Technology, Connected - How AI Is Changing Animation: Toonstar on Faster Production, Lower Costs and Fan-Owned Stories

Episode Date: November 11, 2024

John Attanasio and Luisa Huang, founders of Toonstar, join Thinking on Paper to explain how artificial intelligence is changing animation production, audience development and storytelling.Traditional animation is expensive and slow to produce. Toonstar uses AI-assisted tools to reduce production time and costs while keeping writers, animators and performers involved in the creative process. The company has produced projects including StEvEn & Parker and The Gimmicks, an animated series developed with Mila Kunis.In this episode, we discuss:How AI is used in animation productionHow Toonstar reduces the time and cost of creating animated showsWhich parts of animation can be automatedWhy human writers, artists and performers remain central to the processHow TikTok and YouTube can be used to test characters and story ideasWhy social media is changing how animated series are developedHow audience feedback can shape storylines and charactersWhat blockchain adds to fan participation and digital ownershipHow independent studios can compete with established Hollywood animation companiesWhat AI-generated animation means for creators and entertainment businessesJohn and Luisa explain how Toonstar develops concepts in public, measures audience response and adapts productions more quickly than conventional studios.This conversation examines whether AI can make animation cheaper and more responsive without reducing it to automated content, and how creators can give audiences a meaningful role in the stories they support.Please enjoy the show.--TimestampsTIMESTAMPS(00:00) Disruptors And Curious Minds(00:54) Why Beavis & Butthead Changed Animation For Mark(02:18) AI Animation Technology Explained(02:45) Disney & Warner Bros Executives on AI(04:21) Future of Animated TV Shows(05:03) Traditional Animation Process Explained(08:52) Creating Animated Characters in 2024(10:49) Can AI Write Stories? (12:47) AI Animation Tools and Software(14:15) Toonstar Animation Technology (17:46) Animation Production Costs Today(19:26) Mila Kunis Web3 Animation Project The Gimmicks(23:00) Beyond Hollywood: How to Fund Animation Projects(24:35) Musicly(27:12) Steven & Parker: Making Viral Animated Content----Other AI EpisodesAI, Crypto And Gaming CollideWatch On YouTube.⁠⁠Will Quantum computers cure cancer⁠⁠⁠--For show notes and past guests, visit: ⁠⁠Thinking on Paper⁠⁠--Follow Thinking On Paper:⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠ 

Disruptors and Curious Minds. Welcome to another episode of Thinking on Paper. My name's Jeremy. This is Mark. We're here to peek at the future while rooted in the past. We want to see where society is heading. We want to help you get there. We're bringing on amazing guests to help us figure out what they're building and how it's going to change the world.

Mark, talk to me. What's happening with you today? Well, I don't think I've ever been so excited to prepare for a show as I have today because we're talking about artificial intelligence and animation. I've just been thinking about all the cartoons that I used to love. The Mysterious Cities of Gold, Jason the Wild Warriors, Thundercats, Dungeons and Dragons.

It's a Dungeons and Dragons. They were my favorites growing up. But I could get on Thundercats. I don't know the other ones, I don't think. Well, Dungeons and Dragons, but the first two, I don't know. The Mysterious Series of Gold. Brilliant. But a question for you.

There was one cartoon animation that really changed everything. for me it changed what was what I believed what I thought was possible with cartoons can you guess what it is my goodness um see South Park close it was Beavis and Butthead actually because same little bucket right yeah I grew up MTV watching a lot of Beavis and Butthead and I was thinking actually that makes a lot of sense now we well we should do our own version of Boeves and butt head. It's like, you're Bavis, I'm butthead, and we sit on a couch and we watch quantum physicists speaking about quantum computers, and we watch developers explaining how you create a language model, and then we sit on the couch and we go, ah, what? We could like heckle them.

Like, we could heckle them. It could be like a new version of mystery science theory 30,000. Do you remember that one? I do, but the best bit is like between those, like, between those, we watch we watch keynotes by Tim Cook and Sam Altman and we give our alternative take on the beauty and the danger

and the existential risk that they're presenting. It could be funny, I think. I think you're on to something. Maybe we can ask our guests how we even start to pull that off because I think they've done a lot of interesting stuff in that world. This is the intersection of animation and AI and the thing about it is like a lot of people

you know, think all of a sudden when there's AI involved with anything, it's just someone walks into a room, mashes a button, walks away and like this brilliant piece of art comes out, right? Instead of this, that it's a new collection of tools that can actually be used to enhance the creative process. So I'm excited to see where the handoffs are with these guys. But let's intro them. Enough of you and I riffing and ranting. We got some great folks on in. Why don't you, want you intro there? Yeah, I will. I think maybe like when you're watching a cartoon, when you're watching animation, you don't really think about what's happening in the background and how difficult it would be today to make another Beavis and Butthead, to make another South Park, to make another

Thundercats, like how blocked the industry is. So hopefully today we're going to learn more about how to break through. Our guests are from Toonstar. The founders of Coonstar, Toonstar, they are John Atanasio, if I pronounce that correctly. He's from former Warner Brothers and Dreamworks executive. And Louisa Huang, again, from former Dunezsche. Disney and Warner Brothers producer, I believe, have got that. Correct. Welcome to the show. Hey, guys.

Yes, that's correct. Welcome. I'm so glad you're here. Thanks for having us. And you nailed the pronunciation. That's good. I've been practicing because I kept missing off the second ASIO. Yeah, no, you got it.

