File under... by Nick Dorra Production mindset shifts In animation production the animatic is gospel, but with AI in the mix the required mindset is much closer to live-action!Animation production people have been taught one rule above all others: lock your animatic, then execute. Don't mess with the story once it's approved. That discipline is how you stay on budget when every single frame costs real money.But AI production breaks that rule, due to both the limits and strengths of the...
3 days ago • 2 min read
File under... by Nick Dorra My AI TD is now a responsive knowledge base. Quick context if you missed Part 1: I set up an OpenClaw bot called Frank TD — basically an autonomous AI agent that runs on my own virtual server and can actually do things, not just chat. In the last post, I expanded on how Frank built me a ComfyUI pipeline from scratch. Here's the next chapter.My OpenClaw Technical Director is now also my evolving, responsive knowledge base. Last week I shared how I built an OpenClaw...
11 days ago • 2 min read
The 1+1 newsletter by Nick Dorra Is the gap between creator standards and audience needs widening? I was reading out of a children's book the other day, when a sailboat illustration caught my eye. At first glance, I was delighted - finally, someone had drawn a boat that actually looked like a real sailboat! They'd drawn a 7/8 fractional rig, included the reinforcement at the head of the mainsail, and several other technical details that really had me convinced.But when asked to read the story...
11 months ago • 1 min read
The 1+1 newsletter by Nick Dorra “AI won’t replace human art” - but let’s unpack what Demis Hassabis actually means On the latest episode of NYT’s Hard Fork, Google DeepMind CEO’s speaks to the limits of AI in art/storytelling/film, and I think we need nuance in how we interpret this: Breaking Down the "Soul" Statement When Hassabis says “a novel written by a robot might not feel like it has a soul,” some will hear: “any AI content will always lack soul.” But that’s not what he’s getting at....
11 months ago • 1 min read
The 1+1 newsletter by Nick Dorra Why you should be running internal AI tests Public broadcasters now ask every producer one extra question: can you prove your AI tools didn’t infringe on someone else’s IP? That alone is making a lot of indie studios pause before starting to test any workflows with scraped-data models. And fair enough - nobody wants to get into problems with their clients. Clean models are here and more are coming Two recent datapoints worth tracking: 👉 F-lite — launched this...
11 months ago • 1 min read
The 1+1 newsletter by Nick Dorra Why Skills Versatility Matters in the AI Era A really interesting observation is that with generative AI tools, the animation production process is taking on features of live-action filmmaking. Creators end up with footage based on the AI model's capabilities, then make it work in the edit - similar to film days when "fix it in post" wasn't always an option. You had what you had – or as we say in Finnish, "näillä mennään mitkä on". Chad Nelson's "SWITCH":...
about 1 year ago • 1 min read
The 1+1 newsletter by Nick Dorra When AI handles 80% of production, what is the 20% that retains value? The coming AI tsunami is going to affect the animation industry in profound ways. AI tools are making it easier than ever to produce animated content, which means we’re about to witness an unprecedented flood of AI-assisted animation hitting screens of all sizes. Sounds scary, right? But in any change, we can usually always find opportunities: Even in this deluge of AI-generated content,...
about 1 year ago • 2 min read
The 1+1 newsletter by Nick Dorra 5 Myths About AI and Animation In my conversations with animation studios over the past few months, I’ve noticed the same misconceptions about AI coming up repeatedly. I want to address these head-on, because they might be preventing you from achieving significant efficiency gains in your production pipeline. Myth 1: AI Can’t Produce Consistent Quality Many studios tell me they’ve experimented with generative AI tools and were disappointed with the...
about 1 year ago • 3 min read
The 1+1 newsletter by Nick Dorra FAQ: How much time can AI tools save me? We’ve now been helping companies figure out how to use AI in their animation workflows since October last year, and I thought I’d do a few posts on the Frequently Asked Questions we get. This week’s FAQ: How much time can these tools actually save us? The short answer, of course, is “it depends.” Just as you can’t easily answer “how much does animation cost?” without factoring in style, complexity, and intended viewing...
about 1 year ago • 1 min read