Welcome And Why Wonder Studios

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Welcome to the Where Shall We Meet podcast. Our guest this week is Xavier Collins, who is the CEO and co-founder of Wonder Studios, an AI-native creative studio redefining how film, advertising, and music video content is made. Based in London, Xavier founded Wonder alongside CCO Justin Hackney with a clear thesis that the most valuable creative work in the AI era lives at the intersection of human taste and intelligent production, what this studio calls crafting jewelry from AI Gold.

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Wonder has raised $15 million from investors, including Local Globe and Blackbird, with angels from Eleven Labs, OpenAI, and Google Deepmind, and wants to build towards becoming the A24 of the AI generation. Before Wonder, Xavier held senior roles scaling some of the world's fastest growing consumer platforms, including Uber and Deliveroo.

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We talk about who is the maker when we use AI?

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Does what we value change when things don't require effort anymore?

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Is the box office truly reflective of what we care about?

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Do AI tools empower the unskilled?

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How will we adjust to fakery?

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Is Inga Rose a watershed moment?

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Will artisanal always resonate more than AI?

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Can AI create novelty?

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Let's wonder. Hi, this is Umidashtari.

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And Natasha McElhone,

What Does It Mean To Make

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and with us today we have Xavier Collins.

SPEAKER_04 1:48

Hey Xavier, thanks for making the time. Thanks for having me here.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

Thanks so much.

SPEAKER_04 1:53

We have a lot of interesting things to talk about today, but I thought that a good starting point would be to talk about the word making. And making its connotation so far has always been something that's sort of sacred. If I say I made a film or I made a song or I made an app, then that meant that uh there was a lot of perspiration involved, a lot of thought, not only in the idea, but also in the execution of it and the actual hands-on doing things. So do you think that nowadays with AI, we're actually still giving the same sacred value to the word making? Because I'm I'm making apps all weekend, you know. But it's really clawed.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

That's interesting. Yeah, I think um I'd love to hear your take on that. As someone who's who's using AI, you know, day in, day out. Do you consider that output the fruits of your labor? Do you do you value it any differently because you use like a new tool to create it? Um so I I'd I'd throw it back to you, but just because I'm I'm just genuinely curious. But you know, from my perspective, it's a great question. You know, making ultimately like what does that mean? It's it's it's everything from ideation to execution, right? And potentially what's changing with AI is that you know, historically, a lot of people have ideas. I I have this expression where I'm like execution is like nine tenths of the law. Exactly. People say possession, but like it's it's it's execution is everything. Execution is everything. But what sometimes may inhibit execution can be like geographical barriers, you know, capital, etc. So execution isn't just contingent on effort, sometimes it's contingent on just like proximity to people with connections or or whatever it is. So to the extent that AI is enabling people with like great vision and ideas to to go and like execute in a way that they couldn't have executed historically, then I think it is still very much making. Um, you know, and I think the the other part of that, it's like a longer com conversation, but at least in the industry that like Wanda's in, where a lot of the stuff that we look at is like a kind of blend between AI and traditional VFX or animation, the people that are kind of uniquely positioned to make the best stuff, not always but very often, come from like the traditional world. So they've honed their craft in VFX, right? And they understand the language, they speak the language, and then they've learned these tools because there's like learning and time involved in becoming an expert with like clawed code or whatever it is. So yeah, like we're still we're still very much in the space where making is is an expression of craft and hard work and diligence and time learning a new way of doing things. I'd say the the downside is that I mean it depends on how long you spend vibe coding apps or whatever it is, but like you know, you're less in the world of like a hundred hours building with your with your hands and and like feeling very connected to the work, but you're still in the world of you know a hundred hours kind of intellectually wrestling with ideas, concepts, testing, etc. So yeah, I'm probably I'm probably pro we're still very much in the making phase, and we're probably on the cusp of like an absolute boom and who is making and the impact of what people are making.

SPEAKER_02 5:28

No, no.

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Um you want to already push back.

SPEAKER_02 5:34

Um well it's a barrier of entry thing, isn't it? That of course there's the access point and financials and all of those factors which I think are incredibly important to democratize. But the truth is at the moment, with Claude or something, the people who are willing to pay $200 a month subscription or are able to are getting a completely different set of tools than the open version that's available for everyone. So the quality there, there is quite a big gap. Second, I I think one of the great filters of certainly in the independent sector of how much uh toil, blood, sweat, and tears it takes to get a script into the right hands then to get this money raised to sell to you know, foreign territories or whatever the whole we'll talk about that later, the system of uh I guess legacy finance of filmmaking. But I know with my filmmaker friends, if it is a three-year birthing process, the the the elation when everyone's there on set on that first day and it's people who are in each department perfecting their craft and who are collaborating and compromising, and it's not as you say, execution is everything. This idea's been in their mind for however long, and each iteration has hopefully made it better and better and better and better and better. And if it's instant, if you can just sort of mock up something and see it in a second and go, actually that's not working, but it hasn't really had the lifespan to see and to stress test it, you know, in the same way that each script you're you're fine-tuning, you're fine-tuning the same with the novel, I guess, same with a song. I feel there's something about that process that connects you to the material and it gets deeper and deeper and deeper with each try, with each trial and error. And the frustration is super important as well. I I do think that frustration is is generative and in very, very growthful. So I'm just worried about compressing a lot of those processes.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

That's look, it's a great take. I think um, you know, two things can be true at once, right? Yeah. So you can have James Joyce that agonizes for 15 hours over like one sentence and the combination of the words in the sentence, and then you can have the flip side where like so many great creators just never realize their vision because things get dragged down for years. You can't um bring things to life quickly, you can't, you know, pitch something in its true grandeur because to do that would take years or tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars, etc. etc. So I think like both both things remain true. I think like great art, it can be can be like you know, some of the best songs ever written were were written, you know, on the back of a Chinese menu, uh, whilst the band were outside in like Oasis's case or or you know, something like Ulysses that was like toiled over for for decades. So it can just depend. I think where the thing that I would just react to is like on the clawed to like the Frida 200 pounds a month thing, it's like, you know, I think no one's saying that there's this full democratization. I think in in every industry you're always going to have levels of access. But I think it's if you had to compare the levels of access today with these tools versus 20 years ago, what you should hopefully see play out is you're gonna see a lot more, like you're gonna see a lot more breadth of like creatives push through or get exposure. There are people from like anywhere in the world right now that if they've got great storytelling craft and they have a understanding of the tools, they can put something direct to customers on YouTube or X or whatever it is, and they can get discovered. Not saying it will happen, but like it's it's more likely to happen, and that that barrier to entry is lower than it's historically been, which I think is like a net positive, without saying there's no barrier to entry. And then the the final one was just I think that's a really great point. Great art can often come from like strenuous toil, but I think it would be wrong to say that leveraging AI erodes that toil. Some of the best filmmakers I know that are using AI or experimenting with AI, they're working like 20-hour days, like deep down the rabbit hole, obsessed with you know every single frame. So I think that that like kind of it's it's it's not instantaneous. It's different, like it compresses timelines, more things are possible, but there's still a huge amount of kind of grind that goes into making a lot of this stuff.

