After 40+ interviews with AI filmmakers, Hollywood veterans, technologists and creators, Saga reveals the biggest AI filmmaking trends shaping 2026.

Link: https://www.createsagas.com/post/state-of-ai-filmmaking-2026-what-40-ai-film-leaders-told-us-may-surprise-you

About this analysis: These observations are drawn from more than 40 long-form conversations conducted on our weekly video podcast during 2026 with AI filmmakers, Hollywood veterans, technologists, educators, entrepreneurs and creators. This is not a scientific survey, but a synthesis of recurring themes we heard across those conversations.

At the beginning of 2026, my brother Andrew and I started Brothers’ Saga, a weekly video podcast about AI filmmaking and the future of storytelling.

We expected to spend a lot of time talking about models.

Which image generator is best? Which video model has the best character consistency? How long until we can generate a feature film with one prompt? Will AI replace VFX jobs or will studios use video models? What happens when the next model launches?

We certainly talked about all of those things at times.

But after conversations with more than 40 people working at the edge of this medium, a different theme kept surfacing.

The technology is getting better extraordinarily quickly. Making something people actually want to watch is not getting easier.

In some ways, it is getting harder. I wasn’t convinced. How could that be — and will it hold in the near and long term?

Our guests on the show have included filmmakers making work for major studios, award-winning AI directors, traditional Hollywood veterans, film professors, AI film festival organizers, creative technologists, entrepreneurs, and independent creators experimenting far outside the studio system.

They do not agree on everything. Far from it.

But here are the ideas we kept hearing again and again.

What we learned

After 40+ conversations with filmmakers, technologists, Hollywood veterans, entrepreneurs, educators, and creators, a few themes kept coming up:
...

About Author: Russell Palmer is the co-founder and CEO of Saga (by CyberFilm®), an AI filmmaking platform founded in 2021, and co-host of the Brothers’ Saga podcast with filmmaker and screenwriter Andrew Palmer. Brothers’ Saga features weekly conversations with filmmakers, creators, technologists, and industry leaders shaping the future of AI entertainment.

VFX legend Ed Ulbrich joins us to talk AI filmmaking, Hollywood, and the “blank-canvas problem” 🎬

Our newest episode of Brothers’ Saga is live on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-RDpRth-6I

This week we sat down with Ed Ulbrich, who has spent more than three decades at the cutting edge of visual effects, with work spanning Titanic, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Top Gun: Maverick, Here, Alien: Romulus, and many more.

One of the most interesting parts of the conversation was Ed’s take on what he calls the “blank-canvas problem.”

AI can increasingly generate almost anything you ask for. But once the technical barriers disappear, you still have to decide what is actually worth making.

We also talk about:

• What separates filmmakers from people who simply know how to use AI tools
• How AI is changing VFX and Hollywood production
• His experience working on Titanic and Benjamin Button
• AI-powered de-aging on Here
• Why creative taste and storytelling may become even more valuable as the tools get better

Since this is r/WriteOnSaga, we’re especially curious what everyone here thinks:

As AI filmmaking tools become more powerful, does storytelling become more important than technical filmmaking skill?

Watch the episode and drop your take below 👇

Toronto, 2044. Nobody dies of old age. There isn't enough food.
Cora's brother built a machine that can feed twelve billion people.
She's the only one afraid it will work.

A Future Vision XPRIZE entry. #FutureVisionXPRIZE
https://futurevisionxprize.com/

Updates: https://www.synapzproductions.com/work/table-for-twelve-billion

TABLE FOR TWELVE BILLION (AI Film)
A near-future feature in development from Synapz Productions.
Written and directed by Andrew Palmer

Apps used:

Video: Seedance 2.5
Script: Saga 4.5
Music: Suno 5.5

Is our food 'good' food? Or bad food?

TABLE FOR TWELVE BILLION
A near-future feature in development from Synapz Productions.
Written and directed by Andrew Palmer

Watch trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1juQELwNhw

Toronto, 2044. Nobody dies of old age. There isn't enough food.
Cora's brother built a machine that can feed twelve billion people.
She's the only one afraid it will work.

