someone in Hollywood would ever do that. But a lot of people every day, the moment they get that resistance, the moment that they get that little bit of a, this is probably not the right condition, they fold tent and they go home. That's not an option. If we want to be successful as a filmmaker, show host, or even a teacher, you have to sit there and understand what your job is. And if you have to do a lesson plan until 12am, then you have to do a lesson plan till 12am, because the payoff is those kids learning. And you see it after it's done. And so I just wanted to hit on that point because you said it so eloquently. And I just, you know, I was going deeper than just the story and thinking about it as like, man, this is literally he's talking about success. Yeah, I mean, I look at things with a greater vision. And, you know, I feel like everything is always serving that kind of main goal. And in times of difficulty, when I do feel like giving up or it feels like, man, this is just too hard. I think about, well, okay, what would happen if I stop this? Am I just going to have to do this anyway? Again, like another time? I mean, well, I might as well just eat the frog and do it now. You know, they say, like, just, just get it done. And, you know, I'm personally not, but my grandfather on my dad's side, he was a soldier. He was actually a very famous ace pilot. He shot down like 47 Nazi planes in World War II. Wow. The only time I talked, I never really got to meet him because he stayed in Russia. So anyway, my dad was a soldier and all. So I do think like, I just got to be a soldier right now. And I just have to suck it up and do what I'm here to do. You know, conditions are not always perfect. You still got to make things happen. Like if this is my job, like if this is the fight I'm fighting, then I have to just do it. And no one cares about planes. And, you know, the result is the only thing that matters. There's a certain level of resilience that is built up in human beings in general. You were a baby, but you're an immigrant. You're at your family, you know, immigrated here. Everyone I meet that is an immigrant or, you know, their parents, you know, were immigrants before they had them here, they operate differently. They understand that what needs to be done needs to be done. And I don't have an option. And I don't know if today's generation in the States really feel that way. I mean, again, that could be a sweeping generalization. Okay. But from what I'm seeing, those are two different subsets of people. One subset looks for the easier way. The other, the other cohort goes, I'm going all in on this because that's my job. And there's no method of retreat. It's like, this is the play. I'm running it. Yeah. I'd like to think we all have it in us. And we could try to unlock that and find that determination within. I was listening to your episode about, you know, men's health and, you know, you guys were talking about getting up and you're just like, I'm just going to get up at four and do the workout and that it's done and I've got it taken care of. Like, I actually really want to find that myself still, you know, I have a passion for fitness in the sense that I like running, I like basketball. I do love to lift. I feel so good when I lift. But because of my schedule and what I do, I'm lucky if I lift once a week. And it's just, you know, it's kind of like you have these stops and starts and then I listen to that from you guys. I'm like, man, I got to find this within myself because I get up at six, right? I got a kid. I got the school thing. But can I just push myself to figure out a way to prioritize my health? And, you know, that's inspiring to me. So in the same way that, yeah, okay, maybe I figured out how to push past some of my problems and do things. I think we all have it in us somewhere to find that and to grasp onto it. And I know that every time I have found it, you know, with fitness specifically, I feel so good. And then you lose it. And then it's like, you got to work your way back to it. It's funny because, you know, and I appreciate that. Thank you for listening. I think you're talking about the Jeff Delaney episode. And that dude changed my life. Yeah. Change everything for me. And the reason I say my life is because everything shifted when I got better through the support from them, right? Like my weight, my nutrition, everything. And it's just like this, man. You know, I look at everything as, you know, it's not always four AM. It's not always. If I don't have any recordings, I'm sleeping until six. I'm gonna take care of my kids. I'm in the gym by seven and I'm home by 845. Like I'm not stupid. If I got an opportunity to sleep seven, eight hours, Nick, I'm taking that shit, right? All day long. But for the most part, it's like, if I get up and I do this hard thing that hurts so badly mentally and physically, like this morning was a four AM. And I'm really don't want to do this. But how much better am I going to be in a month if I stack up certain things that I don't want to do that I think I don't have time for? How is this going to enhance what I do on camera? One, I'm gonna look better. Two, I mean, actually, one is my mind works better. The conversations are better. I'm smarter. Right. I'm quicker on my feet. And then two, yeah, I'll look better. But everybody likes to start with looking better and that never holds. Right. It's like, how can this enhance