SPEAKER_04 10:10

First of all, both really good valid uh points here. The analogy is really um one just on the price point. Before you had to have a full music studio to create a record album,

Craft, Friction, And Paying For Access

SPEAKER_04 10:20

now you can have a laptop. And obviously, still the laptop is the entry price to creating an album, but it is still a lot cheaper. And I think we're seeing the same thing happening now. The other thing is that if you just prompt something and the output comes out, what's gonna happen, I think, with society, which we'll we're seeing to an extent, is we're getting desensitized when it comes to the average output. Because what these things do are they just giving you an average output, and you will still be able to tell the difference between an average output and a 20-hour output.

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When somebody means let's do Love Island as vegetables.

SPEAKER_04 10:53

Yeah, for instance, right? Like, you know, um, but the reality is like if you spend time uh with these tools on the first output and do 20 iterations on that, you can get to something drastically better than the first version. And the first version is something that a bunch of people who feel like mediocrity is good enough will put out, but we're all gonna say, okay, we know exactly where this came from. But the thing that people spend 20 hours on, refining a website, doing this, changing the button, doing all these things, will see a difference.

SPEAKER_02 11:21

So essentially you're saying it's the same process, it's just in a different thing.

SPEAKER_04 11:25

I think yeah, Xavier was saying the same. It's like it compresses the time to first uh iteration, but the first iteration is never the best iteration. And the same goes with people who maybe have a stroke of genius in a moment and write a script in like a day. They they may still toil a year on making the script the best script, and some people will take that script and say, hey, let's do the hangover three, you know? This is very, very programmatic. You can write that script probably in an afternoon because it's just the same thing over, right? Uh okay, we can talk about taste in general, I think. This is the next point that I wanted to make.

SPEAKER_02 11:58

It seems to me Yeah, sorry. I I I guess uh does lowering friction that it that it costs, even if you're working with AI tools or or if you're writing it but but by hand, does it actually make better work or does it just make more work?

SPEAKER_00 12:13

Great question.

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How much more content can we all take in?

SPEAKER_00 12:17

Yeah, that's a great question that can be like empirically validated over the next couple of years. Like, do you just get more better films from like a more diverse background of filmmakers? Like, I think we'll just we'll learn.

SPEAKER_05 12:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:29

And I think there's a lot of noise that people will get stuck in. There's a season for all things. Love island vegetables. People love that. People love that. Um that's fine. You know, it's like I think there's a there's a lot of noise, there's a lot of content. I think AI content's already overtaken, human-generated content on the internet. But ultimately, like, I don't think any of those things are really going to matter. At the end of the day, taste 100% will matter. And what I mean by taste is it doesn't matter if it's got AI part of the process or not. Like, I think I'm I'm pretty agnostic about that personally. What I really care about is are are humans still creating great works of art that really like resonate with people? And and that that does feel like a timeless trait of like our civilization. And so I think over the next year, over the years to come, like we're gonna have more great films, more great books, like there's how many more geniuses waiting to be discovered. I guess the the empirically interesting point will be like, do we get a a broader selection of great films and great books from a more diverse background of filmmakers because all of a sudden the barriers to entry have been lowered? What's obvious is you're gonna get more content. Obviously, you're gonna get more content, you're gonna get more people that want to be filmmakers getting to experiment with these tools, just like you're gonna get AI musicians, people who have always wanted to write a song but never never wanted to learn piano, starting to like express themselves. So you're gonna get a huge amount of content. But in that spectrum of those people, I think like throughout history, there's going to be truly talented taste makers that are able to like strike a chord with people, and I think that's the signal that I would focus on. But then I think that the question there is is it just like a default level of talent in society that always exists? Is there only so much great work that like a community can sustain? Or are we gonna see an increase in the number of great works because we're suddenly opening the door to many more people that can start to like showcase their talent?

SPEAKER_02 14:39

But what about scarcity and the value of something being special? Because you say quite often that people are gonna have access to sort of Hollywood grade production values through these tools, but then what's so special about that if everyone has access to it?

SPEAKER_00 14:53

The the corollary to that, I always say is that like distribution is king. So what I mean by that is like yes, people are gonna have access to Hollywood great production, but ultimately what's gonna matter is like the quality of the IP, the quality of the storytelling, but also the quality of the distribution. So do you have an audience? Do you have an audience? Do you have like a group of people that really care? And so on the scarcity point, like I think about this a lot. Like I think that you know, with with like the Beatles and musicians back in the day, there was such excitement around like a new album release because it was scarce, it was like rare, um, you know, tangible. And and same with like, you know, I grew up watching TV, like where Lost was like a top show. And oh wow, yeah. And like, you know, we'd go to school the next day and everyone'd be like, Can't be what happened, and you wait a week and it wasn't on streaming, and and everyone kind of watched it together. There's something really amazing and human about that. It may come back, but in different ways. And so this to the scarcity point, what I think is a really interesting area for particularly for like AI-enabled creativity, is can you start to have niche um work for smaller audiences that people love? Like Love Island Vegetables is a bad example.

SPEAKER_02 16:07

Like, let's just say that there's like a like a movie like Anatomy of a Fool. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 16:10

Or like, or like a random, like let's just say there's like a sci-fi book that like has this like really niche, passionate audience, but it's like so small that like it's never gonna be holiday. Yeah, okay. But like, but imagine that like you can now create worlds around that.

SPEAKER_04 16:24

I uh yeah, I have I have some examples here. One, um, I like beatboxing before YouTube. The beatbox subculture did not evolve, it was only in pockets, and these people were connected once a year at like the annual beatbox championships. Now, what's happening is everybody on YouTube can actually put out their new style, their new innovation that they found in the art of beatboxing, and the subculture is evolving much faster because people are connected through these means. There's three points I wanted to make. One is that about YouTube and Spotify. We have already a test case here where democratization of one distribution as well as production tools is really creating an explosion of more talent being able to be found and really interesting things that are quirky and nichey

More Content Or Better Content

SPEAKER_04 17:10

that can be discovered, right? Something like Mr. Beast is obviously the most successful person, but he's gone a bit mainstream with this stuff, and that's still the case in society, right? And uh this takes me to the second point. If you look at the top 100 and I did this analysis of top-grossing movies, what they have in common is that most of them are not dramas, most of them are action spectacle or animated movies where the effects and the animation is the reason why they're top-grossing. It's mostly Marvel, it's you know, Avatar, it's like a lot of these action movies, Fast and the Furious, they're they're not very deep movies, not very thoughtful or like interesting, quote unquote.

