Episode 18: Lights, Camera, AI: How AI Is Changing Media Production

AI is reshaping filmmaking—and it is doing far more than generating flashy visuals. 

In this episode, Ryan Vinson explores how AI can streamline pre-production, reduce costs, and help creators move from an initial script to a production-ready plan faster. From generating detailed character profiles to estimating budgets, tools such as Film Pilot AI are giving independent filmmakers and production teams new ways to save time without sacrificing creativity.

Ryan also discusses why AI should be viewed as a creative tool rather than a replacement for human talent. Much like Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) transformed the industry, AI represents the next evolution in film and media production—affecting how projects are planned, developed, and produced. 

The conversation highlights the importance of understanding these emerging tools and using them strategically as the entertainment industry continues to evolve.

Listeners will also learn about VersusMedia’s work supporting independent artists and hear a practical case study demonstrating how Film Pilot AI can be used during pre-production. Whether you are a filmmaker, content creator, producer, or simply curious about the future of entertainment, this episode offers an accessible look at how AI can help creative professionals produce more efficiently while keeping human imagination at the center of the process.

Sound Bites:

• "AI is the next evolution after CGI in media"
•  "AI will continue to help us produce things faster"
• "You either ride the wave or get left behind"

Chapters:

• 00:00 The Impact of AI on Film and Media
• 04:45 AI as a Tool for Creativity
• 09:30 Using Film Pilot AI: A Case Study
• 14:51 VersusMedia: Supporting Independent Artists
• 18:32 The Future of AI in Filmmaking

Resources:

Film Pilot AI - https://filmpilot.ai

VersusMedia - https://versusmedia.com

PlaybookAIPartners

#Podmatch

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

What I found with filmmakers and musicians, let's try to shorten that time for pre-production. Things that they have that cost a lot of money, that is going to ultimately take money away from their budget for their actual film. Let's see if I can do something to help them shorten that time to actually get involved in the film itself. Because at the end of the day, as a software guy, that's really what I do for a lot of customers. I'm always trying to find something that can get them from A to B much shorter.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

Welcome to Playbook AI Partners Podcast. The show that turns AI from overwhelming into action evolved.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Your host, Debbie Kibling, is the chief playmaker, helping business owners and teams stop twisting shiny tools and start using AI in a way that actually moves the numbers.

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And you can use AI Space Windows to be with confidence and get results. Let's run the flood.

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Maybe spend time growing your business, finally finishing that project, or maybe just closing the laptop before dinner for once. At Playbook AI Partners, we believe that AI should give you time back, not give you one more complicated thing to figure out. That's why we created the AI Solution Locker, a growing collection of practical, bite-sized solutions designed to help you solve real problems quickly. In 20 minutes or less, you've heard right, 20 minutes or less, you can learn how to streamline those repetitive tasks, create content faster, organize information, build simple automations, and get more accomplished without becoming a technology expert. And here's a bonus no endless or outdated courses, no confusing tech talk, just open the AI solution locker, choose the solution you need, and put it to work. And here's another bonus. You don't have to do it alone. And in this current wave of AI, I don't think you should. Inside the Huddle, our Playbook AI Partners community, you'll connect with other curious business owners and professionals who are learning, experimenting, and building with AI. Join live sessions, quarterly training boot camps, ask questions, access helpful resources, and get the support you need to move from AI overwhelm to confident action. So stop spending those hours trying to piece everything together on your own. Get the solution. Let's run the play together and get your time back. I would love to have you join the Huddle and get to meet you and help you on this journey. So visit Playbook AI Partners and step into the AI Solution Locker and the Huddle today. And now on with the show. Well, hello everyone, and welcome to the show, the real impact of AI on film and media beyond the hype. We hear often about how AI in the creative space takes away the creativity. Well, is this true or is it just wrong in general? Well, today I want to go beyond hype and explore how AI is changing the path from concept to execution, helping creators, startups, and businesses move faster, reduce bottlenecks, and bring bold ideas to life. To help us get into this topic, I have Ryan Vinson on the show. Ryan is a fractional CTO and founder of Film Pilot with AI, helping filmmakers turn screenplays into full pre-production plans with AI. He also founded Versus Media, a streaming platform supporting independent artists since 2001. Welcome to the show, Ryan.