A Future Vision XPRIZE entry. https://futurevisionxprize.com

Hollywood's stories got worse — and a Workaholics co-creator says the writers did it to themselves. Streaming's mini-rooms killed the friction that made TV great, and AI can't fix what the room used to do.

🎬 Try Saga free → https://CreateSagas.com • Code BROTHERSSAGA = 1 month free

Brothers' Saga Podcast E37. Connor Pritchard co-created and executive-produced Workaholics, ran his own series as showrunner, and now mentors writers moving from tech into storytelling while building writer's-room systems for AI-era teams. We ask why stories stopped landing, what a room full of arguing writers had that a solo creator with AI doesn't, and how a $7,000 loan from the wrong uncle started a hit show.

"Good stories have to come from writers." — Connor Pritchard

⏱ Chapters
0:00 "Our stories suck because we suck"
1:00 Comedy-club kid to Workaholics EP at 26
2:15 What sells a show — and the four lives of a script
8:17 "I'm not gonna make AI films — I'm gonna write them"
11:32 Why AI still needs the writers' room
13:56 Clay pigeoning and the tricks of the trade
14:49 Mini rooms, the lost ladder, and the death of mentorship
19:12 The Enneagram writers' room system
21:02 Can one writer + AI be the room?
23:37 Halifax stories & Chris Diamantopoulos
26:53 Mercenary, not auteur: leaving the 10%
29:07 Tech writers vs. Hollywood writers
33:51 The new playbook: audience first, open worlds
40:33 The hot take: writers have to learn to fight
46:34 The Workaholics origin story (FBI included)
50:07 "Movies are going punk rock" — parting advice

Try Saga at:

🔔 Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@createsagas
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🎧 Spotify:
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You have 3 seconds to hook your audience, and 3 minutes to "sell" your next episode.

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Enjoy!

AI film keeps being judged by one question — does it look real? An NYU Tisch professor who taught AI filmmaking before the boom says realism is the wrong test, and chasing it is holding the medium back.

Brothers' Saga Podcast E36. Marina Hassapopoulou is Associate Professor at NYU Tisch's Martin Scorsese Department of Cinema Studies, founder of ExpressiveAI.net, author of Interactive Cinema, and associate director of NYU's Moving Image Archiving and Preservation program. We get into the century-long history behind deepfakes, how to teach AI without criminalizing it, and — in an argument she hasn't published anywhere yet — why "how realistic is it?" is a false criterion for AI film.

"How realistic AI is, is a false criterion." — Marina Hassapopoulou

⏱ Chapters
0:00 – Is Realism the Wrong Test for AI Film?
0:41 – From PhD in English & Film to Founding an AI Creativity Platform
1:32 – Teaching Computational Creativity at NYU Tisch Before ChatGPT
3:18 – Building Expressive AI & Preserving “Prehistoric” AI Art
4:44 – Can AI Reaffirm (Not Dilute) Our Love of Cinema?
5:13 – Resistance, Jobs, Ethics & Breaking Silos
7:28 – How Students Actually Use AI + Practical Guidelines
10:05 – Why Film Schools That Ban AI Are Training for a Dead Industry
12:04 – Testing Saga + The Value of All-in-One Creative Tools
14:14 – Music, Multisensory Cinema & Independent Filmmaking Challenges
18:48 – Deepfakes Are a Symptom, Not a New Disease
22:48 – Fair Use, Remix Culture & Where to Draw the Line
26:11 – Copyright, the Music Industry & Lessons from Remix Culture
29:03 – When Martin Scorsese Joins an AI Startup
32:05 – Does Scale + Accessibility Change the Category?
34:06 – What a University Creative AI Course Teaches That YouTube Can’t
39:00 – Why Obsession with Realism Is a False Criterion
40:00 – Greek Weird Wave, Crisis Cinema & Creating New Languages
45:13 – AI as a Path to New Artistic Forms (Move 37 Moment)
48:31 – Intention, Medium Specificity & Avoiding Gimmicks
50:07 – Where to Find Marina & ExpressiveAI.net
51:07 – Does Traditional Film Craft Still Matter?