SPEAKER_02 17:48

If we want to be able to do that, sure, but that's one metric. You're talking about money. 100% there are many different sectors. 100% entertainment.

SPEAKER_04 17:54

My point is just if we look at the average of society, that's the content that we're consuming, right? Like on average, right? That's what we're consuming.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

Totally. Just but I think because because of the structure of filmmaking, because it's so expensive, that there's a reason you're using that metric. It makes complete sense. Because you know, to make a filmmaking, they can afford advertising. Exactly. Like, you know, there needs to be a commercial output. But I think what's interesting about this, maybe this is where you're going, is like um if you're collapsing the production costs, it suddenly means that on like a gross margin basis. Right. So like on a margin basis, there's there's films or like ideas that could suddenly become really profitable, which means that like maybe they'll now get made or they'll get the exposure and it's but like you know I think more diversity in the top 100, is what I'm trying to say.

SPEAKER_04 18:42

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

Like, I guess, you know, totally I guess like there's there's two routes into that. Like, well, Fast and Furious is like one of the most successful franchises in films, and you could say yes, because of the special effects, it's not particularly deep. You know, that's one read. There's a second read, which is like that film follows a formula which like they know can print money, and therefore they're gonna like green light that put put marketing dollars behind it because you know you put one dollar into the top of the funnel and you generate 1.8 out. It's not necessarily because of the special effects or whether it's deep or not, it's because like that product, it's a film as a product resonates and like they know how to they know how to sell that product. But I think that's if you if you suddenly collapse the cost of production, all of a sudden, like different types of film/slash products could become like more popular, you could get more diversity.

SPEAKER_04 19:30

There's a bunch of animated stuff in the top 100 too, which runs novel, right? Soul and all these other things. But the there's one thing that I can say is throughout, you will see that VFX is a strong part of those top 100s. It's just an interesting uh thing that I've thought. And the other thing I would wanted to say as the last point uh on this is that I am a creative person, I'm not a very skilled person, right? And what I can now do on a weekend with coming up with product ideas and realizing some of those ideas that were in my head that I felt were never made by other people is really empowering. It makes me really excited about my life because now I can create all those uh user experiences that I wanted that nobody else is creating. And there's something about that uh in this conversation that I want us to continue to observe, not only on the business side of it, not only on the what's the output for society, but what's the output for me as an individual, right? And how can I self-realize myself with these things and tools that we're creating?

SPEAKER_00 20:30

I I I actually know that problem like viscerally, because you know, I did music as like a side thing um for a bunch of years, and like you know, I would write write music. I used to have friends that were producers, but um so expensive to have to like rely on people to produce your music, and so then I was like, well, I'll just learn production. But um, I'd say I'm in the same category, like I'm maybe like dark horse creative, as Justin, my co-founder, would say, but not necessarily that that skillful. And so, like, you know, music production is is is a radically different skill set from like music writing, in my opinion. But I and I did eventually learn I could, you know, I can produce a track from beginning to end, and I probably can't like master it, but I can mix it. And the thing is, like, I just found it such a deeply frustrating process because I could hear what I wanted and I knew what I wanted the sound to be like, and it's just and like that is part of the art form, like getting what's in your mind into like reality, but ultimately like that is so hard.

SPEAKER_02 21:30

And yeah, but I think you've hit on it that sort of eye of the needle. I think that's what sorts the week from the chaff to be kind of harsh about it, and in a sense, as my director friend says, Look, we can make music for lifts and hotels, and and it's incredibly easy to do, and it's really useful, and it's used across the planet. But does anyone go and watch that music? No, it it's mass-produced if if you like I'm not suggesting for a second album, it's like um elevator music. Is it far from it?

SPEAKER_00 22:02

But on the week from the chaff point agreed to a certain extent. But then it's like I think to really validate that, I'd want to play you two tracks, for example. One where you know it was just like arduously battled through, they finally got the sound in their brain out, and then a different track, which was still arduously battled through, but like technology was used to help capture what was in their brain. Because I would argue that if if the end output is getting something that's in the brain of like a truly creative person, like a really I'm not using me as an example, but like a really imagine it's like a John Lennon.

SPEAKER_02 22:40

Not everyone's creating something. Yeah, of course, of course.

SPEAKER_00 22:42

But imagine like a John Lennon that you know he was also limited like by certain skills. Like that's the thing. Like imagine if all of a sudden he had the ability to express himself in other ways.

SPEAKER_04 22:51

In a different way.

SPEAKER_00 22:53

Exactly. Or like you know, different instruments, or like combine things together, or like talk about ideas that he had and then bring that output to life. You know, would you would you then say that that output is it's is like you know being separated from the wheat from the shaft, just just because Well, I might.

SPEAKER_02 23:07

I tell you why. Because I think there's something about the constraint that's really important. And these sort of bottlenecks, this frustration, this I d I it's very difficult to put it into words.

SPEAKER_04 23:20

I think I know what you're saying.

SPEAKER_02 23:21

Let me give you uh But if it's so easy, then somehow I think that's the flaw in the logic though, because it's not so easy.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

Yeah. That's where the gap is. Like it's a different kind of heart. Exactly. It's like great constraint. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:33

Let me give you an example where I went mentally. Do you guys know adolescents? Netflix show. Uh every one of those episodes was one take. And I really appreciated the effort that went into doing that in one take. Right? Like it went back to back, like through this whole school, the second episode, I think, or the first one. It was absolutely phenomenal. And with AI, we can do the one take thing probably more trivially now, right? And will I still appreciate the one take that was made manually more than the one that was the one take in AI? I will. As a human, I

Scarcity, Distribution, And Niche Worlds

SPEAKER_04 24:10

will still appreciate that.