my filmmaking career? Right. It's like, okay, well, I'm up at six. So I'm gonna get up at four. I'm gonna try it two days this week and get up at four. I'm gonna go to the gym and be back, help my son out before he gets, before he goes to school. And then you'll start to find just like with anything you get on a roll. Right. And it's about creating time. Yeah. And that's hard though, man. It is. And, you know, as someone that's always trying to tell myself to work smarter and not harder, working hard has just been a default setting for me. Like I will pound the pavement and make something happen kind of against all odds. So I think there is something about that, but it is also about maybe bridging the gap and finding the balance of also, like, do I really need to be doing that now? And I've had a lot of clarity actually, because I've been at this a long time, right? Like I've only kind of become this AI guy in the last few years, really. And, you know, for many people, they're like, Oh, you're successful this that and like, man, like what I do has not changed that much. It's just I've always been a fan of technology. I've always been interested in what technology can do to enhance storytelling. And so when I first found out about AI, you know, within storytelling and text to image and got in early with open AI, and, you know, we were one of the first creative agencies doing some work for them. Funny enough, some of that early work was not AI. It was documentary storytelling to talk about how AI can can improve and so there was a lot of filming people and talking to people and doing interviews. But, but, you know, it's it's kind of wild to think about what's happened for me in the last couple of years. I mean, it's been an absolute whirlwind. You know, I did spend my 20s being on stages and doing music. So I kind of understand how to be in front of a crowd. But, you know, now I'm I'm, I think I've done 65 to 70 talks this year, you know, paired with what's from last year, you know, I'm definitely over 100, probably 150. And it's like, that wasn't a normal part of my day or my, you know, no, so now I've got a balance making the things, doing the things, you know, overseeing the other people on my team that are making other things. And I've got to work on my talking, my presence, you know, I always have to be learning, which is great. I actually really enjoy that. But, you know, in our landscape, there's tools coming out every day. So then I have to surround myself with people that are smarter than me that can tell me about, Hey, here's these tools and here's what's happening. And so I can keep, say educated because even that's a full time job. I mean, I'm balancing so much. But at the end of the day, I'm like, no, I still have to keep going towards this goal. And my goal is to tell stories that connect with people. And so I've kind of taken this path, you know, I've like, bashed my way into the creative field into Hollywood, you know, and into the brand, it's come mostly through the brand world, like most of what I do is still brand storytelling, you know, we work with Delta, we work with Virgin, we work with Coca Cola, we work with incredible Fortune 100s, 500s, but we also work with startups and kind of everyone in between. And I've had the great fortune of really refining and holding my storytelling abilities to get to this point, which is where we are now, which is, wait, we're actually making our own original project, our own original IP, our own original film, which is Critters that open AI is backing. This would have never happened before AI. So when people talk about AI, and they, you know, there's criticisms about AI, we've hired more people than ever since AI started, we're doing more projects than ever, we're doing them quicker, so we could do even more projects. And now we have two original projects going, one is the Critters film with open AI. And another one is a animated series adult cartoon series called Beta Earth that Adobe has supported and we partnered with a producer from Modern Family to put that together. So it's like, dude, we are living in this insane golden age of opportunity where storytellers can, you know, really thrive. I mean, if you have an idea and the gusto to make it happen, anything is possible right now. I think it's interesting. And so let's start going down the rabbit hole of AI here, because for a lot of people, like everyday people, you know, like I would say parents, right? They're only exposure to AI is like making sure that their kids aren't doing their homework on chat GPT, right? Like they're, they're making sure and teachers are cross checking things to make sure that it's not AI generated. But there's like, to your point, there's a massive thing going on right now with, you know, Critters and in creating films with AI tools and technology. Can you walk the audience through some of the, you know, the things that you're working on and how that's all put together? Because there's so much more to AI than what we deal with on the street every day. And I just think the capabilities of it are insane. And then I'm sure that'll take us on another direction too, because I do have a lot of questions about AI. I think there's a lot of misconceptions about AI. And there's kind of three main takeaways that I have, which is one, there is no magic button. A lot of the hate that I see for AI is because people think that you walk in and you press