SPEAKER_03 4:08

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_02 4:10

Oh, it's so nice. Well, I love getting into this topic. I love the creative space. We often talk a lot about tech stuff. So it's a little bit of a refresher to get into the creative space. So let's get into it. Maybe you can start by sharing your experience and how it has led you on the current journey you're on today with AI.

SPEAKER_03 4:26

I've been involved in tech for more or less 30 years now. So there's a long way I could go back, but I'll keep it a little shorter. Uh versus Media in general has been helping indie filmmakers and musicians, like she said, for about since about 2001, and uh as far as streaming goes. And ultimately what I found is a lot of this stuff has come from uh talking with filmmakers, talking with musicians, and seeing that there's always this desire and need for some sort of a service to help them because their budget budgets are usually short and they don't have a lot of money, so they're always trying to skip ahead on certain things, and sometimes that causes problems with their pre-production and et cetera. So with filmpilot.ai, it was something I decided. I'm working as a fractional CTO with a lot of AI companies, uh working on a bunch of different projects that are basically AI is supposed to be there to shorten whatever it is you're trying to do. You know, people are afraid AI is gonna play replace humans at this point, but AI in general is only as good as the prompts you're writing. And if it's not consistent, it's not gonna be that good. So what I found with filmmakers and musicians, let's let's try to shorten that time for pre-production. Things that they have that cost a lot of money, that is gonna ultimately take money away from their budget for their actual film. Let's see if I can do something to help them shorten that time to actually get involved in the film itself. Because at the end of the day, as a software guy, that's really what I do for a lot of customers. I'm always trying to find something that can get them from A to B much shorter. And software is the way to do that because ultimately you you can take a long time writing by hand, sketching out all your storyboards, going through the screenplay piece by piece to figure out all the shots, uh, how much budget am I going to take? All of these things are ultimately what pre-production does. So I decided, okay, these are all the tools I've used for other AI companies that have helped them shorten whatever process it is I'm trying to do. And since I'm here in LA, I'm involved with a lot of filmmakers. I'm seeing, you know, the industry itself is going through a lot of issues these days with, you know, mergers and budgets and whatever. So I decided, let me see if I can kind of help the indies at least catch up to what the big boys are doing by creating a product that ultimately will help them skip ahead. It's just, it's not gonna, it's not gonna replace the actual filmmaking itself. It'll help them jump ahead to the actual production part of it. So all they need to do is upload a screenplay, and then it's just gonna iterate out all the pieces that that are necessary that maybe some of them are more important to them than others, but in in general, these are the key items that somebody's gonna have for a pre-production, especially on a bigger budget. Now the the indies can have it as well, much faster.

SPEAKER_02 7:23

So let me just kind of digest this for a minute. So, you know, I and I'm an author, so boy, uh you go to a cocktail party with a bunch of writers, and it's uh AI is a scandalous topic. I mean, let's just because people immediately go to, oh, you're cheating the system, you're using AI to write a book, or in this case, to write a screenplay, whatever it may be. But what I'm hearing you say is look, you know, there are certain things that we can save time on, which we'll get into more in a minute. And we're not taking the creativity out of it. You're still working on that, but it's it's kind of like we're taking out the pieces to shorten that to allow you to really focus on the creativity, the story, the screenplay, whatever it may be.