SPEAKER_02 24:11

It doesn't mean that the other Well, right now you will, because we're on the precipice, and this is quite new. When it gets normalized, and actually we it's it's a little bit like you know the Instagram face. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Filters, audio filters. Um what what is beauty or is is it imperfectionism? Isn't it? And you become so anesitized because you become very, very used to this sort of Barbie doll thing in the case of a woman, or maybe I don't know, you know, uh Ryan Gosling put it up. Yeah, whatever. And and that anything that's not that then becomes alarming. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:43

I I think I think we will we will adjust to this. We will adjust to this fakery. Let me tell you something really interesting. Yesterday was the first day where a completely AI generated, not completely, but an AI generated song was global top uh iTunes. This is an artist called Inger Rose. This the voice is completely artificial. The song is also created with Suno, but the songwriter behind it has written all the lyrics themselves. Now maybe they used AI by doing it. It is top. And when you go on YouTube and you look at the comment section of what people are saying about the song and how they are saying this is speaking to my soul, this is so amazing, it made me cry. Like I went through the comment section and I saw how they connected with people.

SPEAKER_02 25:28

But that's possibly because their best friend is Chat GPT. No, so they're already adjusted.

SPEAKER_04 25:34

Maybe, maybe then you're saying every generation has a different way of appreciating art, and that is the native art of this generation, right?

SPEAKER_00 25:42

I think you it I think all of this distinction between AI and human and all this kind of stuff, like it's it's ultimately going to come down to like, does it drive real connection and meaning and resonance? Like, that's you know, and I was just thinking about the adolescence example. It's like in the same way we look at an amazing piece of jewelry from like, you know, ancient Egypt. This is and this is no disfrups to adolescents, but I imagine you look at this incredible jewelry or like technology from ancient Egypt, and you're like, wow, like that's so beautiful how they made that. That's so there's so much, and like you know, people pay crazy amounts for like antiquities and stuff, and it's because there's a real love of the craft that went into that. And like that will always endure. I think people, because if you're a human, you know what it is to like toil and problem solve and create things with your hands, and they have like immense value over time. And you know, maybe this is a a kind of like contrarian bet, but it's like that stuff will only grow in value. You're gonna have like artisanal created photography films where like they may be like more niche, but they're gonna be more valuable because of well, we already do have that, right?

SPEAKER_02 26:48

With the younger generation, we're definitely, definitely going back to using film cameras.

SPEAKER_00 26:54

Cholera cameras, etc. So, so like I think you're gonna see that. Like it always comes back. I use this expression way too much. It always comes back to like multiple things that can be true at the same time. Of course, of course. You're gonna have you're gonna have this like love of the one-shot adolescence uh, you know, episode where you love it because of the work that went into that, the creativity. At the same time, you're gonna have people that like really emotionally connect with like AI music or you know, potentially one AI film, because I think art can have multiple dimensions. One dimension is what was the work that went into it, exactly. Like the problem solving, the execution, and then they can have the ideation side, which is like, does this tap into like a level of resonance with me as a human being? Like, does this speak to me in a way that like makes me feel alive or makes me understand myself or think about something? And and AI can probably do that.

SPEAKER_04 27:47

And that is multidimensional as well, right? There is the Hollywood popcorn level of resonance, and then there's the deep human connection and speaking to my soul level of resonance. And humans are interested in all of those, as we see, you know, the things that gross the most are the things that people want to see the most in with popcorn and uh a theater, but then you know, the songs that they listen to are about heartache, and maybe they're a little bit more deep and like more nuanced. So I do think we we have many different desires that need to be um catered to. And you know, it may be that the artisanal stuff is gonna hit us very differently, and maybe that's stuff that we still want to have in our life because it hits us in certain ways.

SPEAKER_00 28:24

There's there's even like crazier take with music, which is music is is math at a certain level, right? The the deeper you go on it, it's like I there's there's for example, there's like there's I like lyrics personally, but like there's radio hit songs that the lyrics are absurd, slash don't make sense, but they just strike this crazy note with with like me. I love the song for whatever reason, it just it evokes such feeling and emotion, right? It's just a combination of kind of crazy sounds and different drum beats happening at once, and and so then it's like association, no doubt. I don't know, it's an interesting one. Like on a super deep level, I think there's like something true about music. Sometimes people are able to tap into that. The fact that Radioho can make a song that like has super weird lyrics, not necessarily like that popular, like they don't follow any of the kind of patterns that would necessarily dictate a hit, but then you have millions of people like completely resonate with this sound. It's like, well, what are they tapping into there? And and is that can that only be human? Honestly, the answer is like maybe no, like maybe no, maybe it's the sound that matters, not the act of making it.

SPEAKER_04 29:37

Interesting. Yeah. I want to kind of move on a little bit because I think this conversation is endless and I love having it, and we're gonna stay on it. Do you want to say something else?

SPEAKER_02 29:46

No, the only thing I want to put a pin in is the element of surprise and not knowing what it is we want. You just said I asked a set of questions, am I connected to it? Is it meaningful to me? To me, I think when something really affects me, is it affects me before I even get to analyze why it's affected. It's I'm shocked. I'm surprised. I didn't even know I wanted that.

SPEAKER_04 30:09

Yeah. And that's a good point, yeah. Um and maybe with AI we can explore more of that space. Yeah. Um I want to get a little bit more into the tangible space of Hollywood and talk uh a bit about why you felt this moment is right for something like Wonder. Um, we can start maybe by talking about the current state of costs that it takes to get anything out in Hollywood. Because I think that is a clear reason why this, what you're building, makes a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_00 30:40

I've always been lucky with timing. So I'd say that like Justin, my co-founder, is a is he really is like a visionary. He's like super creative guy, very early to AI. If he was a traditional filmmaker historically, was very early to AI, was one of the first creatives that OpenAI reached out to to start experimenting with the tools way before ChatGPT was a thing. Um he'd kind of been waiting for this moment his whole life. So he was very early and like you know had to go through, I think, quite a lot of pushback, you know, as a creative when he was like so interested in these

Box Office Metrics And Personal Empowerment

SPEAKER_00 31:10

tools. Um, whereas like I've always just kind of landed in the things at like the perfect moment and like to the kind of we should give context here of the startups that you're involved in very early on.

SPEAKER_01 31:23

We'll say that in the intro. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:25

Um, but yeah, you know, Uber Uber 2011, delivery first 30, etc. So like, and again, it's not like I'm sitting there as like a VC analyst being like taxis are this like really outdated model, and all of a sudden everything's gonna move on to apps. I was super young. I just I just kind of had this sense, like, wow, this is gonna change the world. I just had this feeling. Look, I think timing is everything in life, uh, but you need to have both. You need to have like the visionary, the kind of like prescience, which I think you know, Justin has a lot of um and you need to have like a really strong sense for timing, and that was kind of my addition to the team. It was me seeing Justin's um Alice in Wonderland teaser that he created in his spare time over over a couple of weekends and being like, okay, this is going to absolutely change the world. And then when we started, you know, there was this like confluence of things where it was getting really, really hard. It's just, you know, it's been hard for a long time, but it was getting progressively harder to make films. The kind of Netflix model of cost plus had really taken hold.