It's perfect. Well, done, well done. Well, let me start with a question for both of you. And maybe you can kind of weave in your backgrounds a little bit. bit as you answer this. We're moving into the future of animation, the future of content creation using new technologies. Can you give us a little rundown or give our listeners a little rundown of like the traditional or the legacy animation process and how that works from like, oh, here's a cool idea, it's a concept to people are watching it. And then we can kind of start to overlay what

you guys are doing in that regard. Yeah, I'm happy to. And, and, and, and, and, and, And before we dive in, I was not aware that you guys were actually basically pitching a show. And see how we did that? It's great. Yes, let's do that show. I agree. I was about to say, darn, the Beavis and Butthead concept, done. It's so good.

Let's do it. Yeah. But you do realize this is like your Davis on Boathead or your Boathebitt on Beavis. I think we can put it off. So for the record, Tune Star execs, you realize that this is being recorded, right? We can go back to it and say, hey, remember when you agreed to Greenlighter?

Okay. Exactly. Awesome. Okay, well, I think, you know, I will, I'll try to do a concise, sort of, like, you know, rundown of legacy, you know, what it usually takes to

really kind of, like, put together, like, an animated show. I think to start, it's like it really is. The magic of animation is just that there is so much that goes on behind the scenes. And I'm going to condense it, you know, a lot. But the magic of it and so much work that goes into it. But at the same time when you're watching it, it's like everything is just, you know, like you're not really seeing the effort.

You're seeing this like beautiful output, you know, some funny, some, you know, really dramatic. And it's just, it's just wonderful, you know, art form. And it's a wonderful, like, storytelling medium. But, you know, at the very start, you know, at the very essence of it, it doesn't start any differently that, let's say, like, you know, core piece of like live action content, which is, you know, the script, right?

Script, characters, you know, a story eyeball that, you know, you pitch and you, you know, try to, like, sell the essence of the story. And then beyond that, the other part is like you have to start, you know, then there's a visual side of it that there's a ton of exploration that goes into it, right? You have to do a lot of concept art. You have to create a lot of concept characters before you sort of like bland on the actual sort of like look in artistic feel of what the piece of content or what the show is going to be all about. And then you start translating, you know, you start marrying the story. and the script to that particular, to the particular look and feel, right? So you start, like, refining all of that. And then there's, you know, storyboarding. So when you take the actual scripts and you have to storyboard, like, everything, so that, you know, the directors can take a look and be like, okay, well, you know, how does this move in terms of, like,

the visual, married with the story? And then you have things like, you have to start. are putting it together in like a almost kind of like a rehearsal way. And rehearsal basically means that you have to first do recordings, like first recordings, like first recordings in order to be able to kind of like lay in the sketches and the storyboards to be able to just kind of look at animatics and say, okay, well, like, how does this really like play out? Because you can't, you know, animation is so expensive and is so laborious. You really can't afford to say, okay, well, like, let's just make it, see what happens where it

Whereas in film, you could shoot it and then just review the footage and say, okay, well, that take didn't really work. Let's use another take. Like, you really try to do as much pre-production as possible to be able to, you know, get that visualization of like, what is this ultimately going to turn out to look like? And once you sort of agree and say, yes, this is what it is, you do kind of like start going into, okay, now I'm going to lay in like the real characters, the real backgrounds and and start that sort of like animation process.

I think the, I think like a good analogy for people that might be really easy to understand, it's like building a house, right? You have to start with the framing. Like you don't basically, you know, like build a house and then walk through and say, well, I don't really think that wall looks really great there. Let's knock it down. And then like, let's put up another one, right? You could.

It just would be incredibly, you know, inefficient. So it's a bit like that. And I think that's kind of like a good. to think about it, it is building a house. And that's why it is so expensive, and that's why it takes such a long time. Makes sense. John, anything to add to that? You know, I mean, like, I mean, I guess the only thing I would add is the, you know,

to what Luis has said about, you know, the process, I think a key part of that is, is character and story. And so, you know, there's the production and, you know, obviously there's a lot that goes into the production process. But, you know, I would say, you know, as important as the actual, you know, the production itself is, you know, for us, we believe that it always starts, you know, with character and story. And I think that's, you know, probably why you hear us talk a lot about, like, you know, tech, and I'm sure we'll get, you know, get into it, but like technology is fantastic. And, you know, we've been using machine learning since we launched a company. We've been using generative AI past, you know, several years.

And so we are a very, you know, we're a very tech forward, you know, a very tech forward company. And those things are great. And they all, you know, have their benefits and they add value. But we also say, without character and story, you know, none of that stuff's going to matter. Because if you can't come up with a story and characters that people, you know, relate to or love or, you know, just want to engage with, you know, all the best tech in the world isn't going to matter.

And so for us, it's really a combination of the two that, you know, I think you'll probably, you know, hear us talk a lot about. It's a bit of the human element that is never really going to go away, the emotional context of connecting with a character and feeling what that character is feeling and getting pulled into this dream world, right? And as long as the connection to the dream world is not broken, the story is great. Are you guys scared of a potential like Joseph Campbell, like AI modeler that people can just type?

Is that even possible? We want to get to the deeper questions like the existential questions later, Jeremy, but like, oh, we got to step into it. Okay, I'm getting ahead of myself. Good. We like to dive right in. No, it's so it's a great question, and that's one, that's actually something we talk a fair amount about as well. I think there's, and again, this is our opinion, but we think there's this, you know, this misconception of exactly what you said, where there's this like, you know, this model or a button and you push a button and out pops the Simpsities or South Park or, you know, enter, you know, next great franchise. And we'll tell you that that absolutely is not the case today.

