Howdy Storytellers 🤠,
Things have been heating up in the wild west of AI filmmaking. AI video technology has continued to rapidly progress. Here’s an example of a werewolf transformation shot (created on the last generation of AI models, meaning the current technology is even better) that blew my mind.
There’s been a lot going on in Creatorwood Land (I like to think of us as an amusement park for creativity). A few of the highlights:
We’re hiring tons more AI Directors to work with storytellers like you in VIP Production. We should have 100+ AI Directors working with us soon and need hundreds more to meet demand 🤯
We’re working hard to improve the Movie Machine. We still do not have a date on opening self serve of the Movie Machine back to the public, but we have some major changes coming soon to make it much easier to create movies. Why? We want to make sure when we open it back up, that it’s truly ready for the general public. As you’ve learned if you used the Movie Machine, making a film with AI is hard, expensive work. Typically it takes 1,000 hours of human effort AND close to $10,000 in AI credits (and it takes a long time to learn this new skill). Meanwhile, working with our VIP Production Team, you pay a flat $250 per finished minute of film and have a 100% money back guarantee. With the time and stress saved, never mind having a trained professional edit and produce your film with AI (which typically leads to an even better output), VIP Production is a truly one of a kind service and deal – and it’s why so many storytellers are working with us (hence us having to hire so many AI Directors!). You can learn more about VIP Production here. To all our VIP Storytellers, we are endlessly grateful – and on a relentless mission to give you the best possible films and service 💙.
We’ve been working hard on the Beta of the Creatorwood Streaming Platform. I have a vision to build a marketing machine, similar to our movie machine. It won’t be easy, but if we nail this, we’ll be able to help folks get their films out there in a data-driven way and make money from AI movies and shows (no this won’t guarantee viewership, anyone guaranteeing you any money or viewership in this business does not have your best interest at heart. Instead, it will give you detailed feedback on what isn’t resonating about your film, your packaging, and your marketing, and help you use these insights to make better films and reach more viewers). We already have our first storytellers starting to generate income from shows on the platform. It’s very early days though. I know this new filmmaking industry doesn’t become sustainable unless we make it possible to not only create films with AI but also generate an income from them. We have lots of work to do to get there – but I’ve been channeling everything I learned working on MrBeast’s strategy team and helping authors make $1 million+ a year at my previous company to help us get there. More lessons on this below.
Okay… now that you are caught up on what’s been happening behind the scenes at Creatorwood, I want to share 10 Lessons for AI Filmmakers.
They have come from the last 15+ months where me and my co-founder together have personally put 10,000 hours into this (yes, nearly every waking hour), and our AI Directors alone making movies on our platform have put time in well in excess of that.
From this comes hundreds of thousands of prompts, thousands upon thousands of minutes of generated footage, thousands of dollars spent marketing AI films, and 10 lessons that will help you learn about what to expect in this filmmaking revolution and how you can bring your dreams to life with it.
I’ll start in order from the beginning of the AI filmmaking journey with the mindset and your story, and end off with marketing and distribution.
Let’s get into it 👇
Lesson #1: Your Passion is the #1 Ingredient for AI Filmmaking
There’s tough moments in the process. There’s time when the first generation doesn’t go as planned. There’s moments where you doubt yourself and if viewers will want to watch your film.
What will my family think? What will my friends think?
What keeps fueling you is the fire of your passion. Now, more than ever, the world needs stories with a heart. This video covers what story you should turn into a movie (yes, every lesson comes with a video from the Creatorwood Team 😊):
Lesson #2: It Still All Starts And Ends with Your Story
Great stories are still what it’s all about.
So what’s the point if you can make cool shots with AI video?
What viewers care about is a story that grips them and gives them an escape (maybe inspiring, maybe swoonful, maybe cozy, maybe thrilling) from the world around them.
Every genre has it’s own tropes and psychological desires it fulfills in a viewer (read this great book on The Anatomy of Genres by John Truby for more info on just that).
How do you know if your story is fulfilling a viewer desire? I have a 3 step checklist that can be measured:
Does your story have evidence (already in the market) that it fulfills an existing story gap? This gives us confidence our story idea can gain traction. A story gap = an under served viewer desire, potentially a niche genre, a trope, etc. that your story fulfills. I have a full article on story gaps HERE.
Can you get people to notice your story and start watching it? This is measurable and what I call story channel fit (I desperately need to write an essay on this, but the closest I have to what captures this concept most succinctly is the 3 viewer/reader growth engines you’d to test if your story has story channel fit… more on this soon!).