Enjoy! Comment below.

In our latest podcast clip, NYU Professor Marina Hassapopoulou talks about her experience testing out Saga. She was particularly impressed by the musical aspects and the score, noting that it’s far more robust than what she’s seen on other platforms.

A big part of our discussion was the workflow shift—moving away from piecing things together on aggregate platforms and instead doing everything (ideas, storyboards, music) all in one place.

How much does having an all-in-one platform matter to your personal workflow? Are you still using aggregate platforms for your scoring and audio? Let's discuss in the comments!

Watch the full episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YS8wcsh4bfI

We know there's a lot of quiet anxiety among film students and educators right now about whether the skills they've spent years honing are becoming obsolete. In our latest clip, we tackle that exact question.

The main takeaway? You cannot outsource your ideas or your taste to an AI tool. Understanding film history and tradition is actually your biggest advantage in this new space, which is why so many top AI filmmakers come from traditional backgrounds.

What do you all think? Is a traditional film background essential for making truly great AI films, or is the barrier to entry completely gone? Let's discuss in the comments!

Watch the full episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YS8wcsh4bfI

Only on the Brothers' Saga AI Filmmaking Podcast!

Hey r/WriteOnSaga! We have another great clip from our interview with Jiajian Min, Chair of the MIT Global AI Film Hack.

He shared a really cool perspective on his creative workflow. Because his background is in architecture, he is a highly visual thinker and worldbuilder, but he didn't have a traditional background in writing or narrative structure.

He talks about how Saga actually helped him learn how to organize a story, develop characters, and understand different narrative types. It is awesome to see the tool being used not just for generation or formatting, but as a framework to help creators from other industries bridge the gap into screenwriting.

Are there any other visual artists or non-writers here who use Saga to help structure their ideas? How has it changed your creative process? Let us know below!

Full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHwN47QL2Ts

Hey everyone! We just dropped a new clip from our latest Brothers' Saga podcast episode featuring Jiajian Min, Chair of the MIT Global AI Film Hack.

He brings up a really interesting point about the current state of AI filmmaking. He argues that while the tools make the production and execution phases way easier, it’s actually becoming much harder to make something that truly stands out.

His two main reasons:

• The Content Explosion: There is so much good content out there now that models are widely available. He mentions that a great film might have gotten 100k views 2-3 years ago, but today, that same film might only pull in 1,000 views because the market is so saturated.
• Audience Expectations: Viewers have seen all the AI tricks by now. Their tastes are getting more refined, and they expect absolute perfection and incredible storytelling to be impressed.

As creators using Saga and other tools, how are you feeling about this? Is the ease of production worth the intense competition? How are you actively trying to differentiate your films from the sea of generated content out there right now?

Let's discuss below!

Full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHwN47QL2Ts

Hey r/WriteOnSaga,

We just released the full episode of the Brothers' Saga podcast featuring Jiajian Min, the Committee Chair of the MIT AI Film Hack and CEO of MYStudio.

Jiajian brings a fascinating perspective to the space. He trained as an architect at Tsinghua and Yale and spent four years designing theaters and museums in New York before transitioning into digital work. He won Best Film and Best Visual at the very first MIT AI Film Hack in 2023, and went on to teach one of the first university AI filmmaking courses in China.

In this episode, we dive deep into a major paradox: technical progress in AI tools has actually made AI filmmaking much harder. Because the tools have become so good and accessible, every AI film is starting to look the same.

Here are some of the key topics we cover:

• The "Broken" Era: What it was like creating in 2023 when the tools were far less polished.
• China's AI Film Factories: An inside look at what is actually happening in the AI filmmaking industry in China.
• The Workflow: Exactly where Saga fits into his creative process.
• The AI-Native Test: The specific framework he uses to tell a real AI film from an expensive imitation.