Again, opinion of, you know, opinion of one, will that never be the case? I don't, like, I can't tell you that. Like, I don't, you know, my belief is that I don't think that will be the case. Could be wrong, but I'll tell you it's absolutely not the case today. And don't think that's going to be the case for a while. Because, you know, going back to the human element, just like you said, like the human element of building characters, building, you know, story and these worlds, there's not a button you push that does that. And then, you know, I think the other reality is that, and I think, you know, you guys set it up

great at the beginning is like these, there are a lot of different tool sets right now, especially with, you know, like generative AI tools. And there's not, you know, and I think despite what you see, you know, see with, you know, they've done a great job, like runway, PICA, they've got these like sizzles they do and they're very cool. there's sexy sizzles and you know you see the output and you're like oh my god that's like a two-minute piece and it looks incredible one is the reality it wasn't one button that somebody pushed to make that that happen and two you know the other reality is like there are a lot of different tools that are getting integrated into the production workflow at different stages that makes sense

and so it's not this like one button solution um at least at least that you know we we've see um and so Yeah, that's sort of my take on it. Coming from the music world, so I had a music production company for about 16 years, we did music for film and television and podcasting and games and all of that. And as we saw, like, over those 16 years, you know, there was a lot of analog stuff that turned into digital and a lot of plug. We call them plugins, right, where these plugins were now these pieces that could affect the digital files of music.

And now there are presets to those plugins. and like everyone's like, I don't know why you just don't look back and go, well, that's essentially kind of what a plugin is. You want like Ocean Ways like reverb. The convolution is built in and you push a button, right? So, but does that mean the song, you're going to push a button and create this great song out of nothing? No, like it helps along the way, right? That's right. Yeah. Okay. Right then. So let's move on from the legacy world into the new world, the Toonstar world. I think I was probably under the misup engine that you're using blockchain as well as artificial intelligence. Could you just explain what technologies you're using first and then how you're using them?

Sure. So we've actually kind of like worked really in the, with blockchain technology. The AI sort of part of the company really is focused on like the production. The actual production itself is very much, you know, sort of. like AI facilitated. Blockchain is really sort of like what we utilize to, you know, kind of think about things like community engagement and, you know, like fandom, loyalty. It's very much part of the, you know, kind of like IP and story experience. But really like the production of the actual content is really kind of focused around like

AI, AI facilitated tools. And so, you know, throughout our pipeline, And we sort of have, it's integrated throughout. So AI is a part of like the full scope of just kind of everything that we do. It's very much facilitative, right? So we look at, you know, how do we have, you know, tools that help our artists, our storytellers, be able to really like focus and hone in on the kind of stuff that really is sort of like trying to execute and, you know, tell their creative vision in a, you know, more efficient way, right?

Trying to get to market faster. And that's really critically important because as we sort of step through what's happening in like consumption and what's happening with content is just distribution was fundamentally disrupted, you know, over like, you know, two decades ago, I would say. And, you know, like it started, you know, with streaming and, you know, YouTube and like you see like it's just how young folks are consuming content today is just incredibly different like where they discover content is incredibly different like they're not turning on the television they're turning to their devices they're going to YouTube and what's

you know important about that is that YouTube as an ecosystem and these social platforms as an ecosystem requires requires requires has a different set of requirements and speed is one of them. And that's really kind of been the biggest challenge for an animation industry that really like speed is not its strength, right? It has a lot of strengths in terms of like a storytelling medium, but speed is not. It takes a long, long time and a lot of people in order to be able to create a piece of content. There's a lot of reasons for it on as we sort of like, you know, highlighted very quickly up top. And so that's really kind of been the focus is like how do you really you know, get to that kind of speed and get to that kind of efficiency in order to put

new content out in the marketplace. Because I think, you know, what's happened is like as the legacy system becomes, you know, more and more disrupted by these distribution forces, then they, the bets that they take has to be, you know, like it becomes more and more sort of like conservative right because everything has to be a sure bet because you can't you can't risk being wrong because it's so expensive you can't you can't do a full production say i'm just going to throw it up on youtube because the economics are fundamentally different the speed in which it lives is fundamentally different and so that's really kind of like been the focus for us is like you know how these technologies help be able to you know usher in new content new

new IP into an ecosystem that requires a great deal of speed and frequency. I'm just going to, I love to, whenever somebody says something, and I again echo from a previous show. And we had Evan Shapiro on a while ago, the media, Shapiro, the media cartographer. And he explained on just what you said. And I'm going to put a link up here if you're watching this. But sorry, don't get that. John, what? And I learned some. And I learned something. And it's, Shipiro. I didn't realize that.

Shapiro. Yeah, he's got like a little bar over the top of it. Yeah, we had a good talk about that. I learned some. That's good. Yeah. So you guys are very tech forward in this process. And I'm sure you're always kind of investigating like the adjacent technologies that are out there.

Over the last two to three years, we've seen a lot of companies use this decentralized ownership model to kind of get to kind of break the or disrupt the traditional funding model, right, where you could kind of come in and piecemeal and say, hey, I'm going to be the music guy. Here's a couple of tokens. Hey, Mark's going to be the script writer. Here's a couple of tokens. What did you see about that world that was interesting? And what did you see that you knew wasn't going to work? Yeah. So I think what we saw is interesting. And so our first project, we did a project called the Gimmix. And we co-produced that with Milakunis. And it was, it was, it was. It was, it was. It was actually, so it was, there was like a number of like Web3 first that were part of that project.