Can you get people to keep watching your film once they start? This is the magic moment of your film called the Retention Point. Think of this as the point in your film that once you get there, viewers are hooked.
Want more details on those 3 loaded questions? I cover a systematic process to go from idea to successful film in the market inside of the workshop below on the Six-Figure Film Formula:
P.S. I made a completely free deck of cards to help you market your stories called Author Marketing Superpowers. It has 50 Superpowers inside, each a unique concept/lesson. You can download it here.
Lesson #3: Your Audience Dictates Your Format, Not the Other Way Around
Too often we try and fit a round sized story and in a square shaped hole.
Maybe that analogy fell flat 😂. Let me be more blunt.
We see trends like Vertical Dramas and think. “Oooo! my story could be a vertical drama!!! This is the answer I’ve been waiting all along!”
Think again… vertical dramas are a specific format, for a specific audience, during a specific period of their days/lives. Not every story (typically non-romantic stories) is a good fit for this format. Likewise, you can’t just make a film vertical in orientation and call it a day. You have to actually meet the viewer expectations of the format.
In a past life, I was CEO of a serial fiction platform for authors. I would see all the time people try to make serials in genres that traditionally underperformed in serials such as thrillers.
But if tons of people read series, or watch verticals, or consume story in [insert format] why wouldn’t my story work in that format?
Because you have to put your viewers first.
In the case of children’s films in particular, verticals is a format I’m less excited about (maybe there’s a successful children’s vertical, but let me share a logical breakdown of why it would likely be a challenge).
Children (think under age 10) don’t typically watch films on phones (the device verticals are meant for) — but use iPads (horizontal films are better suited here). Sure sometimes they use their parents phone, but tablets are much more common… over half of kids in the U.S. have their own personal tablet by age 4.
Parents need to occupy kids for set periods of time. Verticals are typically 1-2 minutes long episodes. This means kids would either need to keep blowing through episodes without getting bored or parents would need to have regular smaller blocks of time to occupy their children. My instinct as vertical episodes would be traditionally too short for this purpose. A reference for a good starting point for episode length would be looking at data on how long caregivers spend in an average day on food preparation in the U.S. [here’s some interesting data on that]
Imagine if you did this kind of analysis for every story idea you had and the people most likely to be passionate about it?
What time of day do they watch at?
Do they watch alone or with their family?
What day of the week do they watch at?
I have endless questions, and it’s the most fun thing ever to put your viewers first. Typically programmers on cable television made these decisions. They had to balance the needs of advertisers and viewers. We got a bunch of archaic formats and principles of how we make film that most of us still follow to this day.
I’m not sure they are right. Instead, I’d ask you to question the status quo, question your own ideas, and instead ask: how does this put my viewers first?
With that said, here’s 5 steps to writing a vertical film if you want a deep dive on a specific format 😂.
Lesson #4: If You Can Make a Scene, You Can Make a Movie
Okay. You have your story…. NOW time to dive into movie-making.
If you work with our VIP Production Team, we handle this part for you (while giving you full creative control throughout the process).
People get overwhelmed when they think about making a full-length movie. It sounds like so much to learn!
In reality, once you know how to make a scene, you just have to repeat this process over and over to make a full-length movie.
What is that process?
At a high level (once you upload your story into the Movie Machine which uses AI to adapt your story into a film for you) all you have to do is:
Edit how your characters look and sound, what they are wearing, and what your locations and props are in each scene. This gives you the visual foundation of each shot.
Edit your shotlist to ensure that the action described in each scene is exactly what you want.
Produce your scene with AI and troubleshoot the shots that don’t turn out how you want by regenerating them (we use your characters, locations, and props from step 1 to ensure they look consistent throughout the full scene).
Edit your shots (change sound levels, add music, and more).
And that’s it! Of course, this isn’t an easy process. The tech is still early, so it can often give issues. We are working on making it better AND we have a team of professionals at VIP Production that you can hire to produce it all for you.
But this is the process! And it’s a ton of fun. You can watch this video from Sashv Dave, my co-founder and creator of the Movie Machine, on how you can make your first scene with Creatorwood 👇
Lesson #5: Retakes Are Part of the Process And It’s a Lot More Fun That Way
AI is never gonna always get it right on the first try.
That’s part of the fun though!
Character’s hair look different than you imagined? Maybe you like the Movie Machine’s first draft better… or maybe not 😆.
AI models are probabilistic by nature.
What this means is that a single input (a prompt) does not always lead to the same output (the video or image you end up seeing). This leads to sometimes frustrating and sometimes awesome results.
Of course, the technology is getting better and better so the probability that it gives you want you want is higher.
