RealmIQ: SESSIONS with YULIA GUSHCHINA

In this episode of RealmIQ: SESSIONS, host Curt Doty interviews Yulia Gushchina, Head of Strategic Business Development at Filmustage, and discuss how their dynamic AI platform empowers filmmakers in pre-production processes such as script breakdowns, scheduling, analysis, synopsis crafting, and budgeting. She contrasts AI adoption in filmmaking between the U.S. and Europe, highlighting the faster pace in Hollywood and the stricter regulatory framework in the EU under the AI Act.

While AI is accelerating certain tasks and will inevitably transform post-production roles, Yulia stresses that AI output still requires human oversight, cleanup, and responsibility. Filmustage is working to educate users and build trust as the industry navigates this technological shift.

TOPICS DISCUSSED

• Filmustage’s AI pre-production platform
• Differences in AI adoption between U.S. and Europe
• Impact of EU AI regulations on business processes
• AI’s role in speeding up script breakdown, scheduling, and budgeting
• Indie filmmakers as early AI adopters
• Studios’ use of AI for rapid film project analysis
• Importance of interoperability with other tools
• Data privacy, IP protection, and security certifications
• Future of AI in filmmaking and post-production
• AI as a tool vs. replacement of creative roles
• Customer education and user support processes

PULL QUOTES

“Indie filmmakers are making this revolution, that’s for sure. They want results, they don’t have a lot of money, they have brilliant ideas and they want to get the result.”
— Yulia Gushchina

“There’s no magic—it’s just software. Machine learning made by humans, not perfect.”
— Yulia Gushchina

“It’s the Wild West. So it’s very interesting that, as you’re developing your policies and your contracts, the government is weighing in and making recommendations—not really looking over your shoulder, but being that helpful partner, so to speak, to enable AI adoption.”
— Curt

“Indie is going to lead the way in this, and even in documentaries. I think there’s ways to use AI in documentaries with historical recreations and stuff like that… help support when you don’t have footage of Henry VIII.”
— Curt

“The challenge is not making faster films, but always making better films. Even without AI, Hollywood can pump out really bad movies.”
— Curt

“That first AI film that launches is going to be judged as a film, not as an ‘AI film,’ and suffer critique based on the story, the performance, the emotion—all those traditional things found in films.”
— Curt

“I’m interested in seeing what those professionals do with these tools—not be displaced, but become a superpower within the industry.”
— Curt

“It’s good to know that there’s still humans behind customer service, right? Everything can’t get automated yet.”
— Curt

“The number one concern in Hollywood is, number one, the protection of IP.”
— Curt

Learn more at

Transcript

Today we welcome to the realm Yulia Gushchina. Yulia is in charge of strategic business development at film use stage dynamic AI platform for filmmakers made by filmmakers for filmmakers’ film, film use, stage product pre-production software uses proprietary AI technology to cut costs. It's your go-to simplify everything from script breakdowns and scheduling to analysis, synopsis, crafting, and budget management.

She's also an advisor at the Harvard Business Review Council. Welcome Julia. How are you doing? Thank you so much for having me. I'm doing great. And excited to talk about AI in the filmmaking industry and how. Yeah, so you're coming from Malta, so you're representing Europe. Certainly. You know, I talk with a lot of people from Hollywood about AI and filmmaking, and it's very controversial.

But it seems like there's a lot of hope these new platforms are rising new tools around ai. And so, to me, for me, I'm an AI optimist, and so I'd love to get your perspective of what's going on in Europe and the conversations that you're having around AI and video AI and film. And, and how you're helping filmmakers.

Yeah, we work across Europe and in the whole, in Hollywood as well, in the US of course, because I have to compare these two different worlds and say that the US part of the world is moving much faster, comparing to Europe and studios are quite open to adopt AI if they see a real value for it, if it costs.

If it cuts costs or speeds up, speeds up some of the workflows. However, I see a very solid try first and then adopt later mindset on the studio level or the, the, the us studios because they, they, they want to try first and then see whether it works for them in the real on. In Europe it's a bit different.