It was like the first Web3 community driven animated series. Was that based off the Stoner Cat NFT collection? So it was, it wasn't part of that. So it was a different collection, but it was actually, so it was there, it was Mila and her team. It was their second project in the Web3 space. but it was a separate project so it wasn't connected in any way and

and you know so the idea was and I think the appeal is that and you guys kind of mention it like they're definitely you know and I think it's fair to say and most people would agree is that Hollywood is

Hollywood has challenges fundamental challenges right now and you know everything from you know you see stories saying that Hollywood's in existence potential crisis to, you know, to transition to just, just, you know, flat out broken. And those are, you know, just different, different, you know, experts that are saying stuff like that. And I think, you know, at least we would agree that, like, yes, like legacy traditional

Hollywood is absolutely in transition. It's changing. It needs to change. And part of the challenge has been this whole, you know, you guys refer to this gatekeeper economy. And idea that, you know, there's a handful of people that get to decide what is made. And really, you know, the problem with that is that it's, you know, there, and, and, you know, Luis has touched on this. It's like, what that's created is this, you know, this very risk-averse environment because all the bets are so big. And then what that's done is now you see, you know, a world where it's like, you know, most things, it's like prequel, sequel, reboot, you know, and that's that's sort of this this kind of like you know this like reality that that Hollywood is you know

that Hollywood and then and then audiences by virtue of Hollywood being in that in that sort of um that that that stage to you know audiences are now sort of that that that's all you're getting and and so to us it's like well that like there's something inherently you know we just believe like some inherently wrong with like okay like why is it just a handful of people that are deciding what gets made and then the other challenge. is that there's so many great creators and storytellers out there that aren't getting a shot at getting their stories made. And if you look at something, you know, we're like we've been involved in the creator economy since, you know, actually, you know, when we were still at Warner Brothers, we were doing projects like early days YouTube and in the MCN space.

And so we've been involved in like the creator economy for a long time. And we just, you know, one sort of understand the power of, you know, creators connecting directly with fans. and these platforms like YouTube and social media that are basically enabling that. And they're just, you know, when you think about how many creators and storytellers are out there that don't get a chance to get things made,

that's why, you know, that, I think at the end of the day, that's where we feel like that the power is to like, okay, well, why not then, you know, basically look at an alternative model where you're not, you're not beholden to this gatekeeper system. and you can launch a project yourself.

And to your point, there are other ways to get it financed, whether it's through, you know, through, you know, like you said, through communities that want to, you know, contribute to projects. You know, there's just a lot of different ways. You can, you know, like brands can, you know, can sponsor things. So there are a lot of different ways to get projects financed that don't require you to go through that, like that legacy,

that legacy system. And so I think for us like that, that was one of the big appeals of like, oh, well, let's try. And that became part of the brand of Web 3, was very much like, hey, you know, empowering creators, empowering fans, letting fans, you know, contribute, participate, you know, everything from like, you know, also like impacting narrative and character development. So creatively, so, you know, participate creatively and, you know,

potentially, you know, commercially. And so I think, you know, inherently there's like, there is, there's an interesting idea there and a lot of it is democratization and it's like why why do just a handful get to do that when we should be able to sort of afford that to more people and that's why you know and i still think like that's part of our dna because whether it's blockchain and and you know we had like the gimmicks was a success on the blockchain we've done a couple other projects on the blockchain and whether it's a blockchain or just digital first like i would even say even say before the blockchain, you know, we were doing stuff, um, in social media.

We had one of our big breakout characters on a platform called Musically that was actually OG TikTok that I don't, you know, I don't know if everybody, you know, knows what musically was, but just because I have a sophomore in college daughter, uh, she was into it right when that first came out. Yeah. Okay, cool. Yeah. So we, yeah, so we had a breakout character. It was like, actually one of the first, they called her, his name, her name was Poppy and they called her like one of the first kind of virtual influencers of the day. And she was massive on musically. And, you know, that was that was pre-Web3 and blockchain.

But it was the same notion where it's like, hey, we're going direct to consumer. We're going direct to fans. And we just feel like that. There's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of opportunity there. And I think the biggest part of the opportunity is just giving storytellers a chance to get stuff made that it's just not happening via the legacy system. I would firstly I'm impressed Jeremy that you remember stoner cats so that is you have made some friends and a little bit of a thought about we spoke about web three stonacats the nfts summer of 2022 and i think that ironically there was a lot more creativity in web three two three years ago

it seems now that it's become very stale and a lot of the creativity has left the the system that left the space and i wonder what the nfts summer could have become if something like Toonstar was readily available back then where all of these mad creative ideas obviously a lot of them turned out to be scams and bad but a lot of them were really good ideas where these storytellers didn't have the means to to make these things. I wonder what would have happened had they had this Toon Star technology now. I think it would have been a beautiful time but we're there now. So do you want to tell this, Jamie, to Stephen and Parker, but I believe it's your new.

favorite show. Yeah, I watched, I watched a few of them today. And you know, I come from, one of the shows that, you know, I've got four kids and as they were coming up, I think like, Gravity Falls was one that pulled me in that, that, you know, just was like, you know, it had a lot of adult nuggets in it, right? And have these like little adult nuggets. I think that's what this, this show does a little bit. There's like some cool little nuggets in there. Some of them were pretty adult. Yeah. Oh, 100%. 100%. This is not, this is definitely not coming on Nick Jr. and that sort of thing. But talk to us about how this came together.

Like I know it's a partnership with the case. It starts with character and story and you literally did that. But talk us through that a little bit. Should I take it? Okay. Like, I'll take it. Yeah. So this is done in partnership with the creator of really these characters.

His name is Parker James. So he's a TikToker. He's a TikToker lives outside of Dallas, Texas. And when we met Parker, he was really, he was doing these like funny TikTok shorts with a face filter and a voice filter. So he was kind of like acting out the character of Stephen, but he was doing it in a live action format. We, you know, we, we, we met him actually through his manager who, you know, they approached us because they had heard about us. I seeing, you know, through, I think, some of the work that we were doing in, like, Web 3 in our shows.