SPEAKER_04 32:20

And then the give some context around what that means.

SPEAKER_00 32:23

Yeah, so so like you know, Netflix will commission a show and they'll basically pay you like what it costs plus 20%, um, but then they'll own everything. Um, and so like you know, kind of your filmmaking, documentary making is becoming commoditized. A lot of power is accumulating to the massive, to the to the streamers. Um, so you have all of these kind of um you know, confluence of trends happening, and then you've got like the antagonism to AI. So you've got the same same way where like you know, everything I've ever done, people have told me that's a crazy idea, that's never gonna work. I've just had that told to me like three times, and each time the company ended up being like a unicorn, but um so I had that, and I was like, okay, well, that's interesting. That's that's like you know, that shows that there's opportunity because ultimately, like, you need to be contrarian and right to have like the kind of outsized returns. Um, and so yeah, like there was kind of all these confluences of confluence of things, and I think for for quote unquote Hollywood or just like film production generally, there was an existential crisis. And I actually don't think the existential crisis is AI. I think the existential crisis is the you know rapidly increasing costs of of producing stuff, um, the kind of like accumulation of power to the streamers. Um and the just the the like sheer complexity and like getting a new concept live to the fast and furious 11 point, it's just really hard to like get new great content out there. It still happens and it's amazing. It's just a space that's completely ripe for like some healthy disruption. And I think AI does that and it threatens a lot of people, but it I think for the for a lot of people who feel threatened like they shouldn't. I think and I know that sounds trite to say, but I do think that the people that are so well positioned to benefit from AI are the people that have access to great IP, great scripts, great distribution. Um, it's about figuring out where does AI sit in the stack, where is AI suited to helping the creative process and where is it not? And and like as a creative, as a studio, as a filmmaker, leaning in where you should lean in and setting your boundaries where you want to set them. That's that's kind of my take.

SPEAKER_04 34:40

I don't know if I answered the question, but that's my is it a faster and cheaper pencil or is it a whole different you know, tool?

SPEAKER_00 34:49

Um it's that's that's a that's a really interesting question. It's it's it's much more than a faster and cheaper pencil. I think it's a whole new operating system for interacting with the world, if I'm honest.

SPEAKER_02 35:00

I like one of the points you made about Wonder was because you're setting this up from the ground, because you're not putting a layer on something that already exists. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that to me was the most interesting point was that can create a revolution in a way that and and hopefully giving you the benefit of the doubt. The kind of work that I feel often doesn't see the light of day may have a fighting chance because as you say, it's less hopefully going to be less risk-averse. Because I understand why studios keep making the same kinds of movies, or if you like, you know, the Netflix model of one of the criticisms now is that an awful lot of the content ends up it starts off very well, it then sort of plateaus into a very, very safe because they just want to retain viewers. They don't want to take risks anymore, they don't want to do anything that's innovative or creative or might disrupt. Whereas if it does cost so much less and if that time compression is the best side of it might be that there is risk involved.

SPEAKER_00 36:11

100%. Look, I don't want to sit here and be like, you know, we're we're so amazing, like we're only gonna work with undiscovered talent and we're gonna make all these new novel films. Like I I I truly believe we are gonna do that, but it's in the same breath, we we work with the major studios, you know, and I think that there's a role for Wonder to play. We're not trying to fundamentally disrupt the traditional model, we're trying to be a bridge between creativity and technology. And so like that can apply in our most aspirational sense. It's like working with emerging talent, making great films, and I think you will see that uh in the next couple of months. We're gonna be still kind of under wraps. We're gonna be partnering with like amazing writers and like emerging AI filmmakers creating almost shorts to try and like expose writing talent. My team's gonna kill me, but we've got this really cool project. So we are gonna do this stuff. But the same breath, we also work with some of the world's biggest streamers and studios trying to help them because they're also challenged, you know, and they're also really interested in like where can we use AI through the stack? And maybe that's you know, supplementing or or supporting VFX, or maybe that's in previs or whatever it is. But the um, so I just you know, I don't want to paint us out like we're only working with emerging talent, we're also working with like major studios and we're we're trying to help in every part of that value chain. I actually think that Hollywood's on the cusp of like a massive renaissance. Like I actually really believe that. Um, I think you're gonna see a huge boom because what matters is like talent density. And I think that if this technology can reinvigorate that industry, and you know, on the on the flip side, if like AI becomes so omnipresent in society that people have more downtime, where are they gonna go? They're gonna look for entertainment, they're gonna look for live sport. So I think we're actually on the cusp of like a real renaissance in filmmaking, creativity, entertainment. Um, and then just you said something like super on point. Like, I really appreciate you picking up on that because I think that's probably like a really key insight to Wonder's success is that we

Constraints, One Takes, And Fakery

SPEAKER_00 38:10

started AI native. And I think, you know, just from my experience of working with some of the world's biggest studios and companies, that everyone's like it comes down from the CEO, they're like, we've got to use AI. And then it's like where the rubber actually, there's like the bleeding edge of where Wonder's operating today, where it feels like never been so exhausted building a company. It's like every three hours there's like a new tool, there's a new thing, the world's changing, the world's changing. You know, and we are like on that bleeding edge, we're living in it constantly, but at the same time, like where the rubber actually hits the road on like a massive film, it's like there's so much. There's so, so many, there's so much to do still. There's so much totally, and so um we were so lucky and uniquely positioned to launch Wonder as a studio right at the cusp of AI because building from first principles versus like I kind of use the analogy of like turning a ferry versus like building a speedboat. Um, and you know, AI was like a starting gun, um, and everyone had been running in one direction and the starting gun fired, and now like there's a new race, new direction, and all these people that have like built up all this momentum and speed, they're having to like slow down, stop, turn, and start running this way. Whereas, you know, we just happen to be like right at the starting block when the gun was shot.

SPEAKER_04 39:30

When I look at the current economics, I had the stats somewhere. Uh, I think a Game of Thrones episode would cost like 20 million to produce or something for one episode, which is absurd if you think about it. That was, I think, a stat that was out there, and it's like 40 minutes long, so that's like half a million per minute or something like that. Um, what are we thinking about the economics here? How does this collapse? Um, yeah, I'm sure you thought about this.