Europe moves a bit slower, but more thoughtful so I can call it may be smarter. We can talk about European Union AI Act, which set. Like very solid boundaries around privacy and consent and the way we use the data of our users. So, both of the worlds are moving towards ai, AI adoption, however, they do it in two different ways.

And Europe is moving towards adoption, however it goes, you know into a profound step by step. Wait. So, it's, it's slower than Hollywood. Hollywood's been slow to adapt or adopt, and that, that's been over two and a half years now. And you're saying Europe in this real category of AI and video and AI and film is slower than Hollywood, yet I have to say that Europe is leading the world in terms of regulating ai.

There's really not much regulation going on except state by state which we're trying to protect here, but no real federal regulation at this point. So, tell me about how regulation is, is affecting or encouraging AI adoption in film in, in the year, in the UK. In the EU. Yeah. Of course that's a very good question.

It makes our work a bit harder for the reason that it takes a longer time to close a deal with the customer because we need to sign literally like 150 pages contract before we set any trials or p with customer in the.

And however, on the other side, I have to say that it makes it, it's like a mar marathon. We have to move through this, and the adoption will not be so sustainable without such foundries and regulations. That the EU government is setting up now, we're also taking part in this. We go through a lot of questionnaires and interviews from the government.

So hopefully they hear us and, in the way, how they try to provide us with different guidelines, how to act, how to store data. It from one side, it helps us because we know, so this is a big no no. We cannot do this. From one side, it gives us a lot of green lines from another side. It still slows down the process a lot.

Well, I think that's very interesting, the fact that your contracts are so long because they are likely drafted with AI policies in mind, which means you as a company have to have. Your AI policy defined and then your clients need to agree to that or vice versa. Your clients have an AI policy that you have to agree to, which is it?

Is it going both ways or, or, or both entities aware as they go into these projects? Film Stage is a startup. We are rather small company, 12 people in house, and we usually adapt when we see very straightforward reg AI regulation from our company, from, from the companies we work with. And since we move.

For funds, we are very flexible as a company. I can compare because I used to work for a huge corporation previously, and that's a great plus for business development. We adopt and we can follow all the regulations that the studios set up. What's more important in the filmmakers, those guys.

They can close their eyes sometimes on some things that they don't really understand. They want to see the results. They don't have a lot of money. They have brilliant ideas, and they want to get the result. They want to go through the process as soon as possible to get the budgets done, to get the pitching documents coverages in the best way so that it's sent out.

And we rely a lot on in filmmakers. Okay, so I think it's great that the EU or the government is, is actually contacting you and giving you guidelines and checking in. This is something that's completely foreign in the United States. There's, it's the wild West. And so, it's very interesting that. As you're developing your policies and your contracts that the government is weighing in and making recommendations not really looking over your shoulder, but being that helpful partner, so to speak to enable AI adoption.

Is that correct? You mean the government or setting out the guidelines? Yeah. The EU whoever's enforcing or advising you on, on regulations is helping you in ways that we don't have that in the states. Right. Speaking about the company I work for film stage, the core technology was developed in business five ago when.

Let's say the AI hype was just, you know in the very, very beginning. So, everyone started talking about AI when OpenAI developed the HHGT. So it was, I don't know, two, two years ago. So, we started, we earlier, so. It's easier for us to call the government as friends because we can influence the technology because it's under our hands.

Speaking about startups who are building something on top of, open AI technology or Google technology or you name it can be a bit tricky to do business in Europe because they need to, you know, call open AI or Google, which is not an easy task to change anything in the way APIs work. Okay.

They don't collect your data, however, what if you would like to set up more things to control? That's a big question. So, for us, I, I can call them friends. In America, you, you call friends, like people you know, we can say that they are well-known guys. Yeah. Advisor you. Yeah. That's interesting. Okay, so you mentioned indie independent filmmakers leading the way in terms of AI adoption.

Are stressed by budgets or challenged and look to AI to solve their production and post-production problems, which is I, I believe I. Indie is going to lead the way in this, and even in documentaries. I think there's ways to use AI in documentaries with historical recreations and stuff like that.