And they, they were like, you know, Parker's really always, like, loved animation. And, you know, it's just a huge fan of animation. And he's got these characters that he's been, you know, kind of working on. But really through social media, like, live action sketches. And they, they were like, you know, like, please check it out and see, you know, like, do you think this would be a good fit for animation? And we tuned in to his channel. And right away, we were just like, wow.

Like, he really just, you know, you could see the audience engagement. You can see the community that's built around like these comedy sketches that he does. And you can see how well that would translate into an animated character. And we were just like, this, you know, this is something that we were super excited by from like a character standpoint. And so really, like, that's how it got started was like we wanted to really take the characters that he's built on TikTok and we translated it into animation. And so we started doing these like test shorts and we're like, let's, you know, we worked with him to kind of create the look and feel that he was excited by. And we, you know, animated it and he put it up on his TikTok channel to see like, hey, like, is this resonating with his audience? And right away you can tell.

Like, it just exploded right away on his TikTok channels. And you can tell that this, you know, resonated with his audience. And I think, you know, we did a couple of test shorts. And then, you know, soon after, we were like, we're going to start extending that particular, like, short form of stuff and move it into YouTube because YouTube had more variation in like storytelling formats. You could do longer form. You could do shorts. You could do a whole host of different type of like, you know, storytelling formats. And so we migrated it to YouTube and started working on the YouTube channel. That was wholly, you know, Stephen and Parker animated show. And, you know, I think that's kind of what

you guys saw and it didn't take very long and now it's you know been a bit over a year and it's got an aggregate and aggregate eight million subscribers it's got over three and a half billion views um it gets 30 million weekly viewers um which is astounding i mean that's bigger than that's bigger bigger than any network show so it's bigger than the simpsons and what a great process to kind of step into that, right? Because I know you've, I know the whole thing's kind of getting disintermediated a little bit, right? And we're creating these little efficiency levers in the process, right? And in starting with this little test, hey, let's see how this thing does. Hey, let's see how this thing does. And, but you're, but you're still making bets, right? You're still betting on

something that you believe is a good story and that you believe has good characters. But you're able to kind of make some more bets and take some flyers too, right? Yes. Yes. And I think That's really the critical thing. Like you, I guess I just like compare it a little bit to the legacy process. And that's like typically, you know, in the old model of creating and developing content, it's like you pitch to, you know, specific executive. They have like, you know, either a mandate on this is the kind of content we want to create or here's kind of like a personal taste that, you know, taste profile that they have.

And they green light, they option in green light based on really kind of like how they feel about it and based on their expertise and their experience, which I don't want to discount that because I think that they're, you know, like there definitely has been really successful things that have been created and, you know, kind of based off with that model. But I think that there is something about leaning into community. There, you know, we are, we are a company that values data that values technology. And I think there. the beauty of what you are able to do now in terms of like really getting audience reaction. And I don't, you know, like, I think that there's also like a misconception of like, oh, well, like you're putting it up and you're just like seeing what people like the comments. It's not, it is not at all that, you know, we're making decisions off of the comment section. Like that is not, you know, kind of like how this process works.

But I think what you're seeing is like there are some very nuanced things around when you put something up and you, you know, kind of like do these little beta tests and then what you're looking for is you're looking for, all right, is there, is like what's the profile of the audience that is kind of like aggregating around the content? What's the velocity of audience growth? What's the velocity of reach? Like, you know, how are they, you know, like, how long are they tuning in for? These are all things that can be teased out through this like new distribution system, the digital distribution system that is incredibly valuable data that will tell you like, okay, does this have an opportunity to grow? And, you know, we believe in like, you do have to like put things

out there in order to get that information. And it's important to fail fast, right? And that's a very, you know, that's a very technology sort of like point of view. But we do believe in that, you know, you fail fast so that you can get to the right next project. And I think that's a very, you know, That's a great thing for creators and storytellers, too, because I think that there is sort of a tendency of, like, from a creative standpoint, you sort of like, you really want to hang on to that creative idea. And you're like, no, no, no, like, this can work. And, you know, to us, it's like, well, you know, time is something that I'm obsessed with time, right? Like, I think that it's critically important to be like, you can't waste time. And then I don't mean that. It's just like, you got to be efficient. I think it's really like there's an opportunity cost for everything. The long. longer you spend on a creative idea that maybe doesn't resonate, that's longer that, you know, you're not spending on the next idea that will. That's it. That big Reuben spoke about that when in his, on creativity, he very much spoke about holding

on to that idea and then letting go of it when the time is right. What you just was mentioning about is almost that's the real co-creation, the real fandom, the collaboration. It's not about the fans. writing the song or writing the characters or writing the script. It's about that back and forth between what's working and what's not working and the right fans finding the right creators rather than this kind of, you've had a problem with that in the past, Jeremy, about musicians kind of giving the baseline to somebody in the audience

just because they're a fan. It's not exactly how it's evolving, is it? Yeah, I got a question for you, John, related to that. Like, and set the tone of like over the last two or three, three years, I thought it was like really interesting to give people pieces of IP to let them do their own creations. But I think people largely want to sit and be entertained. They don't want to necessarily do the creative piece of that. You know, not all of them, right? You have creators and you have people that love stories and that sort of thing. So Mark mentioned the idea of like

fan interaction and community involved in that sort of thing. Again, you guys are very tech forward. What are you guys thinking about moving into the future to create that engagement? Are you thinking about any kind of real time, like, interaction with fans? Are you doing, like, you know, live stream? Yeah, what's happening, John? What are you doing? Yeah. I mean, so, so, yes.