SPEAKER_00 39:56

Yeah, so it really depends on the type of content you're making. I think like a really solid wedge for like AI or like where we focus, um, like where we're uniquely positioned to succeed, at least today, is um I think animation is a really great low-hanging fruit. We work a lot with traditional animators, but so much of the like animation pipeline can be improved or supplemented with AI. So you're moving from a world where it can be costing $100,000 per minute for like, you know, top grade animation, you know, and then it depends, you know, it can go down to like $20,000 a minute, it can go down to $5,000 a minute. Obviously, the things you need to think about are like quality control, which is a big thing in AI, and speed. Yeah. Um, but you know, we we can generate a very high quality grade animation at you know a quarter of the price. Um but the devil will always be in the details of like, you know, what we say to the people we work with is that you know, a massive thing you need to think about is control. So if you want if you want 100% control, you have to pay for that. Um if you're willing to trade off some of that control, um, some of that quality for speed and availability, then then AI is like an amazing solution for you. And then I think where we really build our value as a studio is like we're becoming like the world experts in in how do you use AI and how do you develop a story conceptually down to the script level where it's actually gonna be well suited to AI. Yeah. So like there'll be particular things that like a writer or like a director will want to do, and it's like, well, that isn't the best use case. So like can you exactly so can you reimagine that scene? Or if we want to do that, we're gonna have to bring in a traditional animation team, we're gonna have to combine the two. So I think animation, I think things like historical recreation on documentaries who've done an amazing project with Campfire Studios called the Wolf of Wall Street on the Wolf of Wall Street. You know, those guys are like multi-Emy winners. I do they do amazing documentaries, and um, it was one of our first projects we did, and it's just such an amazing it should be releasing later this year, but um, it's it's like interviews with the guys that were in the office with Jordan Belfort, it's like the 90s Wolf of Wall Street, and they wanted to recreate some of these anecdotes of like people being forced to eat wasabi, or like you know, people getting their heads shaved for ten

AI Music Hits iTunes With Inger Rose

SPEAKER_00 42:20

thousand dollars, and but none of none of that footage existed. And so we're basically there working with the actual people in the in the show, de-aging them, putting them back. It's like a handheld camera style prompt. So you've got like the kind of grainy 90s footage, and it just looks it's so much fun, it looks so great. Yeah, and it's more forgiving. You know, we're not really in the space where we're gonna, you know, we we don't really wanna work, like we don't we don't want to do live action actors, you know. We're much more interested in like how do you shoot something traditionally but then elevate the production value using AI, whether that's historical stuff or it's like VFX, you know, putting people in space, it's things like that.

SPEAKER_03 43:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:06

Or or or animation. Animation is just a great use case for AI right now. Right. That's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 43:12

I think one of the big fears is is that when optimization or you know, uh speed, efficiency, or whatever replaces authorship, because then you tend to get convergence rather than originality. So in the example you just used, there is an idea already, there is authorship, there's an intention, there's a story that needs to be told, but we've got this gap and we need to try and fix it. How can we do that cheaply? That you know, then it's a tool, right?

SPEAKER_00 43:41

And it's yeah, versus like hey chat, give me an idea for a number one. So I think that's I think that's where a lot of people who like come at this space with a lot of trepidation, there you go. They're just coming at it from this perspective of like, oh well, you just prompt a button and it like it makes a thing. It it really isn't that. I mean, like, I'm sure people do that. What we spend And day in and day out doing. And I think why we've been, you know, so successful and why we're able to generate the revenue we do is because we're trying to solve real problems with real creative people and unlock solutions that like just could never be done before. But in a way where like you can work hand in hand with a director and a producer and say, What's your vision for this scene? What are you trying to create? That's where the magic is. We don't sit there and go, we want to create a series, like, you know, hey chat, come up with like a funny kid series based on XYZ. It's like, no, let's let's work with a great writer who's had this idea cooking for 20 years.

SPEAKER_04 44:36

Let me paint a bit of a dystopian picture, maybe, uh, and see what you think about this. Say Netflix analyzes all the semantic story arcs of all the films that are on their platform. And in a discretionary amount of time, whatever bullish or uh bearish you are in terms of how quickly AI is making progress, you're sitting on your couch on a Friday night and then you're saying, Hey Netflix, I want to see an action flick that is kind of in the Quentin Tarantino genre with uh somebody that is Nick Cage-esque in the main role, but with a film noir vibe. Can you can you create something for me so I can watch this? I mean, I think if we fast forward the world enough, there's a reality that this can become true.

SPEAKER_00 45:21

100%. Yeah, I agree with that. But then it goes back to the point earlier, which is like in the case of like you know, the Rated Head example, yeah. It's like what matters the process or the output. And the truth is that like both matter. Yeah. So, you know, for if you're if we want to be output focused, there are going, there is going to be an audience for that. Yes. There are gonna be people who love that. Yeah. They're gonna be like, wow, like I know, I I now get to sit on the couch and just come up with like any amazing film concept and have Netflix generated for me, like in in some, you know, N number of years in the future. Yeah. And that's fine. Like that's that's fine. Ultimately, there are gonna be people who who enjoy that and love that. On the in the same breath, there's gonna be people that love, I'll give you an example, like, you know, someone who's like a social media streamer who like live streams themselves all day. People love that. Yeah, you know, people people are gonna love craft handheld film. That's that's ultimately what I think it all comes down to is that like in this future you're gonna have a diversity of exactly content value and output. And the people who are gonna who love process and craft are gonna veer towards that, and it's probably gonna become even more valuable. Just like I use my phone to tell the time. I've never really owned a watch. Yeah, but some people just love and spend a lot of money on like these hundred thousand dollar, like beautifully crafted watches. And I love like I see it. I'm like, wow, what a work of art. That's so impressive. Am I gonna buy a hundredk watch? Like, no. I mean, they can quote me on that if I'm super successful. The truth is, like, probably not, I'd use my phone.