SPEAKER_03 8:00

That's more or less correct because you know, at the end of the day, computers really are doing that on a lot of different things anyway for us. I mean, writing writing a Word document, I mean, at one point everyone had to type those out, and then we had to use our little whiteout in order to fix it, and that took a long time. You know, computers came along and you could make a word, you can type out your doc, you can, you know, fix it, whatever, spreadsheets, same way. And then ultimately, you know, in film, we've got things like there was a time 20 years ago when CGI was kind of seeming the same way. People suddenly hated what it was doing to practical effects, as though it was as it's basically called, whenever they're actually like modeling out everything with clay or they're making all the little pieces and then they're shooting the film of that. CGI came along as a computer version and allowed them to kind of skip ahead then as well. A bunch of people didn't like it, but now how many of these blockbuster movies are all like massively using CGI now? So, you know, AI is just the next version of that. And it does, I mean, unfortunately, it does kind of take, you know, there are problems with certain things that AI is taking jobs away from certain people. And in some ways, CGI kind of did the same way from the people that did the practical effects as well. It's just AI is affecting every industry, everything. Like you said, authors and there is ways that, sure, you can, I mean, people are writing books really fast now and turning them out, throw them on Amazon very quickly, and then, you know, the joke is people are finding prompts actually still printed out within the actual books themselves because they didn't bother bother actually reading what they published to see that their prompts are still actually in what was printed. So, you know, there are ways that, yeah, it can it can take away some of the creativity, but for me personally, I feel like it only helps the people like move ahead much faster that already know what they're doing. They're able to iterate much faster through processes. And as a fractional CTO side and some of the groups I'm in and what have you that are working with big big corporations, these big corporations are budgeting two to three thousand dollars worth of uh uh AI tokens in per developer, per engineer, in order to have them iterate faster code and on rapid fire basically everything they're trying to build. It may take away quantity of engineers, but at the end of the day, it may help the ones that are more advanced move faster through whatever it is they're doing. So, you know, there is there is an avenue in there that yes, uh AI can take away a lot of you know a lot of time if you do it right. And hopefully people that already have talent will use it properly.

SPEAKER_02 10:44

Yeah, absolutely. Now, forgive me for my my lack of ignorance here. CGI is computer graphic, or what is the the acronym for that, CGI?

SPEAKER_03 10:52

Yeah, it's uh it's funny because as a software guy, CGI actually means something else as well. Uh when I was first starting in this industry, Common Gateway Interface was kind of the original term CGI for a lot of software. And then computer graphics, and uh I'll apologize, I'm actually forgetting what the I stands for right now. But uh yeah, it's computer graphics, something or other. And that's you know, most of these blockbusters we're watching, all use. Everyone's always saying, oh, that's CGI, oh that's CGI. Now they're saying, oh, that's AI, oh that's AI. You know, it's it's kind of coming to that point. And that stuff is moving every week. I mean, trying to keep up with it, it's it's pretty crazy just how fast a lot of that stuff is moving because people are trying to produce, you know, films uh purely using AI now that are uh I mean there's entire film festivals already for it that I don't know. It it I I'm on the fence on some of it, but it has its purposes, it has its uses. And uh, you know, I'm using it in much uh different avenues for different things.

SPEAKER_02 11:56

So you know, never want to sound preachy on this show. My humble opinion and that of others, AI is here, and either you're gonna ride the wave or get swallowed up by it, but it doesn't mean that you don't have the power to choose, you know, to what limits you want to use that as. And I think it can be a great tool to allow you to get to the creative side faster. So maybe take me through this. Let's say I'm a screenwriter and uh and I've got this great script or whatever, and I want to use film pilot. Kind of take me, if you will, like through a case study, how I could use the tool, maybe the time I would save, um, if something like that to help me get a better understanding. Film pilot.