I mean, and we've done different, so different flavors of that. So, yeah, and just that. Like, when we look at community participation, fan engagement, there is, there is like basically a spectrum of ways fans can get, you know, can engage. And it's, it's everything from, you know, to your point, it's everything from as sort of simple as like a, you know, can be a comment or a share is sort of baseline version. And that's still engagement. To commenting on narrative to actually, we've done, we did it with the gimmicks.

and then we did it with another project called Space Jump, where we let the fans, it was basically it was kind of like Choose Your Own Adventure to ask, where the fans got to vote, and then the vote would impact the narrative of the subsequent episode. And so we've done stuff like that, and then I would say probably, and then the sort of the highest level form of that is

we've done several things around fan fiction, and letting the community, you know, create their own characters. We did that with the gimmicks. And we did, you know, and I think you're right. Like, I think there's like that universe of people that want to participate to that level is probably a fairly limited universe. Because that, you know, that takes a fair amount of work to create your own character. And we did it with the gimmicks where with people had their, their, their, you know, their, their, their, their NFTs, they could, they could basically write back

stories for their NFTs. And then we had a, we basically built a, we built a social layer for the gimmicks on, you know, on the, on, on chain. And that social layer allowed people to vote. And then the person, you know, that, that got the most votes for their, their, their character, then they won, they basically won a cameo appearance in an episode. So then if you, you know, if you were, if the, if the. character created got the, you know, was the most popular, then you actually got to voice your own character that you wrote the story for in an episode, which is, you know, that was hugely popular, partly because, you know, it's, it's a, now of a sudden that that person, you know, gets IMDB credit in a, you know, in a Milo Kunis produced, you know, series and, you know, that, that's a big deal. So that, that was popular. But what we did, you know, did learn is what you're saying. It's like, they're only, you know, only at, you know, of people that will sort of like lean in to do something to that level. And our first version of that was very, you know, I'll say an analog, but it was, it was like we had created basically a wiki and you had to go in and sort of write, write your own story from scratch.

And then we did the same thing for space jump, but we actually then brought AI into that process. And so we created a character in space junk. There's a character called Well Becca and she's a, she's a wellness robot. And so what happens is, what happened with SpaceJunk is that same thing. If you, you know, you had your token and you wanted to write your, you had your T and you wanted to write your backstory, you would go to Well, Becca. And basically, that was, it was all powered through generative AI. She would, she would then help you write, write your character story. And the reason we did that is, and we actually saw a much higher level of conversion or engagement into that process. process, mostly because you weren't, you know, the other day we learned, and I think we,

we knew this already, but starting from a white, you know, like a blank, blank page is very different than starting from like prompts. And, and I think this is partly why, you know, you know, chat GPTs are popular because it's like you put in prompts and then it gives you, you know, then the output's there. And then you can modify the output. You can, you know, you can take it, leave it, take pieces of it, whatever you want to do. But at least with prompts, it's giving you the starting point it's giving you a framework it's giving you know it's it's probably on average at least getting you 50% of you know 50% of the way of where you want to go and you know something getting you 50% of the way there that that sort of quickly and easily that that's valuable and and so that's what we saw with

you know with with with with with space junk and and yeah and you know so I think we're we're we're going to continue to do more things like that that involved the community in different ways. I think, you know, again, like, that was our first, that was our first attempt at using generative AI on the community facing side because before we were using just, you know,

on the production side. And so that was the first time we used it directly with, you know, consumers and fans. And I think we'll do, we'll do more of that because we do, you know, we just, I think, fundamentally believe that especially younger audiences and also agree with you. Like, I think there's sometimes,

people just do want to like I think there's a group of fans and consumers that just want to watch and it's a lean back experience and that's that's cool and then there's a group that want to you know participate engage in some way and I think you know what you see happening with gaming and what you know gaming so popular and you know and why YouTube is the largest you know streaming platform in in the world that I think sort of tells you that okay yeah there's there's this sort of like new you know these younger generations are looking to sort of, you know, consume, you know, engage in different ways. And so we'll, you know, we'll definitely continue to experiment with that. But I think at the same time, we'll always run a balance of like we believe that, you know,

at least our approach is that we want to start with character. Again, going back, like character and story is the foundation, and that's the starting point. And then from there, things can sort of like, you know, grow or emerge. versus I know there were some projects that were all about like, you know, it's going to be 100% you know, bottom, you know, like community up. And well, you know, I'll say like I won't say that that can't work, but I think that's a tougher. If you, you know, if the goal is to create a story world that's got franchise potential,

I think that that could be, you know, a tougher, tougher way to do it. Man, that's a theme that runs through like literally every discussion we have, this tradeoff between hierarchical and emergent systems and like where the handoff is. in the benefit of those. Mark, I know your mind's too, and what questions are swirling through your head? The first question is, you seem like you're both coming from a very good place, and it seems very, very genuine, and you have experience of creators and writers who have been crushed by the system or can't get into the system. But we also spoke about, you mentioned gaming a minute ago, a lot of our shows, we've spoken about the metaverse, and brands, like,

like to get their hands into the pie, don't they? So have you had conversations with brands? Are you having conversations with the brands about doing this for them? Because they, I mean, a lot of the cartoons that I watched, the animation I watched, you could imagine the big brand sticking their kind of personality onto it and... Brought to you by a sugary cereal and it's after a thing. Yeah. Yeah.