a button and a thing comes out and it's done. That could not be further from the truth. It is still hard to make good things. You still need the brightest minds around you to figure things out. Now, there's, there's been a lot of headline chasing. Could you make something in a weekend by yourself? Yeah, maybe. But that's why when I was announced as one of the first seven artists to be using Sora, OpenAI's text to video technology back in March 2024, we all had kind of our different, you know, demos or tests. And the test that I put out was a lot of advertising type ideas. I put in a shoe, I put in a soda can. I, you know, it was like, yes, filmmaking, of course. How is this going to change the business of storytelling? And that is, that is advertising. What's going to happen? And I knew there's a big difference between doing something by yourself on a weekend or doing something with a real client partner. And so I knew I had to find a client partner to make a real project with, which is how we found Toys R Us, you know, post PE. So I knew I wanted like a really iconic legacy name, a huge American company that had that cache, but also was small enough to move. Because I also know corporate America very well. There's lots of stakeholders. There's lots of approvals. And for something like AI, you know, especially at the nascent, you know, forget about it. Only now are things starting to change. But back then, I was like, how am I going to achieve this balance? And we found an incredible partner in Toys R Us. And so we created the first ever AI ad. And it was for Toys R Us. It went incredibly viral. We reached over a billion and a half people. And it was a big moment because it spurred a lot of conversation about is this possible? Like, oh, wait, you can actually use AI to do storytelling, to do marketing, to do advertising. Now, the issue is the naysayers, they don't know what what was involved to make it. They a lot and just think like I typed in make commercial, and then it made something. We that is also why it is so critical to release case studies and behind the scenes now for all of our projects because we showed all the people that worked on it. It was probably shy of 20 people that worked on that. We had a real closer and a real musician re-sing the iconic Toys R Us song. I had to do thousands of generations because even in that early technology, there was no image input. Now you can input an image, make that image move. Back when I was doing that, you had to just type, type, type, type, type, type. And so try to type out an anthropomorphic giraffe with bars instead of spots. It was a monumental task. I certainly had moments where I was just like, my God, it would be so much easier to pick up a camera and shoot this scene of this kid just standing up and walking. But we made the decision to go on this journey with AI and we did it. And since then, a lot has changed for us. We've kind of become known for AI storytelling, AI commercials. And so since then, we have done AI stuff with lots of really big companies, which is exciting. And after our commercial, Toys R Us, that opened the door for Coca-Cola to make their first Christmas ad. And now I drive down Sunset and I see, I'm like, that's AI, that's AI. I can start seeing and telling what's happening. But it is still the same creative storytelling process. There is no magic button that you press and it makes a thing. By the way, the services that tell that there are, go do it. It's not the same quality of work. And as the tools all catch up with each other and become better and better and more ubiquitous, it's the artist's job to keep pushing the boundary of what's possible. When the bar gets to here, we're going to push it here. That's just what we do. That's human creativity, which brings me to the second thing I've noticed about just working with AI is you do need creatives more than ever. I have done a couple solo projects. None of them turn out as good as when I'm with my people. I'm balancing ideas. I'm talking about this. I'm talking about that. We're using AI to create shots or to set looks and then animate them or bring them to life. But there's all the same people still collaborating, still making something happen. And it really comes down to the story, which is the third big thing. And we've talked about this now, Sean, is that storytelling, the human connection, the human relatability that storytellers will win in this space. If you have a distinct POV, if you have a story to tell, you will be successful if you dive into these tools and be authentic. Just because it's artificial intelligence doesn't mean you can't be authentic. Thank you for that, because that is a big misconception. Like everything you're talking about, all these misconceptions are just lay people. Like if I type something into the chat, CBT, and I was kind of chuckling inside, what you're talking about, you have to understand, like, you just can't hit a button, and it come out completely finished. Like I will type something, and then it'll give something back to me. I'm like, that sucks. I clearly did not do a good enough job writing it first and giving enough detail. So you're always going back and refining it, right? You're teaching it your voice, you're really trying to manipulate your writings just so you can clean it up, right? But the biggest thing is, you know, the biggest misconception is if it comes from AI, it's not original. Like