You know, not to really alter the facts or anything, but help support. When you don't have footage of Henry viii Right. And some story about, you know, kings and queens from 500 years ago. It's like, it's, yeah. What did that look like? Well, let AI figure it out based on some reference. How are you, how are you working with indie filmmakers and can we expect to see any, any films coming out that used your platform or tools to help filmmakers?

We work with a lot of indie filmmakers. They usually self-serviced customers, so they basically log in into the account and upgrade subscriptions if needed. So, we rarely see them face to face into studios whom we have to talk a lot and close deals. Only face-to-face in face-to-face communications.

However, we stay in touch with a lot of users in order to build a platform for filmmakers because you need to collect a lot of data. If you haven't talked to your customer today, well think about the productivity of that day and, in the filmmakers are people who never, never sleep. They always reach out to us at night.

Early mornings. They want to get results. They ask a lot of questions. They like to educate themselves. They want to learn. Recently I had two trainings with two groups of indie filmmakers. And the way they were asking me questions, I saw the real interest in the eyes. They wanted to get to know what's behind different tools that are inside film stage.

And I have to say that we are not replacing, well, some of the jobs will be, you know changed. It's, there is no sugar covering here. Yeah. However, you need to learn the completely new process. You are enabled with AI tools, so you have to know how to use the superpower. It, it can be uncomfortable at times, however you need to learn it.

And the way they are asking, they, they really want to get hands-on experience. Students are also okay, but 

they don't really worry about the speed and the process that much comparing to the indie filmmakers. So, we work with both. But indie filmmakers are making this revolution, that's for sure. Well, yeah. I mean, it's production companies that make films. The studios don't make the films. They fund it and distribute it.

Right. And is your platform helping studios in that way at all? In terms of ai. That's a good question. Students are using film stage.

Studio executives the creative part of the things they want to get raw data as soon as possible. So, they put a script into film stage, get AI to read it through, and generate full script. Breakdown. Then using that breakdown data, they want to get production schedule. They can customize it according to the real data they can input.

So, they feed this data and then the system regenerates production schedule. And they also can use AI to generate budgeting. So. Five minutes make maximum 10. They can get raw data about a project so they can scheme and look through 50 50 projects per day. And that saves a lot of time. They don't need to get.

Professional details to details, breakdown and budgeting. They want to get this raw data before thinking where they need to go to move and everything to compare with the real world. That's how they get the fast result in. From others, from another side. They also own a lot of production companies at the studios, right?

And they want the production companies to use film stage. Once they decide, okay, one out 10. To, to production. And so that's how we distribute the software. We start from the tops, they see the real value for it, then we start to conquer the people who are like doing real world first ladies line producers and people.

Right. So, you're involved with the studios before the film is even green lit, and that gets you in early in the process. And people don't realize that, you know, films are not shot linearly seen by scene. That analysis or breakdown of the screenplay. Shows in groups, like all the locations in one at one time, all the locations, you know, similar locations at another time.

And then what is the synergy or where the company moves where's on location, where what shots are on set? And, and that has nothing to do with the linear read of the, of the script. So, you're saying your platform kind of breaks that down and then assigns. A budget to those projected costs based on being on location with a certain amount of crew, certain amount of talent above and below the line.

And, and then when they do a company move to a stage, what, what are those costs? And then your platform is able to then give an estimate at least on what that film would cost to produce, which is pretty amazing, right. Yeah. And what, what's more important filmmakers, they don't use one single platform to do everything.

So, they start from screen screenplay play writing writers screen writers. They use final draft, for example. A lot of people using Final Draft, and then they need to do a pre-production thing somewhere else. Maybe in film stage. And then there is Movie Magic, a huge software platform that has been around for, for ages.

And it's still a standard and it'll be for, for some time. And it's important for. Technology providers to not to develop an isolated software. So, it, I think it's a big mistake to make filmmakers to do everything on, on one platform. You cannot satisfy everyone. People like to do budgeting in the way, in the old way.

They like to do it in Excel. I, I been talking with a lot of filmmakers who say, I don't need to do it in film stage. I want to do breakdown and scheduling, and. Template. I have been developing this template for 20 years. It's perfect for me. Nothing will replace it, and that's okay. So, we make sure our users are able to export, meaning download their results into different formats.

