Secret Level head of studio Christina Lee Storm on AI filmmaking: story still wins, costs are misunderstood, and a major announcement is coming next week

Bring them next time. It's been too long. We'll talk to you soon, Jordan. Have a great day.

Hey, we're good. There we go. Hey, very well done. Thank you so much for taking the time. Have a great rest of your day. We'll talk to you soon. Uh, we went over time, so we will bring in our next guest immediately. We have Christina Lee Storm from Secret Level. Welcome to the show. Sorry delay.

What's happening?

Hey, how's it going?

We're having a little too much fun with our sound.

Fun with a regular playing sound cues. All sorts of stuff, but uh since it is your first time on the show, please introduce yourself a little bit.

Hi, I'm Christina Lee Storm. I am head of studio over at Secret Level, which is an AI native studio, and I also am co-founder over at Playbook PLBK. Yeah,

I identify myself as a producer, like an film independent film producer.

Yeah. Uh, how are you thinking about the the blurry line of how AI works its way into uh productions these days? Uh, you know, you have Toy Story with CGI. You also have, you know, a little set extension and maybe even a little CGI creeps into a Nolan movie every once in a while. Uh, but, uh, AI is very different. People are thinking maybe it'll generate the whole movie. Maybe it'll just sort of, you know, make a green screen a little bit sharper. Uh, how are you thinking about the opportunities and and the trade-offs?

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because we've had technology in the entertainment industry for a while. I was a produ a consulting producer on a film called Jurassic Punk, which was at the about the birth of computer graphics.

It was about a gentleman who was from Canada. His name was Baz Steve Williams. and he actually created the first walk cycle

uh

T-Rex for Jurassic Park and he was a total rebel and um in the in the documentary we talk about how he just felt like you know we could do this with computer graphics at the time Jurassic Park was like hey we're going to do it animatronics we're going to do it old school we'll do onset and there was an an ability to actually now like wait hold on a second we could create this and so when Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy saw the first walk cycle, he was playing it on his computer screen. Um, you know, just sort of he knew when they were gonna walk by, um, it it changed everything. And that was the birth of computer graphics. So, we know that technology has always been a part of that story. And so I think you know it is quite it a lot of people like to use the headline like disruptive but I think it's just an ongoing process of how things should sort of evolve and me being my background is a traditional production producer. I've been an independent producer for a while. Um, I think it's just it's part of the process and I think

before I think a lot of producers would just offline, you know, any kind of technology or any specialty to different departments or groups and today I think anyone who's going to really survive and thrive into uh the new world order of this, you know, everything's sort of shifting and changing, we have to actually lean in. And there's this interesting like technology storytelling, you know, um, convergence entertainment that is exciting and I think, you know, that's

Yeah.

Uh, on the topic of Jurassic Park, grade this grade this prediction. Uh,

Jurassic Park massive success. The franchise is grossed, I think, billions, maybe over a billion dollars. It's it's it's a fantastic financial success. Uh but interestingly uh Jurassic Park of course is owned by uh Universal and uh but dinosaurs are not particular intellectual property. It's not like Superman. The T-Rex is not something that a studio can own. Oddly, no other studio has created like the Superman to Spider-Man. There's not the Marvel universe to the DC universe. Uh, I would have expected a reaction series to Jurassic Park in that IP library at some point. Never never really developed, but in the age of AI where it's increasingly easy to generate imagery of dinosaurs and you don't have any intellectual property concerns because you're not recreating a particular actor. I predict that there will be a massive surge in dinosaur themed movies. When you

need to create the Dino Prize, the Googan Dino Prize, No. Is there anything here? Am I thinking about it correctly?

I think that you're on the right track in terms of like dinosaurs are not, you know, there's not a particular IP, but here's the thing and and this is sort of where it does fall back to traditional

methods. It's like the storytelling is everything. like

you could have there's a there's a lot of different ways, you know, that you can tell and share stories, but it's really what is the spec, you know, what are the specific things with the character? What's happening? What's the world? And so, yeah, someone could come up with a dinosaur type movie, but what is it? Why why is that special? Why is that undeniable for someone to say, "Yes, I want to watch that and I want to and I want to engage in that." So I think the concept of that is is good. I think you know end of the day

potentially halfbaked but we'll get

well that's the difference between really great like no matter what the technology is you have to still be a really good storyteller.

Yeah. Uh please

article in the Wall Street Journal this morning about a new film called Hell Grind that's I guess premiering at can. Uh they're saying that it cost half a million dollars to make and around $400,000 of that was uh compute.

Um I'm sure there were, you know, there with all these things there ends up being costs that aren't kind of captured uh on on maybe a napkin.

Sort of a deepseek moment.