SPEAKER_02 46:49

Yeah,

Why Hollywood Is Ripe For Change

SPEAKER_02 46:50

to you to your point, and and it'll be interesting to see if this changes, and this may be an urban myth, but House of Cards, I think, was realized in this algorithmic way of you put Kevin Spacey, David Vincent, it's a political thriller, slam those uh elements together is going to be hugely successful. But actually, when you look at it, Bo Willerman was you know one of the main writers, but you got some amazing actors, and you got an incredible writer who was very, very political himself and was super invested in a lot of this messaging. That's what made the show. But because the original idea then got rewarded, and then apparently they tried it a whole bunch of other times, this similar thing, okay, what what are the factors that make a success? And it just didn't work because you didn't have the good writer. So I'm curious whether the sitting on Friday night and just saying whether it it just will be flaccid, w whether because there isn't um authorship and and a because to me in the reverse engineering thing, and I I won't say specific projects, but I felt the the difference between working with someone who's written a script, who's toiled over it, who's somewhat maybe it's even their story or something quite they're intimately connected with um and you're making it on a shoestring, so there's a ton of limitations which make you more creative, and there's very few of you, and you're all doing all of the roles, so therefore you understand all the elements. You're not sort of siloed off into some little or big trailer and detached from the process, you're an intimate part of the process. You therefore invest a lot more of yourself and the whole thing becomes more gratifying. I mean, sometimes to a delusional extent, you think you're making a masterpiece, and you're really not. It's just the fact you got through the day and it feels incredible because the odds are so stacked against you, versus the thing that's $200 million, you know.

SPEAKER_04 48:45

But I don't think that your effort transmits necessarily to the person, right? Sometimes their low effort may impact people more than the things that were high effort. I think this is the whole point here. That like it's very hard to know how people resonate with certain things. And and I think that to answer your question whether it's going to be flaccid or not, I think we'll come down to how good AI is in in imitating taste. If if I say a Quentin Tarantino movie when I'm prompting the thing, then I am compressing so much stuff into a journey. Exactly. So Quentin Tarantino is a very multidimensional prompt. If I wanted to write it out properly, like I would have to write a lot of stuff to say this is Quentin Tarantino. It's like a 17-page prompt, right? But I say Quentin Tarantino, and that's compressed taste into one thing. And if I gets really good at imitating that, then I don't think it's going to be mediocre or flaccid.

SPEAKER_00 49:41

There's there's almost like this uncertainty principle, right? Where like uh the world is chaos and like what takes at certain moments, like yes, you can like, you know, it's like there's this idea that if you could freeze this frame now and understand every sting single like force that's acting on us, you know, yes, you could theoretically predict the exact name next scene. But like at a quantum level, this idea that like it's in there's this indeterminacy, like it could be something, like something random can happen. And I think that there is something in that writ large in the world, which is like, you know, ultimately it's going to come down to like you can you can set all the factors for success around you, like Netflix did with House of Cards, but then tried to replicate a number of times. But maybe it was like that project had this had this perfect sunsetting, like perfect kind of like convergence of yes, the data was lined up, yes, there was a great writer, but maybe also like yes, there was just like this moment in the world rather than where there was a cultural resonant and it just took off. And I think that's like there's it's gonna be very, very like in the same way that like you still have these incredibly smart, sophisticate algorithms trading in the markets, you know, and you have Jane Street and all these like geniuses solving puzzles, but like guess what? Like they still lose money sometimes, and these people are like paid tens of millions to predict every micro movement in the market, and they still get it wrong.

SPEAKER_02 51:00

But that's the whole point, isn't it, about art is that it shouldn't be predictable. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 51:05

And it's not, I don't think it is. I don't think it is.

SPEAKER_02 51:07

And the accidents are the things that totally and I think again, two things are true here.

SPEAKER_04 51:12

People like people like the same schmaltzy uh pop song that is programmatic, has always been done uh over the ages. They like the same action tropes where the good guy wins in the end, and we watch those over and over and over and over, and we like the happy ends, all that is true. We like all that, but we also want to be surprised, as you were saying earlier, and like that is where I think we will still have real artists.

SPEAKER_02 51:39

So we'll keep that domain then.

SPEAKER_00 51:41

Yes, I I hope so. I hope so 100%, and you'll just get more opportunities to express it. I think that's true too. You know, the other part of this conversation is like there is just like a raw economics to making content, everything through to advertising, like we do obviously, we do stuff with brands as well right now, and so you know, we we have conversations with you know brands the whole time of like here's this creative idea we'd love to do, but wouldn't be possible with the budget. So like there's there's there's just a real economic calculus to creating content, whether it's ads or films, and that necessarily contains like what's possible. And so I think in a world where the economics of film production are going to shift because they are going to shift, um, it does open up more opportunity for those moments. If you're a creative, it's like, how do you put yourself in those moments? How do you go to where the go to where the action is? You know, and I think that the action's gonna be in kind of like AI enabled hybrid productions, um, potentially like niche films with smaller audiences, but are gonna have like, you know, imagine like a six million dollar horror that now

AI Native Studios And Collapsing Costs

SPEAKER_00 52:55

costs three three million to make.

SPEAKER_04 52:57

Well, I think the example that you give with historical fiction, right? Like historical fiction is possible. You can do ads on planet Mars now, and it doesn't cost as much as it did to like get a whole animation studio going and like do all that. You can do things now that were out of reach from a price point perspective now and it enables a whole new palette of creativity.

SPEAKER_00 53:16

And I think if you're a creator or you're you're an artist, you're an actor, you're like, you should be seeking out these opportunities. Like, where are these new, like if there's gonna be a boom in like indie filmmaking, which I think there will be, it's like I'd be looking where the action is. You know, I'd be like, okay, well, maybe I am gonna say yes to this film because maybe it will be a success, because even though it's got a small audience, I think they fight to like really, really, really condense it down. Netflix, whoever, like they ultimately, like it is just a calculation. When I was, you know, running tour, we knew you spend X amount on like a Google ad for like car rental in London, and you knew that if like you got it under a certain amount on like a cost per impression or cost per acquisition, you're probably gonna make money on that transaction at the end when it gets the whole way through searching for a car, booking it, completing the trip, returning the vehicle, right? It was a calculation, and I think money in, money out. Yeah, exactly. And like like a fundamental level, like that is the entertainment business now. It's been insulated from a long time from like the kind of like data-driven nature of tech companies. Obviously, Netflix started to change that, but at the end of the day, there is just a raw economic calculation that like the studios are making. Do I think this film is going to make money? And I think that that necessarily constrains what type of films get made and how many films get made, and how many emerging directors get trusted. Um, and so if you change the denominator of the equation, yeah, where like the cost of making something goes down, what it should theoretically do is uh give those studio heads more leeway to be like, you know what, we're actually gonna green light this project.

SPEAKER_04 54:59

The reality is I've I've realized in this moment in time, the world has been optimizing for familiarity. And what we're now being able to do is optimize for novelty. And it is actually novelty that really excites us in many ways. Of course, we can also degrade to the mean and regress to the mean with a lot of stuff that comes out, but we'll still value novelty and the people who use this stuff now to do novel things that weren't greenlit, that weren't possible to make, where the guy in the couch on the couch at home on a Friday night actually sits down for 20 hours and tries to build something with this that is completely a different take, you know. That is, I think, what we'll still value.

