At LA Tech Week, the conversations our CEO Dale Carman joined kept returning to a practical question: as AI makes more things possible, what does it take to make something worth watching? Dale represented Groove Jones at ENTERTAINMENT × TECH: NEW RENAISSANCE in downtown Los Angeles, joining two panels about AI’s role in digital art, media, and filmmaking. Our work was also displayed at the event, bringing examples of what we create into the conversation.
Dale came home with a sense of possibility and a perspective that runs through our own work: powerful tools open the door, but an idea still needs someone who knows how to bring it to life.
An unexpected invitation to open the event
Dale’s first appearance onstage was completely unexpected. Shortly after he arrived, the event’s host asked if he could jump onto the opening panel, “AI and the Next Wave of Digital Art and Media.” He said yes, stepping straight into a discussion about ownership, intellectual property, and how original creative work is valued as AI becomes part of the process.
That spontaneous invitation gave Dale a chance to help open the event and introduce our perspective from the start.
The discussion explored questions about how people use AI and what happens to the work that makes those tools useful. How should original creators be recognized and compensated? Where does AI fit into a creative workflow? What responsibility does the person using it retain?
For Dale, AI can help get an idea moving and remove the difficulty of starting with a blank page. The creative responsibility continues through every decision that follows: what to keep, what to change, and when the work is ready.
He described our approach as directed AI, using the technology with a clear point of view and actively controlling the result. “When everyone has extraordinary tools, the differentiator isn’t access. It’s knowing what to make, and how to finish it.”
From digital art to the craft of filmmaking
By the time Dale returned for “Lights, Camera, Inference: AI and the Future of Film,” attendees had already heard his approach to directed AI and the importance of creative judgment. The film panel gave him an opportunity to build on those ideas through the craft of filmmaking.
Camera placement, composition, performance, and emotion remain creative decisions, even as the ways to produce an image change. Generating a compelling frame is one part of making a film. Knowing how that frame serves the story and connects to everything around it takes direction.
Dale connected that discussion to years of solving problems alongside cinematographers on set. The question was familiar: how do we pull this off? AI gives us more ways to answer it. Knowing which approach will serve the story still takes experience.
Bringing the work across the finish line
Dale referenced our recent work with Pfizer on a video production called Pfizer Pitch Lab as an example of the distinction between having access to AI and knowing how to direct it toward a finished piece. He described how quickly AI can get an idea started and how much the final stretch matters. A promising image or sequence still needs attention to consistency, performance, and the details that make the whole piece hold together.
That is where we see the value of combining these tools with creative and production experience. The work needs to communicate something, sustain a point of view, and feel intentional from beginning to end.
For us, that means making deliberate choices throughout production and continuing to refine the work beyond the first convincing result.
Where we see opportunity for brands
Beyond the panels, Dale heard interest in vertical video and episodic storytelling built for phones, including conversations about brands supporting ongoing entertainment.
It brought to mind an established idea with new possibilities: a brand helping make a show people want to follow. For us, that raises interesting creative questions. What story could a brand sustain across episodes? How would the format shape the writing and visuals? Where could AI make an ambitious idea practical to produce?
Dale compared the energy he encountered to the early days of computer-generated visual effects, when new capabilities were opening up and people were working out how to use them.
We came home interested in taking those conversations further through brand films, episodic content, and immersive experiences. Our focus is on pairing the possibilities of AI with the direction and production craft needed to make work people connect with. LA Tech Week gave us more people to have those conversations with and more ideas to explore.