Excel spreadsheet, PDF or movie magic format. So, we give them freedom. They can limit themselves to script right down and scheduling only maybe call sheets and then they would like to do budgeting or scheduling in. as well Also like, okay. Of course, we want everyone to stay in the filming stage and do step by step pre-production here, however, that's totally okay.

And we develop integrations with our, we are big friends with Final Draft, and they help us a lot to build this bridge between.

So, yeah, technology, technology does not have to compete. They have to build compatible environment. So, it enables, yeah, interoptability is the word. And that's, that's very important challenge and.

Add it to the lens of integration and aggregation, right? Because there are these, you know, tried and proven platforms out there. People don't necessarily want to leave them or abandon them, but they want to integrate with whatever new features that you have. And so, you're, you're enabling that, you're allowing that, you're saying, yes, we need to embrace all these other platforms, and why not?

Why shouldn't there be. Crosstalk and integration because you're not trying to, well, I'm not speaking for you, but you're not trying to dominate the world. You're trying to be useful and practical based on real problems that filmmakers and producers have in terms of time and effort to create a budget, let alone break down a script and then, you know, produce a movie.

Cool. So based on that, you're working with indie filmmakers, you're working with studios, you have this interoperable platform that is enabling speed and highly functional features that are extremely relevant to the filmmaking community. What do you see the future in film? You know, not only just AI in film, but the future of film because, you know, it's been going through some things coming out of COVID, Box office, reduced budgets.

Do you see a proliferation of films that are powered through AI as a tool set or are. Smaller budgets. I mean, either one of those scenarios your tool is still being able to help film filmmakers and studios. What's the future here? It's a, it's a, it's a good question. Well, no one knows. However, I can, I can see that, speaking about AI films, for example. So, some, some people say that ai kills the human touch in filmmaking. However, I, I think that AI films in the future will not be made by machines, but it'll be the machines who help process and, and reach the process. And the human touch will stay there.

As always, because the, the, the, we are, when we, when we want to watch a movie, we are craving emotions and we, we are craving some real connection. And that's something that stays only with humans. Speaking about AI as a, as a, as a, as a replacement for filmmakers I personally think that AI.

Has always to sit on a passenger seat. It's a copilot, it's not a director. And never let it be on, on, on your, on your place. Sometimes I like to compare like the, the AI as a technology with a teenager, so it's.

Teenager feels as he's an adult and he can misbehave, he can be unpredictable, unreliable, however. We are, as adults, we have to know how to manage it. We have to know how to educate it, and usually we educate our kids by our own behavior, by our own example. So, it's in our hands. It depends on the government, on the users and on the, like, everyone on, on us, people, how we let the AI grow.

So, I hope we will let it grow as a, as a good, good person. And it's not only ai at the technology, which influences the, let's talk about postproduction. These guys, they have been always using high tech in their day-to-day dealings. They are on the curve of any breakthrough technology adoption and cleanup, and some different editing work has been done by AI for quite a while.

And still will, the people who enjoy and admire the filmmaking process and the viewers. They'll be still satisfied. Filmmakers will be empowered, and hopefully, hopefully they'll learn how to use AI much faster. Comparing to the, the situation that we see at the moment. Yeah.

Yeah. The challenge is the challenge is not making faster films but always making better films. Even without ai, Hollywood can pump out really bad movies. So, in that first, that first AI film that launches is going to be judged as a film and not as an AI film and suffer. Critique based on the story, right?

The performance, the emotion, and, and all those traditional things found in films. But you mentioned post-production, which I think the post-production community, the visual effects community is going to go through some changes. There will be job losses. And so, the concern from that community is what do they do?

They're, when you look at a Marvel movie, you know, there's a hundred special effects houses, little boutiques, boutiques that have 50 to a hundred people. It's not even a boutique at that point. And so, what happens to those companies? cause a lot of these scenes will be generated by AI establishing shots the design of spaceships and interiors and green screens.

So, AI is a tool, I believe that. Post-production supervisors, visual effects, supervisors and creatives should be the ones guiding and using this technology because they know how it's supposed to be used when it's supposed to be used and have years or if not decades of experience. And I'm interested in seeing what those people, those professionals do with these tools.