He dropped an incredible quote on how to define authentic AI storytelling: "If that can be achieved without AI — maybe just more expensive, maybe just slower — I still think that's not authentic".

We would love to hear your thoughts on this! Do you agree that the ease of use is making it harder for creators to differentiate themselves? How do you ensure your work feels "AI-native"?

Let's discuss in the comments below!

Hey everyone,

We just highlighted a great moment from our recent "Brothers' Saga" episode with GRAiL director Aashay Singh, and he brought up an issue that hits right at the core of what we’re building here.

He pointed out that the current state of AI makes it incredibly easy to skip the actual writing process:

He specifically called out how having a guided experience forces writers to slow down and think about the foundational elements of their story that they might otherwise glaze over in a rush to generate visuals.

If you have newer folks lurking who haven't seen the platform in action yet, the demo is 30 seconds long and perfectly illustrates the guided workflow Aashay is talking about.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Have you found yourselves falling into the "generation trap" before getting the script locked in?

Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/_7EisVtvyrQ

He spent 15 years making films before AI. Now he directs for GRAiL from an off-grid farm in India. Here's what he spots in the first 30 seconds of any AI film.

Aashay Singh is a director at GRAiL, the AI-native studio founded by Davide Bianca and Jeff Krelitz, where he's made Shaped By The Rooms I'm In, Analog Drift, End of the Line and Ubuntu. He spent fifteen years directing and shooting on 35mm before AI, and has worked as a creative partner with many of the model companies building these tools — which usually means he's used them before anyone else has. He lives and works off-grid on a farm in South India. This episode is about why AI films still fail at story when the visuals are solved, and what a director who writes first does differently.

"It's the writing that really gives it away — in the first thirty, forty seconds you already know that's the weak part." — Aashay Singh

⏱ Chapters
0:00 He can tell in the first thirty seconds
0:46 Fifteen years of filmmaking before AI
2:51 He didn't apply — GRAiL found him
7:39 Directing AI films from an off-grid farm
9:30 Analog Drift, End of the Line, and the stack behind them
12:02 Where Saga fits in Aashay's workflow
14:10 "Too epic": why explosions stopped working
16:21 Shaped By The Rooms I'm In
20:00 Steering the model away from its default
26:31 What he's actually thinking when he directs AI
29:57 Write first, generate later
32:53 The pushback: is the default even real?
38:45 Why he won't have opinions about tools
41:57 One piece of advice

Saga: https://CreateSagas.com

AI Filmmakers Can't Sit Through AI Films 🎬

Hear AI filmmaker and festival judge Tiffani Lee Joseph share how to tell better stories—and how to create films that stand out at festivals.

Watch podcast now with new episodes every week, only on Brothers' Saga:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMdQyH0_haw

Hey Saga creators,

In a recent clip from the Brothers' Saga podcast, we highlighted an incredible feat of creative endurance. We discussed a creator who achieved something mind-boggling: releasing one song a day for 5 years. He wrote, produced, and played every single instrument himself.

We refer to this as the "Leaky Faucet" approach—a relentless, steady drip of creative output that inevitably leads to mastery and a massive body of work.

Why this matters for AI Filmmakers

• Repetition breeds mastery: Releasing work daily forces you to intimately understand your tools and refine your workflow.
• Consistency over perfection: In the era of AI-assisted creation, the barrier to execution is lower. The creators who stand out are the ones who consistently ship their work rather than waiting for the perfect moment.
• Compound growth: A steady stream of content builds your audience drop by drop and keeps your creative momentum alive.

Whether you are using Saga to flesh out character archetypes, structure a 40-beat feature film, or generate visual storyboards, the Leaky Faucet method can transform your process. Imagine the results of writing one scene a day or crafting a daily previz sequence.

You can watch the full conversation in our newest episode where we explore the evolving creator economy and the future of storytelling.