SPEAKER_00 55:36

Um I love the like novelty to familiarity. Yeah, I just think like what will we learn about us? You know, the the I keep coming back to the love, violent vegetable thing, which is so ridiculous. I guess like I'm really interested in like the margins. You know, that there are these like you know Lord of the Rings, right? It's like an incredible world that Tolkien built. There's all this lore, there's all these like super fans. It's like, how many Lord of the Rings exist in the world that have like similar levels of lore and world building, but just way nicher audiences? What happens if like someone who's like a mega fan of whatever that thing is, the next Game of Thrones, whatever it is, they can now start to spin up stuff and like what if that suddenly catches fire? And now like millions of people are like, Oh wow, I never this never knew this world existed.

SPEAKER_02 56:25

I wonder though, with the saturation of content as you call it, people will be willing to invest quite so much time, focus and devotion to one story in that way requires those books, the viewing time. I mean, that's a real investment, and it's a community, as you say, that's born out of that, and it's it's beautiful. But I think the fact that it was such a labour of love it is is part is part of it. I can't help thinking, I'm very willing to be wrong about all of that, but my instinct is I mean, as iTunes top song globally yesterday.

SPEAKER_04 57:04

It was uh an AI-made uh I guess I guess how do we know that that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_02 57:08

But is that a novelty factor? Is is that a curiosity?

SPEAKER_04 57:10

Listen to the song. It sounds like a normal like love song. It's not that it's novel.

SPEAKER_00 57:16

Was it a labor of love though? Like that's I think the other that's the right push. I'd say like uh, you know, I'd say agreed, but like how do we know that that's not a labor of love of that person that making a song on Suno is like not that easy. Like making a song on Suno that has that much traction is not that easy. I would love to know what was their what was their process in creating that and how did they go and achieve that? I think it'd be a very impressive story, probably. Like I would assume that they've they've got a deep understanding of music or they're they're like but who knows.

SPEAKER_04 57:43

And maybe if they are not, maybe they're just a great writer and now they can actually tell stories in song form. Yeah. And again, I find that an interesting world to live in. Anyway, um, this is a fascinating conversation that we probably could have for another two hours.

SPEAKER_01 57:58

I don't feel we even touch the sides of Wonder and the work that you're doing. And I apologize for that.

SPEAKER_04 58:04

Actually, why on that note, anything that you want to tell us that's on the horizon that people should look out for um in on Wonder's side?

SPEAKER_00 58:11

Yeah, so actually there is something really cool that we're launching soon, um, which is actually like very related to this whole conversation. So one of our one of our missions is how do we unearth the next generation of filmmaking talent? And so this was a combination of Justin's kind of vision of finding emerging filmmakers, commissioning short films, creating like a love-death robot style anthology um as like part of

Personalized Netflix Movies And Predictability

SPEAKER_00 58:35

like unearthing, unearthing talent in the space. And my background of kind of being in tech and angel investing and helping founders and seeing founders grow. And so we created this concept called Beyond the Loop, which is our kind of anthology series. Um, it's it's like why combinator for filmmaking. So we've basically chosen seven amazing emerging filmmakers. We've invested in their season two?

SPEAKER_04 58:59

Yeah, season two.

SPEAKER_00 59:00

We've invested in their short films. Um we launched this framework called The Dream, which is like our version of the safe, which is this idea that if the film takes off, turns into a series or like a major film, we actually share the IP 50-50 with the filmmaker, so it's about giving more ownership to the creator and building a cohort of, you know, the idea is if you put seven filmmakers together and you relaunch it, launch it as a kind of package, you get this halo effect of like every fan's looking basically like cross-polination. Anyway, that's gonna be launching very soon. And then in the next um, probably in the next like six to eight weeks, we'll have our first film. Ooh, nice. And I and I saw uh uh a version of like one of the films from one of a British filmmakers, a young, uh actually a BAFTA-winning filmmaker who's kind of lent into AI, and it was like one of the first things I've seen where I was just like, wow, this is and I think I think it's gonna break the internet.

SPEAKER_04 59:53

It's a quantum leap from the last season because the technology changes.

SPEAKER_00 59:57

Uh he's the name of the film, or the filmmaker's called Hal. Um he's he's um That's appropriate. He's he's he's incredible, and um, yeah, more more to be disclosed on that. We but we're gonna be releasing hopefully some like sneak peeks.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:12

And do you want to mention um Justin's community as well?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:17

Yeah, yeah. So I guess that's how Wonder started, right? So Wonder was born out of this community of filmmakers. It started on WhatsApp, and literally it's because you know when AI was just kind of making its way through the creative circles, it was like a pretty dangerous time to be experimenting with it. And so he kind of found like-minded creatives that were like experimenting and interested in the tools, and he created this WhatsApp group called Real Dreams. Literally, I think it started as like pizza, you know, like sessions at his house in East London. Um now that community went on to be like, you know, a bunch of the people in there, like the founders of like, you know, Promise, or um, which is one of our kind of like you know, competitor studios, but like, you know, fellow studio, um uh the credit director of DeepMind, OpenAI, etc. So all these people kind of became this like almost like the Bloomsbury group of like AI creators. And so obviously my background was building marketplaces for 15 years. And so when I saw that, I was like, well, that's really fascinating because every amazing marketplace starts with high quality supply, starts with talent density. You know, this was ringing all these like bells in my mind, I was just like complete pattern recognition. I was like, well, we need to build like the kind of rails of this ecosystem. If if you know AI creativity is going to become a trillion dollar industry, which I think it will do, um, there needs to be like the kind of infrastructure for connecting, you know, filmmakers to fans, you know, creatives to technology companies,

Beyond The Loop, Wonder App, Closing

SPEAKER_00 1:01:45

brands to creatives. And so we basically money to creatives.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:48

Exactly. So creatives.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:50

Exactly. So we we took the WhatsApp group, we've we've now built like our marketplace. It's the Wonder app. So if anyone's interested, they should definitely check it out. Um, I'll make sure I put a I put a link in the comments or something.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:01

Yeah, for sure. We will. Awesome. Awesome, Zap. Thanks so much for making the time. I'm super excited with what uh you have cooking there. And this is a super interesting era. And I, as you said, if I'm very curious to see what it's gonna say about ourselves as humans, how we're interacting with these tools, what it says about taste, what it says about value. So thanks for doing the work and looking forward to see what you're gonna launch next.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:27

Yeah, I hope we get to collaborate.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:29

Yeah, 100%. Thanks so much.