you said, it's not authentic, and that is completely false. We achieved one of the first copyrights on an AI created material, which is our original short film Critters. So kind of what I mentioned to you about, you know, just getting in with Open Early, we actually pitched them the idea for Critters, which is this little furry cute story about these Woodland Critters. It's CrittersWithAZ.tv. If you want to go look it and check it out, the story. But we pitched them kind of a David Amber Planet Earth crushing into a Monty Python sketch. So it can show off the tech, meaning we can show some beautiful visuals, show these cute little Critters, and this, you know, British narrator is completely wrong in what he thinks they are. Then they all start talking back to him. Super simple concept. And I think it was very successful. It went to Tribeca, went to Anisee, bunch of phone festivals, awards, because in early AI, the only demos were like dystopian sci-fi nightmares. We were like, what about just a family friendly, family entertainment kind of idea? And I think it kind of clung on because it was like, oh, it's cute and fun. And it's simple. Obviously, there's still people that can shit on it or say it's bad or not good enough. And I don't necessarily disagree that the thing we made three years ago doesn't look up to snuff. I mean, that's not, you know, visually, it's we're leaps and bounds. I mean, so the process to where we are now, which is now that's becoming a feature is it went through a few things, which is when Sora came out, we actually remastered the Critters film because the original was made with just Dolly, which was the text to image generator. And then we redid it with Sora, which is the text to video and image to video generator. And then we partnered with this UK production company that made ton of films a vertigo. And they said, you know, when don't you guys want to expand this bigger like, of course, we do. And we partnered up and then we got the writers of Paddington and Peru, Paddington animated series to write the feature expression of this. So, so now you've got one of the first AI native IPs that achieved a copyright because we kept such detailed human authorship records of we didn't just type in something and the little critter came out like we really refined the eyes, the mouth, the way they walk, I mean, the fur, everything. And we kept track of that, which is how we got that copyright. And now we've got one of the first AI native IPs, you know, that was funded by OpenAI originally. Now we've got top tier Hollywood writers involved. And then we made the announcement that, you know, actually open is backing it and, and, you know, providing compute. And now we're set up and we're creating one of the first AI animated films feature films. I will tell you, we have artists in the room drawing the characters, you know, we are keeping such detailed track of everything that goes into it, you know, the script was written by people, the characters are designed by people, the worlds are designed by people. I mean, really where AI is coming into place is once we've set a look of what the critters world is. And then we can start bringing it to life in a quicker way than it would traditionally take. Right. I mean, I've been researching every great animated film ever made, you know, as part of the process of doing this film critters. And, you know, I was on the plane the other week and I watched Mulan and I was watching the credits roll under animators. And I was like, this is going and going for like minutes. I looked it up 700 animators worked on. Wow. And I'm just like, that is one incredible. It's a small village or town to will will never be in a place again, we're 700 animators will work on a feature film. So where are we? Okay, we're in this new era. How do people adapt to that? How do they shift? Some people are adapting and shifting easier than others. Also, the timeframe it will take to make this is less than a traditional film, which means in theory, as an artist, you're not on a film for three to four years, you're maybe on a film a year. So maybe in that same, you've actually now made four films. And what we're doing, and what we hope the industry will follow our lead on, is we're creating a artist's profit share, unlike what has ever been done before. So now, actually, if you are an artist that works on this film and it's successful, now your life could actually substantively change. Because you have opportunities, you're on a smaller team, you have more stake in it than ever before. So I guess that's why I'm so optimistic about about what's possible and what we're doing, because we're literally writing it as we go. We're, we're making it up as we go, but we have great learnings from the process, we're documenting everything. I mean, one of the guys that's working on it, worked on the original 1996 space jam. And, you know, he definitely had questionable, you know, ideas about what is AI. And it's been amazing seeing it through his eyes and seeing what's possible and how it is enhancing that human creativity. It's not replacing or taking away. It's actually empowering. Yeah, I think of it, you know, enhancement is a great, great way to describe it. It is something to enhance, which you're already building, but you have to do the work upfront, anything like that. You have all these people working on the project, and it's there to refine it or enhance