Film Still: The Day After Tomorrow (2004)
There is no such thing as a cautionary tale.
Movies and TV that show a negative future are sold to us under the guise that if we see the worst that can happen it will give us the motivation to avoid it.
But that's just not how storytelling works.
Film Still: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Stories are prototypes of the future.
So if you're going to serve up disaster porn, cheap horror, or climate catastrophe, that's what audiences will expect and ultimately those low expectations will lead us to accept those poor outcomes for humanity.
But if you offer something visionary you might just set wheels into motion that inspire society to help that future come into being.
To prime the minds of future generations with stories that rely on superhero saviors or coordinated global governmental responses to world-ending enemies only serves to blinder our collective imagination and disempower us.
Put simply: in the world we're living in, business as usual in entertainment is dangerously irresponsible.
Prompted Midjourney Image: “cinematic opening shot of a cliche sci fi movie with galactic battleships and alien aggressors.”
The first wave of AI filmmaking is a snake eating its tail.
Now any sufficiently eager and empowered person with an interest in AI can generate their own versions of the Hollywood blockbuster cliches we've all seen before.
Unsurprisingly, these folks tend to be the usual suspects in terms of privilege and access to technology.
Meanwhile the production industry as we know it is suffering massive unemployment with no clear signs of how it will recover.
Prompted Midjourney Image: “cinematic establishing shot of the skyline of the city of London overgrown with rooftop gardens, green roofs, and solar panel installations.”
But there can be a better way to use AI.
To raise a generation of underrepresented voices up, like a Phoenix rising from the ashes of all that is being rapidly laid waste.
To enable new stories of a better future to be told at scale.
And that's precisely what we're setting out to do.
Prompted Midjourney Image: “cinematic wide shot of a fiery phoenix, rising from a large boxy white burning Hollywood studio movie lot building. Palm trees, blue skies, Hollywood Hills in the distance.”