Not, not be displaced, but be. Become a superpower within the industry. I think there's that possibility and that's a positive lens in which to look through this change that's going on. Yeah, I totally agree with you. And we don't have too many V FX supervisors using filming stage because that's not really made for post-production.

However, still there are VFX supervisors who want to see the script before the production starts.

Be part of the budget calculation because while you need to decide whether it's going to be on the postproduction or on the production side of the things and I've never, I've never heard any heard. Any hate words from post-production supervisors because they basically used to, to high tech in their day-to-day dealings in their work, in their daily work.

However, lime produces in first days. Sometimes they see scar scary eyes and they can get nervous when I show how the product works and, okay, that's what I'm doing. Why, why do you show this to me that someone can replace me? And that's a, I always get mixed feelings in that. Well, AI can replace many jobs, not only in filmmaking, right?

So, you come to a grocery shop, and you never see any shop assistant anymore. And imagine that's like even five years or 10 years ago. Well, Europe is a bit slow in technology. So even five years ago we had lot of shop assistant. Not now. Even now it's all, you do it by yourself. Where are all these people?

Maybe they're AI prompt engineers now, so we have also positive things that evolve. Yeah, yeah, definitely new roles are going to be created and there will be consolidation. But when budgeting and breakdown. If you do a traditional breakdown on your platform film, use stage, it'll, let's just say post-production breaks it down in a normal scenario.

Does it do also, can it also do an alternative in special effects as proposing? Now, if you did this in ai, this could be done in ai. You would have a cost savings of 60%. Are those options that presented in your platform or is it, is it that evolved at this point? Yeah, that's a good question.

Unfortunately, we don't have that functionality for now, however, that's great. It would be a great one for now. We have only suggestions on the breakdown side, so. The whole script and ask AI what the suggestions are where we can get some ai some V effects improvements. However, it does not suggest that this V effects can be done with generative ai.

Mm-hmm. And that one has to be done manually by. Effects professional professionals, right? It just highlights that this is a place where probably that car crash can be done on.

Right. So that means that official effects supervisor who breaks down those special effects scenes still has a job and will make the recommendations on what's the best approach to creating that scene. So, so there's hope for a while for those people, but you know, it seems inevitable that at least with your platform or another platform that comes along that all.

You know, you're going to get these recommendations and prototypes and pre-visualization that's, that's springing forth from what was a screenplay, then a script breakdown, and then a scene by scene. You know, directors would, you know, take a screenplay and then, you know. Create thumbnails, draw them right on the screenplay.

This is how I see that scene. Right. And that thumbnail process, sketching process seems like, you know, if it, if it isn't happening already with some platforms, that that is something that could happen with ai, right. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Well, looking forward to this and since we are speaking to a lot of our, of our users, we are collecting a lot of feature requests and if anyone is listening to is a film to choose, and you have in mind some ideas that, okay, I need this, like I cannot live without that functionality.

Reach out to us.

Hear other people's feedback and see it's really needed thing; it'll be included in the roadmap. So that's a good point about, yeah, I, you know, it, it's very interesting to get that feedback. And beyond email, is there a feedback mechanism within the platform? Like as people are working with it? Yeah.

Are they able to ask questions as they are using it? Yeah, there is a little chat box inside the platform, which is available 24 7. So, feel free to drop a message there. You'll be met with ai. Firstly, an AI support agent will talk with you. However, if you will still have any questions, just ask to be connected with a human with real person.

Yeah. Well, it's good to know that there's still human, there's still humans behind customer service, right? Can't, everything can't get automated yet. But I appreciate that and, I just want to say in the support, a few kind words to the AI agents that they give you. Like immediate support, immediate reply.

You don't need to wait even five minutes just really fast Sometimes real people are busy and AI can give you some replies just in two seconds, and you will get your information very fast. And. Assistant immediately. That's great. Yeah. That's very interesting. So, you've considered that user journey in considering those people who are a little afraid of this kind of automated process and those who embrace technology and there's a path for each of those users or personas and I think that's very important because.

You're helping educate as they go along. If they have questions, there's a, there's a place to ask those questions, get answers to help them move through the process. Is that right? That that's correct. And I have seen a lot of questions regarding the way we do, let's call it cleanup after the ai. So, you put, so the film stage works in the following way.