SPEAKER_03 12:34

Yeah, sure. So some of the examples that people have used it already for, uh we do offer packages, so not everyone needs every aspect of the packages, but there are parts of them that maybe they need more than others. And uh if you have a you have a screenplay, I mean, right now, and we're we're considering kind of making it a little more open-ended, but right now your screenplay needs to be pretty standard and needs to fit the format that you know you you would actually submit to a film studio, all the proper lining and everything you need to have in it. And then once you have that ready to go, uh some filmmakers uh or screen uh just screenwriters in this case also can just use uh film pilot as a way to maybe just see possibly what their stuff would end up looking like if it was turned into a film before they actually submit it to an actual real film studio. This is a way for them to I want to see just what my main character might actually look like, uh an example of him. And I've described him very thoroughly in my script, but you know, I I kind of vision my version of what I see for him in my head, but let's see what it'll actually process. And AI would actually go through the script based upon all the details in the script of this person. This is a generated character profile of what they would look like. I mean, that's an example that somebody has used it for already, just to see, like curiosity, because our smallest plan comes with that. Uh there are uh there be there basically are other things that people like to use it for, like budget. You know, an indie producer may say, I I don't know, I think this film, if I shot it in LA, it's gonna be too expensive. What if I chose Chicago as an example? And because it's closer to where I live anyway, but some of my film uh people are actually in LA, but what if I flew them here to Chicago instead? What would be the difference in the budget? So when they use Film Pilot, it will go through the script and kind of come up with, okay, based upon all the details in the script, you want to film it in Chicago. Uh will this script need any VFX? Will it need how many actors? All the different details, and it'll come up with a budget, and it'll even come up with a budget based upon every part of the like screen by screen, basically, kind of breaking it down for you, what it what it ultimately will cost you, and then at the end of it, it'll show you the grand total of what it expects it. And you can compare, okay, wow, in LA is probably what it cost me three times as much versus filming it more local to myself in Chicago. Uh other people might like the storyboards, which we had someone who came to us. There are other websites that they focus like on one exact item, like they're really good, like you can just produce very good storyboards and you can also edit them. Ours is more of a package deal that is gonna help you iterate, get out of pre-production faster, and move on to the full filmmaking process. They didn't need something so high-tech, they just wanted some sample imagery to kind of show scene by scene what their film was actually gonna look like before they they went and shot it. Now they had something to go with. And that can possibly save them time. And that's hopefully what happened. I mean, we haven't heard back from them yet, but you know, I don't even know if they've started their filming process, but that's that's the last we heard. So those are some good examples.

SPEAKER_02 16:04

Wow, that is so amazing at what you can do, and just just it's always that administrative side of the budget and all that piece. But if you could shave off, I I I'm not in the industry, so I don't know. Um, but you shave off even 15 to 20 hours a week, you're getting back that time to creativity. And I'm blown away by seeing what your character and stuff looks like. It's just that that can even give you some different ideas that may take even the film in a different direction. So it sounds incredibly exciting and a great tool to use for sure.

SPEAKER_03 16:34

Yeah, thank you. Actually, it was funny. One of the uh early demo tests we were doing with somebody, uh we didn't record this, but it was kind of fun. We used the Ocean 11 script from just found it online. I was just in the middle of a Zoom call and I just was searching online. Let's find a some film script to use. I found it and uploaded it. And uh actually one thing I will say is filmpilot.aia, we say it's within 24 hours, but that's more of a we're new, we're trying to get it started, and I didn't want to over overpromise and under underdeliver. So it's something that can happen much, much faster. It's just a matter of, you know, okay, we want to make sure we know we give them enough time. So I tested the Ocean 11 script and it produced this character image, and it was strange because uh the character itself actually ended up looking a whole lot like George Clooney. And I was like, huh, well, that's that's who actually played the character in Oceans 11.

SPEAKER_02 17:32

So wow, that's interesting. Now you also have a company, Versus Media. Um, tell us more about that.

SPEAKER_03 17:38

Versus Media is, I mean, that is the baby. I mean, that's uh where it all started for me. I started Versus Media in 2000 actually as a website design company, uh, because that's really where I got started. And basically in those days, I was just developing websites for indie filmmakers, musicians, other businesses, restaurants, you know, you name it. It was anybody and everybody. But being here in LA, I started working with more filmmakers and musicians, and I realized they needed a lot of assistance elsewhere other than just websites. And so I started offering more or less a matchmaking service, if you will, that allowed musicians to find filmmakers and filmmakers to find musicians that were both looking for each other for film. So a filmmaker may have a film, they need a song, and a musician may have a song, they're looking for a film. And I I matched them up, and that that was the early 2001 to say 2010 era. I I think it was roughly thousand films. Ballpark ended up using it. And as time kind of moved on, we kind of pivoted into the streaming atmosphere because that's kind of where things were going. The internet was better, people had better internet services at home. So we started producing films ourselves sometimes. We do a lot of exclusivities. Uh, we have uh several channels. We have Roku, Android, iPad, all of those. And we've kind of continued the mission of helping the independent artists around the world. And it's pretty easy. I know a lot of these bigger studios, you gotta go through an entire process just to get distribution. We offer it direct. Uh, you're able to register and upload your content. We do check it to make sure it matches what we're we're wanting to show on our channels. Uh, but most of it, you know, we allow in and then we offer pay per view in the sense that for every view that uh your your video gets, you're gonna make a little money. Make it kind of simple. And then people can use PayPal or Bitcoin Lightning. We make it kind of simple on which items they can use as well.