it, right? One quick question. Do you have like a time frame when this is going to come out? Like, is that our goal is this upcoming year? Okay, cool. 26 at some point. That's awesome, man. That's really cool, dude. What other projects do you guys have going on that you can talk about? So I'm very excited about Critters. I'm very excited about Beta Earth. We have several other originals in development, which is, again, just like where I'm really excited. We have a kid's musical with a really prominent songwriter that's coming along. And, you know, we are also very, very busy with our brand work. We are doing some incredibly exciting all AI and hybrid AI projects right now that just would not have been possible. I mean, the thing we did with Virgin Voyages, which is, you know, Versions Cruise Line, they had built out this kind of lore of that the firm, they have four shifts, so they have four mermaids and each mermaid that's on the side of the ship, you know, has their own journey and story, and they'd been wanting to do brand storytelling for that for a long time. And only now because of AI, were they able to, with our partnership, you know, we came in and we built out those mermaids, we built out the look of them, we built out these stories. And now you have these malleable story, brand storytelling assets and tools that, you know, we can tell a number of stories with, which is so exciting because they're like, man, you know, underwater mermaids, big scale stuff, like that wouldn't have been possible before. So I love finding these moments where we can really push what's possible with AI. That is the best case of AI for me is when it's pushing something, pushing imagination, you know, just replacing two people sitting at a coffee shop is less interesting. Why? Let's shoot it. And many things that will never replace sports, I mean, sports are going to be sports documentary stories about people, lives, this, that. Now, interestingly enough, you know, I told you about my father early on, I, you know, he had passed now 13-ish years ago. It's been kind of my duty as a filmmaker kit to figure out like, how am I going to tell his story? A Pulitzer Prize winning author Gene Winegarden wrote about my dad in a book and actually hit up Gene and I was like, look, you're a much better writer than I can actually just borrow some of what you wrote as the VO for my little horror film. He's like, yeah, I sure go ahead. So I've been putting together this film and I've got kind of this 10 minute working version of here's who my dad was, here what the Soviet nonconformist artist movement was, here's some of the other players in that space, you know, back before the war, I actually was over there on a job and so I stayed behind it. I interviewed some, you know, museum curators and some historians and stuff. So I kind of put this piece together, but I've always wanted to tell the narrative version of this story. But who, you know, who's going to fund this film for me that said in 1960s, 1970s, Soviet Russia, I mean, this is an expensive movie. How can I create these shots? And I did some tests with it. I made a film with Sora called Dominant, which was kind of a POV idea where I put myself into my dad's POV of being persecuted in the 60s, 70s in Soviet Russia. And I was able to kind of recreate some KGB agents and it actually, that film went on to win best music, it's a music video, it's a spoken word by me, but it won best music video LA International Shorts festivals, been running for 30 years. And why I think that's interesting is it wasn't an AI film festival, it was just a film festival. And my film wasn't an AI film, it was just a film. And so we are starting to enter the phase of it's going to be blurred, like what was using AI, what was not using AI. And as much Koopla as there is about AI now, five, 10 years from now, saying you used AI on something is going to be like saying you used Photoshop. So, okay, cool. Who cares? So yeah, I agree with that. So that's where I'm like, okay, well, am I actually going to make this movie about my dad now? And how am I going to make that? And you know, it'll probably be some shot elements. And, you know, I do find success still in filming actors, and then actually like interpolating that onto characters that were made, it's always better, the movement's always better, the performance always better. So yeah, it's got my mind going now, like how am I going to put that together? Interesting. How does the industry feel like? And there was some buzz like a month or two ago, but about an AI actress, and all that kind of stuff. And they were talking about they were going to go look for representation. And there was an article actually, I was actually quoted in the article, I can't remember what it was like what what, it wasn't, it wasn't us weekly, I can't remember what it was, but I was asked to talk about it. And it's interesting because, you know, you hear a lot of people say, oh my gosh, Hollywood's gonna end, you know, they're not going to need any actual people acting, they can generate them all from AI. And I don't think that's the case at all. But how does the industry view, because you smiled, you know, because like everybody was talking about it. But how did you feel about that? And what is the overall, I guess, the pulse on AI actors and actresses? I mean, I think it's a really, really hot topic, which is why I smiled. I think actors are protected to