Hella Hello 😎

I’m currently in the Bay Area covering High School Football for MaxPreps this week. A fun little side quest I picked up for the fall. The game of the week: De La Salle (CA) vs. Lakeland (FL). You can catch me interviewing players and coaches from both teams on MaxPreps socials.

But today, we’re going to talk about movies - or “pictures” (if you really want to flex on the plebs). Don’t say “films”…if you’re going to be a snob, go all out.

For the record, my favorite movie is The Grand Budapest Hotel. But I love everything from MacGruber to Mulan; from Shawshank to The Shining.

And while I certainly don’t claim to be an aficionado, critic, or expert in the medium, I’ve lived around enough USC film students to have a good understanding of the people who are.

So much has been made about AI disrupting Hollywood & media in general, both from a technological and artistic perspective. We’ve seen the strikes, heard the actor interviews, and read the comments. It’s all understandable, to be fair. Motion Pictures ;) are an incredibly powerful and sacred medium of artistic creativity, expression, and story-telling. Movies are synonymous with American Soft Power and have been massively influential worldwide.

But we’re at an inflection point on multiple dimensions. The tools, business models, and - most notably - the participants are evolving. I think the situation is nuanced, to say the least, and I’m actually more optimistic than ever about human-proof cinema…

A24 X AI

This week, the New Yorker wrote about the rise of A24 Films. A24 has built an empire by systematically rejecting Hollywood's conventional wisdom. Instead of optimizing for mass appeal, they cultivated relationships with auteur filmmakers and embraced projects other studios considered too risky, strange, or uncommercial. Their model: keep budgets manageable, develop projects collaboratively with talent, and market controversy rather than avoiding it.

They’ve won 21 Oscars (incl. “Moonlight” & “Everything Everywhere All at Once”) and have an undeniable cult-like following that recognizes and appreciates their human-proof approach to filmmaking:

✔️ They cultivate authentic personal relationships with filmmakers.

✔️ They differentiate through craft.

✔️ They prioritize character over optimization.

However - their success has led to questions about their growth, and whether they’ll manage to retain the DNA that put them on the map. Especially as they appear to cozy up with Tech, more than Hollywood.

This paragraph from the New Yorker struck a nerve on the timeline:

Fans are upset:

Couple things:

• I don’t read this as A24 selling out, abandoning its DNA, and becoming “AI-first”.

• I know some AI engineers think they’re making “god” - but those are not the people involved anywhere near the creative process of filmmaking. Rage bait quote.

• Daniel Kwan says AI is incompatible with the industry. I prefer the Darren Aronofsky approach:

The obvious play here is to learn as much as bout the latest AI tools as possible so you can provide a world-class arsenal of resources for the genius human talent you support and create with.

This is a key distinction in “human-proof” land:

👎 Using AI to farm out your original ideas and creativity is a pathetic betrayal of the beauty of our own humanity and will always result in slop.

👍 Using AI to support and enhance the ability to explore the full limit of your own individual and original human creativity in new ways is a natural technological progression.

Put it this way: The further upstream in the creative process you use AI, the more dangerous - and less authentic - it gets. 

Think of creativity like a river. At the source (upstream), you have ideation, vision, and core creative decisions. As you move downstream, you get to execution, logistics, and technical implementation.

For A24, they built their reputation on relationship-driven creativity and authentic artistic vision - distinctly upstream human values. When they announce an AI lab, fans freak out like they're moving toward algorithmic content creation and strictly avatar actors.

But A24's actual AI usage appears focused downstream - using technology to enhance pre-visualization, streamline production logistics, and expand what their human collaborators can achieve.

The distinction matters because A24's entire business model depends on maintaining what we call Cultural Coherence - when every element of an experience feels authentically connected to the humans creating it. Lose that upstream human control, and you lose what makes A24 different.

Who knows exactly where the players in this ecosystem - including A24 - will fall, but we’re headed towards an entirely new spectrum of film genres:

We’ll see AI-first studios.

We’ll see AI-never studios.

And everything in between.

In every case, I believe human craft will shine brighter than ever, whether through its involvement or absence.

Around The Horn

J. Crew used AI to create their latest ad campaign and tried to hide it. Blackbird Spylane called them out. A text book example of what not to do.

Ryen Russillo is leaving The Ringer umbrella to start his own media company - backed by Barstool. Yet another example that proves what we’ve discussed: authentic individual human personality wins.

Manchester United lost to 4th tier Grimsby Town. A new low for the most decorated club in England. Hilariously, the Grimsby Town goalie is a Man U fan - watch his interview after the match 😭

This Week’s Playlist

Choice selections from Dijon, Chance the Rapper, Natalie Merchant, Devendra Banhart & others.

Enjoy the holiday weekend.

RP WEEKLY!!!!