SPEAKER_02 19:49

Yeah, so if someone recorded like a short, I want to make sure I'm tracking like a short YouTube kind of uh I I say short 30-minute video or they can post that up there to see if they can get visibility or to your point or song.

SPEAKER_03 20:03

Yeah. It's it's really I mean, we're we're trying to keep this directly just in like a like a TV channel or a film studio, or you know, so it wouldn't be as much as like YouTube, you can you can upload, you know, anything. You're walking your dog in the park and you can you could you saw something funny, you know, you can post that. I mean, ours is meant for filmmaking, you know, indie filmmaking. I mean, it can be pretty pretty broad, but as long as it kind of fits within the narrative, what you'd expect, a short film, a feature film. Um we're not doing any of the vertical film styles that are becoming more popular where it's kind of built for an iPhone. Uh, but we're we're sticking to more of the traditional routes, and then we have a lot of filmmakers. We have a lot of um marketing agencies and and uh musicians themselves that are uploading their music videos whenever they're done. Kind of an old school MTV, if you will.

SPEAKER_02 20:58

So Wow, that's so cool. We'll make sure link to both film pilot and AI and your and versus media. Well, d give us your thoughts on, you know, crystal ball kind of psychic, you know, whatever it may be. But where do you see AI moving forward in the creative spaces spaces and in particular in filmmaking?

SPEAKER_03 21:17

Well, considering AI changes week by week, that's a that's a thing that I literally by the time I say this, next week it's gonna change. But uh I mean it is, it's kind of challenging keeping up with it, but I'm using it in so many different industries on the the fractional CTO side. And then on film pilot, I'm using it in different avenues. And I know a lot of there is a lot of hype as far as people trying to make entire films with it. So I mean, we're coming very quickly into that area that people are going to be able to make. That type of stuff is just the quality is not quite there. I mean, quantity wise, people can make it. But as far as where we're gonna go with it. I mean, that's a hard, hard thing to say as far as what it is uh right now we have robots launching right now that are able to walk around town and and uh they've got cameras built into them that every single frame of what they're seeing they're they're interpreting that using AI to be able to do processes. We have factories in certain countries that are putting headsets on their employees that are watching and monitoring how they're doing items, how they're building and designing those items in order for the AI to train off of that. You know, you've got like you said authors that are writing books that are doing that. So I I see you know there is danger. There's the the old terminator danger that people people like to claim um I see a lot of areas that it can continue helping. It's just gonna continue allowing us to produce things faster and faster and that's really where we are right now. It's just at some point, you know how much of it's gonna be controlled by AI itself and how much is controlled by m man I don't know. That's that's a hard thing to say going forward. But six months ago images looked terrible. Now we've got forensic image people that are trying to pick apart images to prove whether they're they're authentic or not because we're we're kind already there.

SPEAKER_02 23:26

Yeah we are yeah so funny my husband and I were in Vegas at a conference a few weeks ago and the big talk was the Zooks which is the robot cars that come up to hotel take you around. And then we were in Planet Hollywood and they had the robotic bartenders that were there.

SPEAKER_03 23:42

So we we took a picture of those because I was also here in LA we have the Waymo's they're already everywhere and I've taken them several times and you know it is kind of weird to see the the driver's seat empty it kind of feels like a ghost is driving you. But there is some you know coolness factor to it but you know I feel like every every generation of the internet for me I've gone through nearly 30 years of this and there's always been this next big revolutionary thing that's gonna change it. And there's always some way that we've kind of come out of it with new job opportunities, different job opportunities. Others have failed others disappeared and then some of these things have never out they've never lived up to the hype but I feel AI is gonna match a lot of the hype. Yes it is a bit of a bubble there is some things that everything under the sun is claiming AI is being used and it's gonna change things and but I think there will be some sort of a pop eventually on some of that and then from those ashes there'll be the real uses and the real things that it can do and it will continue on the same way we did you know with everything else.