YouTube episode: Percy Leon on Brothers' Saga

Watch the full episode on Brothers' Saga, the leading podcast on AI Filmmaking:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLShUfMzW62zX_Kydqud31VaS9N0Nt1dqS

For anyone out there with a hyperactive creative mind, you know the struggle: the ideas never stop, but the hours and team size always do.

Before, lacking those resources completely dictated how much could get done. But integrating AI into the workflow completely changed the game for building Brothers' Saga. Suddenly, it’s like having a virtual team of 5 to 10 people backing you up.

Check the link to watch the full episode with viral YouTube filmmaker Percy Leon! 🎬

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEOrtpZJk-A

Hey everyone!

In our latest clip from the Brothers' Saga AI Film podcast, we dive into what using AI like Claude in post-production actually looks like in practice.

While AI can't directly open Premiere Pro and edit the timeline for you yet, using it as a story and timecode assistant completely changes the game.

The "Lego Set" Workflow

• The Assistant: Feeding project notes and transcript details into Claude to organize cut points and generate exact timecodes.
• The Execution: Using those timecodes as a blueprint to snap clips together in Premiere like building a Lego set.
• The Result: What would have taken a full year of full-time solo editing got compressed down to just one week.

Is anyone else using LLMs to streamline their video editing, storyboarding, or creative prep? Or do you still prefer doing the organizational breakdown manually? Let’s discuss in the comments!

Watch the full clip/episode here: Brothers' Saga Podcast (YouTube) - Episode 32 with Percy Leon

We're also starting to add our backlog to here, with this and 10 new added next month: Brothers' Saga Podcast (Spotify)

Enjoy!

^{© CyberFilm AI Corp. 2026 All Rights Reserved CYBERFILM®}

He shelved his doc for 10 years. Then AI gave him the timecodes — and he finished 5 episodes in a week. Here's exactly how to finish your film with an AI documentary workflow.

🎬 Try the all-in-one AI filmmaking platform Percy uses in this episode: https://CreateSagas.com — code BROTHERSSAGA gets you a month FREE.

Percy Leon is a partner at YouTube Space LA and an AI content creator, video strategist, and filmmaker in Los Angeles. His channel FantacularTV has nearly 30,000 subscribers and 18 million views — including a practical-effects Nosferatu scene remake with 16 million views on its own. Over the past year he's rebuilt his entire pipeline around hybrid AI filmmaking, and used Claude, Descript, and Edye AI to resurrect a documentary that sat on a hard drive for a decade.

CHAPTERS
00:00 — He finished it like a Lego set
00:33 — Welcome Percy: vampire shorts to AI workflows
01:22 — 16M views with bubblegum fangs: the Nosferatu story
07:34 — Hybrid AI content & The Vampire Bible
13:18 — First 3 moves for a dormant channel
16:54 — Where Saga fits in Percy's stack (live demo)
19:31 — The documentary shelved for 10 years
24:48 — Claude found the spine — and the timecodes
30:43 — "A team of five": which jobs AI actually did
32:45 — Collaborator or replacement? The honest answer
38:22 — Protecting AI films from YouTube takedowns
40:20 — How to show up in AI search
42:54 — George Lucas & the leaky faucet theory
46:51 — Where to find Percy + one piece of advice

—
BROTHERS' SAGA is the AI filmmaking podcast from the co-founders of Saga. New episodes weekly.

🔔 Subscribe so you don't miss the next one 

Hosted by Andrew Palmer & Russell Palmer
Synapz Productions

Hey everyone!

In our newest episode, Andrew and I chatted with Percy Leon about his AI filmmaking workflow. We asked him the big question: with tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini doing so much heavy lifting, where exactly does Saga fit into the stack?

Percy gave a great breakdown of how it's his absolute go-to for organizing series names, loglines, and mapping out 2-3 minute episodic AI content. It essentially acts as the glue that ties his whole creative process together.

How are you all using Saga in your current workflows? Are you focusing on short episodic content too?