some degree, but I do think that some degree of this will happen. And it is interesting, I think about this a lot, you know, there's a lot of propagating like, hey, well, what if we have a digital twin, and you can just hire the digital twin to do the thing, and then the real person or actor or celebrity doesn't have to do it. That's fine and interesting for people that have already established themselves. But then I think about like, well, how do you become a new actor? Like what if you're now 16, 17, and you're trying to become the next Will Smith, or whoever, how do you do that? And is it a mix of having to be an actor and a personality and an influencer? And, you know, what is that kind of line you have to walk? It's certainly interesting and certainly complex. I think we look at human faces all day long, you know, every day, all day long. So it's still the last thing to change and the uncanny valley of it all, which is why we are leaning into a lot of animated ideas, because you're already asking people to suspend their disbelief, you're watching a cartoon of some sort, and you know, you're not watching a person. And so there's less faults to point out. But I think that we do have to protect our people. And I think that even if some of those tools are being used, how are we still protecting the craft, protecting what we could do? And I think that this is where a lot of the regulation stuff is going to come in, and where these conversations are going and where they're headed. Yeah, it's just, it's crazy to me because I didn't even know it was a thing. And then I saw that, I was like, Oh my gosh, you can't even tell a difference. You can't tell. I can. I still can. And I can see through the code, man. I will say Sora 2 was one of the first times where I started, the line started to blur, where it's got that almost kind of lower fidelity and more UGC-like aspect to it sometimes, where in some shots, I'm like, Oh, is that real? Is that not? Which does kind of open up a whole other discussion, which is 10 years from now, when it like, you know, it can be Sean French and I would be 100% certain that that was you, but it's not. What do we do to protect the truth and protect what's real? And how do we know what news is real? These are big discussions and questions that I actually think blockchain comes in here. I think, I think we actually see the true use of blockchain when there is a camera that films and as it films, it is actively uploading the Geo tag, the timestamp to the blockchain that can be independently verified immediately. And there's like a hologram or something in the bottom right corner. And so you can scan the hologram and you can see, you know, that that is actually the news. Like that is really happening now. And beyond. And for people, I mean, it's wild. It is wild what's happening, which is of course why, you know, I look at the tools as a storyteller, as a filmmaker, as a creative, but there's a lot more in the world of AI. I mean, I'm just a tiny speck of it. Yeah. Well, it's just interesting, you know, I'm glad you can see it because you could fool me. Like you could fool me. And I see things all the time, just even on the social media platforms, like certain pages, right? Certain, like I'll get these certain follows, and then my alarm will go off. I'm like, that male or that female are literally flawless. Like there's nothing wrong with like not one thing is off. I'm like, that is definitely AI generated. Yeah, because it's like no one is made perfectly. And so I think that the problem there lies is, you know, you know, we both have young children, you know, it's like, gosh, you know, like what are they what's going to be put in front of them in an AI generated state that they may not be able to tell the difference if it's real or not. I've been a kid a lot about AI. I've been, you know, we made an AI short film together with an idea he had. So you kind of understand how it works. I show him things. And I'm like, do you think this is real or AI? You know, and I talk to him to be an independent thinker and to not just take things at face value and to ask more questions. Some may say that's unfortunate. And I'm trying to preserve the innocence of childhood for sure. But, you know, that there is an aspect of we are entering new waters and a new world. And, you know, our next generation, they're going to be the custodians of what we're building. So how do we make sure we're all on the same page? I have a lot of faith in Generation Alpha, actually, and some of what you talked about of, you know, some of the things that I think have maybe gone wrong in our attitude and kind of some of the things like, I think this younger generation, you know, and the parents that I know, like we all have strict rules about screen time and devices and all this kind of stuff. And I think, you know, what's being found out about social media and short videos, even though I make them, you know, within a balance and, you know, it is addictive in a way, right? It's like, you know, everyone used to smoke and everyone used to drink soda and it's like we kind of keep advancing as a society, but then we have to kind of keep up with our own advancements and make sure we're properly regulating them. Very well said, man. It's good to know that you guys have rules on screen time. That's comforting. Like kids don't get to watch screens during the week. It just doesn't happen. And when you