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Keeping up with FBRC
Battlebots x ComfyUI LA Meetup x AI Studio Report
Todd Terrazas
March 04, 2025
Hello there, and welcome to the Common Thread Newsletter by FBRC.AI.
This newsletter will keep you updated on the latest advances in AI-driven creativity. We are a team of industry veterans, entrepreneurs, creatives, and technologists building Hollywood X!
Table of Contents
Upcoming Opportunities
ETC Projects 8 and 9
FBRC.ai has partnered with ETC (the Entertainment Technology Center) at USC to work on two projects:
Project 8 - Pathways - A Hybrid AI Adventure - "After the death of his grandfather, a young boy embarks on a time-bending adventure through Columbian history, meeting his ancestors and developing a connection with his heritage."
Project 9 - The Bends- An Artist-Driven, Hybrid AI Fable. "A humble yet determined deep-sea fish embarks on a treacherous journey to the surface, seeking beauty in the world, even if it means being forever altered by it."
Currently, the projects are looking for:
Art Director (Animation Background)
Production Design Consultant
Concept Artist (2D → 3D)
3D Modeler / Sculptor
GenAI Artist (ComfyUI)
Gen AI Advisor
Unreal
This is meant to be a part-time research project. You'll have the opportunity to build your network through collaboration with a collective of industry professionals and final showcases at industry events like the NAB Show and AI on the Lot. If you’re interested, let us know here…
AI Studio Report
Our AI Studio report is still collecting entries! If you started an independent “AI-native” (whatever that means to you), we’d love to hear your perspective! We’re contacting studios on the list to complete more in-depth interviews.
We’re also collating the insights from the survey and launching our first Quarterly AI Studio Report at the Austin AI Film Festival during SXSW on March 14th. You'll receive a print version if you’re attending (and one of the first 200 attendees). If not, we’ll make a version available to all subscribers.
Official ComfyUI LA Meetup (March 6th)
Join us for the first official ComfyUI Meetup in LA, hosted at the former Snapchat Office in Venice Beach.
This event is sponsored by us and Playbook3D and will feature speakers, including Midjourney Man, Spencer Sterling, Machine Delusions, Hassan Syed, Alexander Katzfey, Federico Arboleda, and JD & Skylar at Playbook3D.
ComfyAnonymous will be joining us remotely for a Q&A.
Connect with fellow enthusiasts and dive deeper into the creators, models, and startups building on top of ComfyUI.
Fill out this form if you would like to present your work in ComfyUI with the community.
Battlebots x GenBattle @ NAB April 6th
Join us on April 6th 6pm+
Last year, Curious Refuge, the world’s first home for AI Storytellers produced the world’s first creative AI Esports Tournament in collaboration with the TV Academy Emerging Media Programming Peer Group with the support of FBRC.ai, Puget Systems, and Devant.
This year FBRC.ai is taking over the responsibility of producing the 2nd edition of this new AI Filmmaking tradition at NAB with the support of Curious Refuge.
This year, we are hosting the competition at Battlebots Arena and infusing the live robotic combat with cutting-edge Gen AI creativity. GenBattle competitors will craft video segments inspired by each of the 5 rounds of the live bot fights, culminating in a unified 30‑second ad by the end of the competition!
The NAB conference attracts over 64k attendees and we aim to gather 1k of them for 3 hours at the Battlebots Arena in Vegas for a first-of-its-kind experience!
🌟 We will make an official announcement next week, but if you are interested in sponsoring and helping offer prizes to our winners, please email [email protected]
We’ve Been Busy…
Creative Control Hackathon
Over Super Bowl weekend, we hosted an experimental Workflow Hackathon with Luma AI, Playbook3D, Modtech, and Elevenlabs. The event brought together over 14 teams for a nonstop 24-hour blitz.
Renowned VFX supervisor Robert Legato led a masterclass on the evolution of filmmaking tools. Drawing on his extensive experience, he shared insights with developers on how today's generative AI tools function and outlined the enhancements needed to empower directors with greater creative control.