Yes. Um but uh but is this the beginning of of like do you expect hundreds of these over the next year? are I I imagine you're you're hearing and seeing a lot that are in the works and and working on some yourself, but

um

yeah, so I mean I think there are you know can I I actually didn't go this year. I usually go every year. Um I knew that there was going to be a lot of announcements about different projects and things and at secret level you know we actually will have an announcement next week. I was like, should I come on the show today because next week there's gonna be, you know, um so

at the uh I'm happy to come back, but at the end of the day, I think, you know, um it's it's let's just be real. Let me just be real. There's a lot of things that are being pioneered like what are the costs? What what's happening here? How do we align with even like guild related things that are issues? You know, how how can we it's not just like let me just get this out, you know? I think there's something even bigger um to to that degree. You know, I think people a lot of people could say, "Yeah, I can make a movie." But I think it's really again I'm going to go fall back on story. I'm going to fall back on what is the process in which that's going to happen. Like at Secret Level, we do we have our own proprietary workflow pipeline that really really allows us to scale. And I think those costs when those get flagged, it's like yeah, what what's the total costs in it? Um there's a there are a lot of costs. And so I don't think I think it's really I I think when people talk about like the the budget and they're just focused on the budget, I think they've missed the mark on on the bigger.

Uh so what what is your maybe it's too early to say, but what do you think is going to be the winning formula? Obviously you're it's still an experimental time, but you said story matters a lot. Obviously technology matters a lot that what models you're using but where are you thinking of taking you know traditional film making approaches versus like reinventing your approach? Yeah, I think there's Okay, there's a couple things here. Great questions, Dy. I think that there will, you know, we had there was a time where like independent film was like on the rise. It it was awesome. We saw really great filmmakers come out of that like I, you know, going to Sundance and whatnot. And I think that that's really important to feed and and bring about like creativity, really great story. So I I do believe that with the tools we have more of an opportunity for independence to sort of bring that to the forefront. But again I you know story it's about the story like is it going to be a really great story. I think the other piece is is will we see this? You know, I I kind of share with this because I've been a former studio exe surviving studio executive and also a producer. And I think that what's neat is, you know, is the chasm going to widen? Like how do we sort of bring that do we want to bring the chasm closer together so it's not just traditional, you know, um studio fair or do we want to like really see these independent voices come out and we we can see those play out. And I think as time tells and how people will refine their storytelling abilities, I think that's really important. I think there's also to be honest there's a way in which um filmmakers who use AI tools are using it at their the best abilities is is it almost a slight um variation than maybe a traditional approach from let's let's just say like a studio you know pipeline type film I think um and that reminds me of like you know when our you know when uh L George Lucas came out like you know he was breaking new ground in technology. He was like th this doesn't exist so how do we create something that doesn't exist and I think we have to allow for that creativity to to b to be to birth totally.

I want to take a question from the chat. What is your favorite movie?

Oh gosh. Woo. Uh I have a lot

or maybe something just with a great story that you think is unique.

Inception.

Inception. That's a great movie. Have you seen that?

I have.

Yeah. There we go.

Um I like to say and I I'm going to embarrass him. Our founder Jason Zada from Secret Level. I call him like the He's like the like the blossoming Chris Nolan.

And um he's just really creative. He the way he approaches story. Um

does he use a phone? Christopher Nolan famously no phone.

It's a no phone guy.

This week he did an interview with with uh he does no email either. printed out emails if somebody needs to email him. No phone also doesn't like maps because they reorient you. They don't always face north and he doesn't consider that a map. Very interesting lifestyle.

Yeah.

Anyway,

I would Inception I would say like let's go really old school. Um It's a Wonderful Life.

Yeah.

Um and then if I get my like um like just real old school I I love like great character based when Herod's Met Sally. I I'm all over the place. Yeah. I'm all over the place. I I like being that way so people can't say, "Oh, she likes sci-fi or she, you know."

Sure, sure. Sure. Yeah.

Godfather. Godfather.

I saw When Harry Met Sally at an outdoor movie theater, one of the screenings you buy tickets to, uh, seeing an old movie outside with a bunch of people. Tons of fun.

Last question from the chat. What is your single favorite piece of fully AI generated content?

It could be like 30 seconds long, a minute long. I I can't really expect anything else. I think for us it's like Harry Harry Potter Balenciaga

which funny enough was like a year year a year and a half ago maybe at this point.

So if you haven't seen it um yes you know uh it is a secret level pro uh the heist.

Okay.

Watch the heist. When Jason shared his first 30 seconds I was like

okay

okay we got something. This is uh we're we're we're approaching some really interesting things. So,

you can see a lot of things at Secret