know, honestly, when with everything, like when would that even happen? Honestly, like all the homework, all the other extracurriculars, the dinner, the actual talking to your children. So you have a connection with them is like, when the hell can we even watch TV? So I have one important question for you. First of all, this has been amazing and you've given so much education on what it is that you do and in clearing up some of the fallacies behind AI, right? What's what's true and what's not. And so I appreciate that because I know the audience is really interested in this in this field because everybody is it's such a hot topic right now. But in the theme of determination and the determined society, when I created this platform, I had to define what I felt what I wanted in life. And to me, it was my own definition of determination is I want to wake up in a society that people are determined to chase their dreams no matter how they feel emotionally at that time. So in your mind, Nick, your definition, well, how do you define determination? It's exactly what you just said. I think for me, it's like the decision to keep moving and moving forward even when the path is foggy. You know, I've got my North Star, I've got my big idea. But I'm also malleable enough to know that I may have to change course here and there, right? Like look at my career to get to where I am now. And I've still got so much further to go. But it was not a straight line by any means. And so it's kind of like that quiet daily commitment to the vision. I do think it is about just just shut up and do the work sometimes. I love to throw myself a pity party. Like, oh, man, at the end of the day, you know, shipping does be perfection. I think in our creative field, especially like sometimes we can talk things to death, and there's a power in just delivering, just like, you know what, I'm going to show you something. I'm going to show you what I think this should be. It might not be 100% right, but but now we have a starting point of something to talk about and discuss and figure out how we're going to make better. I don't like talking things to, you know, before we've even all seen and aligned on anything. And so, you know, I think, yeah, in filmmaking and business, you know, building stuff with AI, I mean, there's moments where momentum stalls, there are setbacks. But for me, determination is just showing up anyway. It's that discipline. It is what I want my workout discipline judgment to get to. Yeah, my other work ethic, that's what needs to catch up. But, you know, as a storyteller, as an entrepreneur, I think it's kind of like protecting that spark of childlike innocence. You know, I've kind of become because I've worked so hard in that and I've done so many things, you know, the last several years before AI, I'd gotten a bit more jaded thinking about the bottom line. You know, I'm a partner at our agency. I think about dollars and cents and profit and this and that. And since the AI tools have come about, I've really felt this reawakening of my childlike creativity and my excitement and enthusiasm to create. And so now, as I am doing speaking, as I am thinking about the future more, and that becomes more of my job to think about that, I'm like, wow, what's happened is actually quite magical. And I do have to kind of protect that spark and that excitement and curiosity. And honestly, talking to people helps me do that. Seeing it in my kid helps me do that. And seeing it in the work of new creatives helps me do that, which has been amazing. I've discovered so many incredible new creatives. So, yeah, to answer your question, determination is just continuing to move forward even if you can't see through the fog. I love it, man. You said it best, dude. And we're aligned on that definition. And a lot of times, determination is this quiet thing that nobody else can see. But you know, what's there, it's making the hard decision one after another to do the hard thing instead of the easy thing. So, the easy thing a lot of times is just to quit, right? Just to give up on what you're doing, because it's too hard. And you know, it's not going to be great, but you just got to finish, just deliver, man. So, I appreciate you so much, man. It was so nice to meet you and have you on the show. And you taught me a lot today, dude. This was really cool. Where can the audience find you? It's just nickcleveroff.com, right? It's cleveroff.com. So, spell clever with the K, throw an OV at the end. That's my personal site. And my company's called Native Foreign. So, Native Foreign Spell, normally dot co, we're a company. I tried to get the dot com and I couldn't find whoever the heck wrote the notes, all the things. But co, co's good. We're a company. Co's fine. It's great. Yeah, it's fine. It's fine. It works. So, you guys that are listening and watching, go find him, search him up, go look at some of his projects and get ready for creators coming out here in sometime in 2026. Fingers crossed that it does. I'm looking forward to seeing it and share the show with somebody you know, love and trust guys, people that have been talking about AI, you know, the people that love tech, that love this type of technology, send the show their ways so they can learn more about nick and hopefully become acquainted with what we do here on the Determined Society. So, thank you guys again for watching and listening. Until next time, stay determined.