Using Luma AI's Ray2 APIs, teams developed innovative, generative-centered tools that push the boundaries of how directors can define parameters, steer creative execution, and shape their overall vision with generative AI.
We’re excited to share that the event sparked a wealth of fresh ideas, and our first-place teams are now in a six-week incubator to help them develop their prototypes into proof-of-concepts.
Winners
Creative Camera Control Track
First Place: Bold Control: Built an analog-augmented solution to guide "steerability" of the generative camera with automated keyframing for longer clips
Second Place: CBB: Create consistent plates that could be utilized for virtual production while adapting to different environmental conditions
Creative Scene Control Track
First Place: A Thousand Hands: Built an agentic system for iterating on scripts at scale while creating shared location parameters
Second Place: FrameForge: Created a system to greybox 3D environments to guide generative output
Creative Actor Control Track
First Place: bldrs: Built a system to control ComfyUI to guide performance-related parameters
Second Place: The Feelings: Experimented with emotion-specific LoRAs for more realistic performances
HPA Retreat
We headed out to Palm Springs for the HPA Tech Retreat in February and showed up to talk about the ways that AI was providing production efficiencies across categories.
On Monday, as part of a day on TR-X focused around AI-enabled efficiencies, Rachel joined Renard Jenkins and Denys Krasnikov on stage to discuss the pipelines most affected by these changes and the ways that the future of fragmented capture would force us to rethink those pipelines in general.
On Tuesday, we showed up at the Supersession in a big way to talk about new ways that creators are interacting with technology. That included Todd chatting with a digital twin he trained of HPA’s Mark Schbuin over Zoom.
Throughout the day’s Supersession, we also ran our “Live Without A Net” demo, working with talented participants like Joey Daoud, Iryna Abramitova, and Gino Bautista to explore what creative collaboration looks like with increasingly efficient AI tools.
Each participant worked live on one of three challenges over the course of the day: editing a documentary short from 20 hours of footage, dubbing a 30-minute documentary, and creating 50 clips for socials from a live broadcast. The goal was not only to explore the new AI workflows that enable these processes to be completed, but to explore what the tradeoff on control and automation looked like.
We got to share the results live at HPA to close out the Supersession, and we’ll be publishing a report soon diving into the learnings.
Upcoming Events
We’ll be attending events over the next few months. If you’ll be there, let us know!
AI Film Festival During SXSW
In addition to Rachel’s panel on Artificial Presences on March 11th (which will include a conversational robot on stage), Todd will be at the AI Film Festival concurrent to SXSW.
The Austin AI Film Festival is hosting the world's leading AI film directors, studios, thought leaders, and technologists.
When: March 14th and 15th, 9am-7pm
Where: AT&T Conference Center, Grand Ballroom in Austin, Texas
Experience the future of filmmaking at the AT&T Conference Center. Two days of AI films, panels, art and tech debuts featuring leading directors and studios.
Highlights:
- Film screenings of finalists from 1500+ submissions.
- An Awards Show and After Party to celebrate and network with leaders in the space
- An AI director panel including Jason Zada - Founder @ Secret Level, and Kavan Cardoza - Co-founder @ Phantom X.
- A conversation on ethics in AI filmmaking including Heather VanDyke - Founder @ Javelina Legal, and Nik Kleverov - Chief Creative Officer @ Native Foreign
- A panel on the future of filmmaking including Joshua Michael Stern, Film and TV Director, and Todd Terrazas, Co-founder @ FBRC.ai and AI LA.
- and more legends in media & entertainment, technologists in artificial intelligence, education professionals etc.
Purchase the VIP experience to attend the Awards Show and After Party with these industry professionals.
Use code FBRC25 for 15% off.
PropelME @ NAB Show
Interested in exhibiting or speaking? Reply back to learn more or email Todd.