What are you guys doing on the brand side? If anything. You know, I think the benefit of the benefit of what we sort of like do is because there is, you know, these creators, they have a certain sort of like personality in a certain lane that that I think, you know, is the authenticity. It's like such a, you know, kind of big word that is used a lot in the, like, influence our social media content spaces. but there is sort of like in like an authentic lane for each and every single one of these like characters and brands of like, you know, content. And then there's, you know, brands of products that really kind of like make sense and would, you know, really authentically work. So you take a look at something like Stephen and Parker, like how that's really working is like, yes, there have been sort of discussions around like, you know, with brands or like with certain episodes in which maybe it makes. sense for you know Stephen to want to visit a certain store because that's something that he you know

like just organically like would do and participate like Halloween was just like a big holiday right and so you know he's got you know certain costumes that he really loves he's got certain characters that he himself as a character is like you know obsessed with right so he loves dinosaurs and so there's like a lot of like dinosaurs sort of like content that's embedded in there and so there's very specific organic types of stuff that you that that lives in his world that he as a character um you know participates in and those are the kinds of like brands and those are the kinds of like you know potential collaborations that makes sense and actually makes you know like potential like you know like actual partnerships work you would never see you would never see sort of like the

you know Stephen and Parker world you know talk about I don't know cars it's a it's a And it just wouldn't make any sense, right? Like that he's, he's like a eight-year-old kid, right? Like, what does he love? He loves Roblox. He loves Batman. He loves Jeebos. He loves Dino Nuggies.

Like those are kind of like the categories in which he, you know, kind of like lives in. So it's almost like the content has to live, I think, for a bit and kind of stew for a bit before like some of these ideas come out instead of saying, yeah, hey, I'm a gummy bear brand. And I want to give you 500,000 bucks. What can you do for me? And it's like, that doesn't normally. work as well. I mean, the money's great, but it's like the executions tend to fail, right? Right. And that, I mean, like, that's really, I think that's kind of like that area of like, well, then that would just be an advertisement, right? Like, then you might as well just make an ad. And,

you know, that's just completely about the brand and it would be on brand. And that would, but these are kind of like collaborations where where it's like, hey, like this is genuinely something that this character or this world would like participate in. Like Stephen's older brother, Parker is a musician, right? He, you know, loves music. He has his own band. And so there's a whole ecosystem of things that make sense for Parker that is different than for Stephen. And that's really kind of like how we view this, re-reviewed this world and like what kind of collaborators make sense.

And, you know, and that's different for other projects. Like, you know, like gimmicks would be different than. like a space junk, right? And so these are all kind of like those, those are the decisions in which you sort of would make to bring brands on board into the experience. Because at the end of the day, you wouldn't, you know, we're really about creating franchise IP and fandom is incredibly important and community is incredibly important. And their, you know, audiences are really, really smart, right and and it's not even so much that they mind being advertised to but you just have to be authentic about it right like they're like okay like we get it there's sponsorship type of like but you'll hear about it if it's like an off-based one too you'll hear yeah yeah yeah like what are you doing like that's crazy so so i think that's sort of like you know the north star at the end of the day no matter what is really just about like okay well what is your story what are the characters and and what is like you know what is like you know the north star at the end of the day no matter what is like You have to have a very firm grasp of like what to do they stand for.

And you have to really be authentically sort of like focused on that. Yeah. Awesome. I was kind of actually thinking about looking at the viewing figures on YouTube that in the millions and millions. How maybe a brand could actually diversify into making its own IP into these short animations that would act as, yeah, an advert essentially at the beginning. but it actually becomes a creative IP that they could use to create a personality around the brand rather than being adverts placed into existing IP,

new brand IP, yeah. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's been an awesome, awesome chat. I, you know, want to kind of think about gracefully landing the plane of this episode that is organically sponsored by Story and Carrier. Our two sponsors today, story and character. Let me ask you, let me ask each of you this question, if I could. Let's see, Louisa, I'll start with you.

What is one thing you want creators to know about your organization and what you guys are doing? I think that, what is one thing that, gosh, that's a good question. I think we want, you know, creators and storytellers to know that we, are, you know, they are the lifeblood of really, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, we started the company really in support of trying to get as many different stories and as many, um, you know, different ideas out there. And, and so that's really kind of like the, the, the north star of what, what, what this organization is about. And, and, and what we want to do is, like, we're really trying to, you know, create an ecosystem to help creators succeed and build long-term economic viability, you know,

for themselves and create IP. And that they need to sort of like think about, I encourage creators to kind of like change the lens of how they think about the relationship in that, you know, it's to think about their creative endeavors almost kind of like their own sort of like entrepreneurial creative endeavors like a lot of sort of like the relationship of how traditionally they like a lot of creators and a lot of storytellers have thought about is like okay well I have this creative idea I'm going to pitch and so and then I'm going to sell my idea so like like your ideas become this like product that you're selling to someone else and I think the system in which we really kind of like

think about and set up is like you're not selling us your idea You are, you know, becoming a, you know, co-producer and you're becoming a partner. And this is an entrepreneurial venture in which we do together, which just fundamentally changes the way that, you know, because then your creators are empowered, right? They have more say. They have more. But it's more say, but then it's also more responsibility. So it's like double edge.

100%. John, I'm going to, that's a great, great way to answer that. But we said, John, I'm going to flip it to you. what's one thing you want audiences to know and understand about what you guys are doing? Yeah, very good. That's a good question also. Yeah, so I think for audiences is that, you know, we're, you know, we're, you know, our, you know, our, you know, our mission is to produce, you know, characters, characters and, and, and, story worlds that are, you know, relevant to relevant to them.

And, and, you know, original, original stuff with, with creators that, you know, are, you know, super talented, great storytellers. A lot of these folks, you know, as fans, you probably, you probably already know in some way. Like, you might, you might follow them. You know, it's not, it's not an animated version of them yet. or an animated series, but you might, you know, you might like that creator storyteller already, you know, on, you know, YouTube or social media in some way.