You put a script on the platform. So, you upload it and then the AI scans it line by line, picking up certain categories. It's like up to. 12 categories pre-coded. However, well, you can create more and then it's not ideal. Even if you do it by yourself, the breakdown will not be 100% perfect. Give your script to 10 different line producers.

You will get 10 different breakdowns. Not 100% the same, so you need to do your cleanup. So, you, you start reading the script, not from the script, but from the breakdown. You read, you, you read the script, learn it while you're doing your breakdown. It's completely different way of doing things. And since OpenAI made this revolution, people can talk to Chad.

In completely different ways. So, you can write grammatically incorrect sentences without any comments. You can even write in different languages. You can use Spanish and then say. It's so natural it'll understand any, basically anything that you talk it, talk, give it to, to the software and film stage is tailored to standard way of doing things.

And what I see. Potentially problem for us those customers got used to super effect of getting the result out of AI. So given a perfect image of a cat so that I can print it out for my daughter to draw it right, and it gives you so many different variations. And it also suggests do you want to create it a bit cute or more serious and so on.

So, it interacts with you, it.

User friendly tool. I'm talking about chat, and so everyone uses it. Once you get your professional software. You still need to be responsible for what you get from ai. You have to read it through, you have to do your cleanup, the personal types that we've been talking about through all the, the session has to be there.

And I encourage everyone who's using ai be responsible for what you get from it. Make sure that you are 100% happy with the.

We are trying to educate our users, helping them and saying that there is no a, there is no magic. That's just a software machine learning made by humans, not perfect. Yeah. So, I appreciate all of that. And I, I want to ask one last question. So, when studios or filmmakers are inputting their entire screenplay, which is considered.

Their IP, their intellectual property. Yeah. What safeguards are there that one protects their IP within your platform, and two what protects that IP from being trained on? Yeah. Do you have the firewalls set up? Yes, we have the whole written regulation on the way we use customers data. First of all, we don't train our software, our neural network on customers data.

Only when we have, we do this, only when we have written consent from, from, from the users. This is ruling number one, very important. Secondly, we passed all the needed certifications that big studios require and we, in the process of obtaining SOC two certification, that's probably like too technical to talk now.

However, that's a green light that usually studios require from any software providers. Doesn't matter. It's AI or blockchain or just accounting software. Doesn't matter. That's just standard that all the tech technology providers have to pass. And thirdly, we're in US company, so speaking to all the us uses.

So, we follow the US. Government regulations on the way we store the data, and no one sees the script, so it goes on the hash coverage to the cloud. And even the most expensive scripts are staying in the safest environment. Fortunately, we are taking that serious. Yeah, no, and that's fantastic.

That's the number one concern in Hollywood is number one, the protection of IP. So, I think companies like yours, even though it's a startup and small, actually being in Europe, I think gives you a leg up in term or an advantage in terms of. Being an acceptable platform that has ethical and legal boundaries as to how they manage people's content that they put in, which is a very sensitive subject.

Yes, I do. I, I applaud you. I applaud you and I appreciate, and I have a hashtag Innovation for good right? Or AI done. Right. Hashtag So you're doing it. I appreciate that. So where can people learn more about Film U Stage? Oh, you can go to our website, film your stage.com and we have a fantastic blog about everything that we do in film stage.

We also host a webinar this Thursday, 10:00 AM Pacific Time. We'll talk about AI budgeting. We have a few invite guests who will help me to understand whether it is possible to create a temp, a budgeting template by AI that will satisfy everyone because everyone has their own way of doing film budgeting, and it's going to be a friendly talk and the product demonstration.

So, if you would, if you. You can come and talk to the team, ask your questions. It'll be like a round table, very friendly and warm atmosphere. That's fantastic. We'll put those links in the chat. So, thank you so much Julia. It was, fantastic. And I, I, I learned a lot today and I appreciate the fact that you're doing everything right.

And thanks for all of you watching and listening. Keep it up and smash that subscribe button and see you in the next video. Thank you so much for having me. It was a lot of fun. I like it. Thank you. We'll have you back.