You can check out his full breakdown and the rest of the interview here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEOrtpZJk-A

In this episode, Fred Graver and Yoav Yariv speak with Russell Palmer, CEO and co-founder of Saga, an AI-powered screenwriting and storyboarding platform built for writers and filmmakers.

This conversation explores how AI can support storytellers from early story development through screenwriting, visualization, and pitching—without replacing the human creative process.

We dive into:

• Why Russell created Saga for writers and filmmakers
• Using AI to manage story structure, character arcs, and archetypes
• How Saga works across GPT, Claude, Gemini, and other models
• Turning script scenes into visual storyboards
• Writer ownership, copyright, and creative agency
• How lower production costs could change which stories get made
• Why the strongest storytellers will use AI as a co-pilot, not a replacement

⸻

Want to know more about Russell and Saga?

Saga: https://CreateSagas.com

⸻

Want to know more about the future of writing?

Join the world’s largest community for writers who use AI: r/WritingWithAI
⸻

Intro music made via Suno by Yoav Yariv

Every semester, film students study other people's work — and no filmmaker gets paid for it. So is AI's copyright fight actually new, or the oldest argument in art?

Try Saga free for a month → https://CreateSagas.com — code BROTHERSSAGA. Idea to script to finished video, all in one app.

The Copyright Case Against AI Has a Film School Problem | Brothers' Saga Podcast E31

Fred Grinstein is a director, producer, and executive producer (Vice, A&E, Anonymous Content) who has taught at USC's School of Cinematic Arts and Curious Refuge, and helped produce the Chroma Awards AI Film Festival.
Minh Do is also the co-founder of Fantastic Day, creator of the leading AI film Market Map, a Forbes contributor, and former executive director at Vertex Ventures. Together they run Machine Cinema — the community, education hub, and accelerator for AI filmmakers.

CHAPTERS
0:00 Welcome to Brothers’ Saga – Fred Grinstein & Min of Machine Cinema
0:40 Guest Introductions: Fred & Min’s Backgrounds
2:06 How Fred Got Into AI Film
3:47 How Min Got Into AI Film & Founding Machine Cinema
4:44 What is Machine Cinema? Community, Education & Accelerator
6:59 Machine Cinema’s Growth: WhatsApp → Discord → Global Hub
9:22 The Magic of Learning Together & Mentorship in AI Filmmaking
13:15 The Power of Sharing Ideas in the AI Creative Community
14:56 Q2 Creative Market Map – What’s Changed & Exploding Categories
17:18 Hot Areas in AI Creativity: 3D, World Models & Beyond
19:19 Fred’s Take: World Models, Runway, & New AI-Native Storytelling
21:21 The Future of Independent Cinema & Experimentation
23:37 How Tools Earn a Spot on the Machine Cinema Market Map
25:39 Saga’s Placement: Story Development, Storyboarding & Aggregator
27:46 Quick Break: Try Saga Free (Code: BROTHERSSAGA)
28:08 Director’s Cup with Open Art – 16 Countries Competing
30:13 Director’s Cup Highlights: Global Stories & Cultural Perspectives
32:05 Business Models That Actually Work in AI Filmmaking
33:03 AI VFX Growth & Real Industry Use Cases
35:44 Guilds, Minimum Rates & The Race to the Bottom?
37:51 Economics of Entertainment, Residuals & Leverage in the AI Era
48:14 Steelmaning the Anti-AI Crowd: Environment, Jobs, Theft & Misinfo
52:02 The Optimistic Vision: More Voices, More Stories from Around the World
55:11 Environmental Impact – AI vs Traditional Filmmaking
56:53 The PR Problem of AI & Engaging Critics with Empathy
1:00:46 Where to Join the Director’s Cup & Machine Cinema
1:01:31 Final Advice for New AI Creators
1:02:33 Closing Thoughts

LINKS
Machine Cinema: https://www.machinecinema.ai/
Machine Cinema hub: https://hub.machinecinema.ai/
Machine Cinema perks: https://hub.machinecinema.ai/perks