And I think, you know, just, just, yeah, like, like we, you know, really want to, you know, create a, you know, what I would call sort of like the, a new generation of, you know, a new generation of, you know, animated icons that are things that, you know, that we, you know, this is sort of date, this will date me. But, you know, I grew up a child of Saturday morning cartoons. And I know how indelible those characters were for me, you know, growing up and beyond. And, you know, and they were so, you know, kind of like relevant to me.

And I think, you know, we absolutely understand, we do a lot of, we produce a lot with, with, you know, creators that are, you know, gen, you know, they're, they're, you know, younger generations. It's like, you know, Gen Z, you know, Gen Alpha, you know, millennial creators that that are, have ideas and stories that, you know, we think are going to, you know, resonate with, with these younger audiences in a way, you know, and be available in a way that they, you know, be accessible, where they, they want to access the characters and stories and be accessible in a way that they want to, you know, engage with the characters and stories. And so that's very important to us. And I think

with that comes, you know, again, like we're obviously biased, but we think that's, you know, that the fugia, we think there's a ton of potential. We think the future is really bright there to create, you know, this next generation of these like, you know, these iconic, iconic characters. I like the thoughtfulness in the last bit of your answer there with accessibility and the ways of engagement. That's like something that isn't thought or wasn't traditionally thought of in like the Bohemoth system. They would just put something in place and like fire it through the through the channel and you know, hope for the best. But that's awesome. Thank you guys for that.

Brute, brute force. That's right. That's right. Mark, you want to, should we wrap with the handoff question? Do we want to do the quick handoff and then have these guys leave one for our next guest? Yep. I just want to add my piece of hope for that. This come full circle with me.

I like John grew up watching Saturday morning television and now I sit with my children and I watch cartoons and cartoons are a huge, huge part of our collective culture. They are, you can't escape them. They're part of you when you're growing up and now when you're an adult. And I'm very hopeful to see how. this kind of technology how my children embrace it and what kind of cartoons they were watched based on this

so I'm very hopeful for that. Thank you. Our question was about quantum. We've been in quantum season. A lot recently we've been speaking to a lot of very, very smart people about things we don't really understand. And her question for you was if you're thinking about quantum,

well, we would speak about post- quantum cryptography. So have you thought about quantum computers in any way? Either of you. I'm sorry to Louis She said. And if the answers no, that's cool. I need more coffee, although I guess it's only nine o'clock in the morning. Quantum mechanics. Well, there's a thing called superposition and we'll start there in right now. Right. And say this would be that great be of some butthead scene, Jeremy. And if the answer is no, maybe it'd be better if we could ask you to leave a question for our next guests who are also working in AI. But I think they're more on the design of the language models part of this.

So yeah, any question on the impact of emerging technologies on business and culture that springs tomorrow. Maybe we should have two questions, Jeremy, one each. So I will say, I don't know very much about quantum. I did have a conversation with somebody who was in that space. And I legitimately walked away with the conversation and like, wow, like my, my head hurts. Yeah. Yeah. So I think question. So question for your next guest.

I am fascinated by, you know, kind of like language, kind of language in. and what is happening in the AI space around like language and language models. I'm really interested in the question of like how language models are reconciling between just kind of like fundamentally like there's different cultures that are actually driven by the language or you know kind of both ways, right? Culture and language, it's like very much intertwined. And so, you know, coming, like my background is like I, I am, you know, like I was born in Taiwan and I moved, you know, here when I was very young and I am bilingual. And I have seen sort of like both culturally and language speaking, like the, the mesh of cultures is just, you know, very near and dear to

me. And I'm fascinated and I'm interested in like, how are they reconciling between how, like, the the language culture and how do you really sort of get to a point in which, you know, language can be sort of like universal in terms of like kind of like being, you know, translated between the two cultures to really drive more sort of like common grounded understanding and, you know, how AI is really kind of helping power that. Fabulous. I love that. I love that.

That's perfectly landed at the intersection of culture and tech. Great job. Sure has. Well, awesome. Well, thank you so much for spending your time with us. Thanks for, thanks for building what you're building. Mark and I will be in touch soon to pitch our show idea. Yeah. Well, we actually did a, so back in the Musically days, we actually did a live, the, when I mentioned that Poppy, the Poppy character, we did a live stream version of the show. So you like the, you kind of think it was, it was basically. Basically like space goes coast to coast. It was like a variety show, but it was a lot. And it was live animation.

And it was at the time, it was one of the top, top shows on musically. Yeah, so we definitely, yeah, it's, we're familiar with it. So super cool, super cool. Well, thanks for, thanks for hanging. Thanks for breaking this stuff down for us. Guys, thank you for listening. And for more information. about us, you can check us out at Thinking on Paper.xyZ. Mark's going to tell you about the book club.

We actually are engaging in the original technology, pages, words, stories, characters, too, sometimes. And we read these books together. And yeah, tell them what's up, Mark. I'll show them if they're watching. Yeah, so we have a book club where we read books, rather we're with the rebellion to the 15 minute book summary. We are the antithesis of that. Let's all read 100 books in a year and learn nothing and remember even. less. So we spend one week on each chapter of a book and we've actually just released our next book

which will be starting in two weeks. Nexus by Yuval Noah Harari. A brief history of information networks from the Stone Age to AI. So if you want to read it with us, it'll be live. So we'll share some links. Go to thinking on paper xyz by the book and come and read it with us.

Be curious. Stay disruptive. Keep thinking on paper.