SPEAKER_02 24:50

So I don't know. It's hard to say but 2026 we're still we're still here no I know it's so funny I tell my uh little cleaning service Marina and the ladies I mean they've they are so sweet they take care of us and our house for years but she's like oh no I'm gonna have a robot replace me and I'm like well I'll name her Marina but it's the Jetsons.

SPEAKER_03 25:12

The Jetsons may be a I don't know 50 year old cartoon or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 25:17

And I don't mean to make light of it to those who are concerned about a job. I really don't but I I do I do think that we have to be don't get left behind right be aware of it.

SPEAKER_03 25:25

Yeah that's unfortunately with Film Pilot there has been certain kickback. There has been certain people that were not happy with me doing this. There were some people that they are just pure and pure creative people that they don't want to you know they they don't want to do it and I said look you know we you either jump on the train and try to learn how to use it or you're gonna get left behind. And I mean in AI I've seen so many different other things with the internet over the past 30 years. It felt the same way. You know a lot of people didn't want to design their websites or build things for mobile. They didn't really want to do anything for mobile. They wanted to stick to the old desktop computer and you know when I travel overseas and I go other parts of the world they are mobile first and most of the people only have their their cell phones. They don't have desktop computers so you know you kind of have to eventually jump on and most people eventually start building apps, making their sites more mobile friendly, focusing more on tech for mobile and I kind of feel AI is the same way. You kinda have to accept it. None of us can change it. None of us can make it go away we just either jump on and write it and use it ourselves for the best possible purposes or we will get left behind unfortunately.

SPEAKER_02 26:41

Yeah we absolutely will.

SPEAKER_03 26:43

Well and s as we draw to a close any final thoughts you'd like to leave folks with either for uh film pilot AI or versus media well for versus media we're always expanding the films that we're we're broadcasting and we're helping Filmfest we're we've uh launched a service as an example that uh we partner with Filmfest and we we sp more or less spin up 24-7 channels with just their content. Uh we're helping them have on-demand versions of their Filmfests uh we're always adding on new musicians that have their music videos so if you're looking for other avenues and not just getting lost in the sea of YouTubes and etc you're looking for something else that is indie focused we're there for that and if you're a filmmaker looking towards the future and and kind of looking for ways to save money in the early days of your pre-production process film filmpilot.ai is is where it's at. I mean this is what we're doing and we're adding more features on adding more items on to help in the near future as time moves on, you know, we hope to have further expansions with it. So uh either of those are probably the best things to look forward to.

SPEAKER_02 27:55

Awesome I appreciate that. Well we will make sure and link to that as well. Well Brian it's been a pleasure this is really one of the I again I haven't had a lot of creative discussions so I was really thrilled um for you to take the time out to visit with us today and talk about all the great things that you're doing and again we'll make sure and link uh to both websites so people can find more about the great services you're offering. So thank you for your time.

SPEAKER_03 28:17

Thank you for having me. It's been great. All right have a good day.

SPEAKER_02 28:21

I enjoyed having Ryan on the show. I really liked hearing how AI is impacting the creative side of filmmaking and beyond. Check out Ryan's websites in the show notes and learn more about film pilot AI in our next episode. What if we could move beyond scattered AI experiments and instead build a structured approach that delivers real ROI. To get into this topic I have Patrick Bell on the show. Patrick is a doctoral AI researcher and AI transformation advisor who works directly with CEOs to help them turn AI into measurable business results. Patrick's work focuses on what's actually happening inside organizations as AI creates pressure where visibility breaks down where decisions stall and why most initiatives never scale. He will bring a clear executive level perspective on how to move beyond those scattered tools and pilots and get to the desired result. Make sure and tune into this episode until next time take action execute and let's run the playouts