With that said part of the beauty is the back and forth. You can see how your words and vision are interpreted in real time, notice blind spots, and work on articulating it even more clearly and fully.
Want more on the mindset to succeed in AI filmmaking today? Watch the video below and be grateful for the AI Directors who do all of this hard work for you for those who work with our VIP Production Team 💙
Lesson #6: It Takes ~1,000 Hours For Most to Make a Full-Length Movie
Due to the above (Lesson #5) and the nuances of making a movie from scratch as a single person (a task that used to take dozens if not hundreds of people working on a single film) it takes 1,000 hours to make a full-length movie with AI.
This isn’t to scare you, just to set your expectation around why it takes serious time to do it yourself, and even with multiple AI Directors working full-time on your film, bringing a full movie from start to finish takes months.
With that said, here’s a detailed workshop on making your first scene (important to pay attention to the foundations, not the workflow here cause we are evolving the core workflow of the Movie Machine to be better and easier) 👇
Lesson #7: Little Tricks Can Make a Big Difference in Your Production Quality
One word in a prompt can change a shot from awkward to great.
Changing a character’s voice upfront before making a film can change their dialogue delivery throughout the entire season.
One extra shot can turn a scene that was confusing into one of the most emotionally impactful in your film.
The key is that greatness comes from editing, revising, and making little tweaks to increase continuity, color grade your film, and more.
With VIP Production, we have a team of showrunners who perform quality control on each stage of your film before you even see it.
And of course, you can make revisions on your own. Here’s more on that process and best practices for anyone revising their film to go from good to epic 😊
Lesson #8: Use the Director’s Assistant as Much as Possible
Inside of the Movie Machine, we have an AI assistant that you can ask questions about making and producing your film. It can teach you about shot types, help you understand how to debug specific shots, and even edit and generate scenes directly for you.
Our top AI Directors use the Director’s Assistant all the time to work with the Movie Machine.
It’s a lot of fun! In addition to communicating with the Director’s Assistant, our VIP Production clients that have the smoothest productions and best collaborations with their AI Directors typically follow a set of best practices when communicating with their AI Directors that ensure their vision is communicated clearly.
Here’s a video on how you can work effectively with an AI Director to bring your story to life 👇
Lesson #9: Start With Your Packaging in Mind (aka your film’s title and cover)
I talked about the importance of your packaging in Lesson #2.
I made it lesson #9 because by the time most people think about this lesson they have already finished their film.
However, if our VIP Success Team (which we are investing heavily in training up even more so our success reps are equipped with even more knowledge and skills to consult you through every step of the production process) knows your film’s title, genre, and premise, we can ensure that your shotlist and script are congruent with your film’s packaging.
Film packaging and story congruence are essential. You don’t want to have your story start off one way, while your logline sets a completely different viewer expectation.
We’re here to help with that 😊. And this is an intense workshop on exactly how I use AI to brainstorm film packaging myself 👇
Lesson #10: Patience Is Key
You can bring your story to life NOW with AI.
But it won’t happen overnight (or at the press of a button, you’d be surprised how many people think that).
I’ve been doing this for a decade. I’ve grown up in this industry. I published 12 novels in high school.
I wrote multiple books before making my first $1,000 publishing.
It took me 3 years to make a living as a creator (I made a full time living as a live streamer… very fun!).
It took me another 2 years after that (5 years in total) to launch my first software company.
It took another almost 2 years after beta to help authors make $1 million a year.
Now at Creatorwood, it’s a similar journey. Except much faster – cause the game of being a storyteller compounds.
I’ve taken a very specific path. You probably don’t want to take the exact weird, nonlinear path I have 😂.
But I can promise you one thing. Your skills will build with time. What you learn grows film after film.
You’ll get better. You’ll get wiser. You’ll have more fun.
The key is to keep the passion alive. Don’t spend too much money or time that you don’t have getting started.
The people who will have their stories leave a true legacy will be the ones who can keep creating in this new industry for years to come.
I want those people to be you. And we’re all here at Creatorwood to help you get there 💚.
Here’s our last video… all about the 5 Rules of AI Filmmaking in 2026
What lesson resonated with you the most? I’d love to hear your answer. Went back to a long article this time but we will have some more shorter articles coming soon 😀.
We have 6+ YouTube videos filmed that will be uploaded to the channel soon and lots more on the way. Do you have any recommendations for videos we should make to help you in your AI filmmaking journey?
Let us know, we’d be happy to help 💙.
And as always, don’t forget…
Storytellers Rule the World,
Michael and the Creatorwood Team