Inside the Modern Producer’s Toolkit with John Trefry

On Production with John Trefry

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Hey everyone, Welcome back to On Production. I'm Cameron and today I'm talking with John Trefry, CEO of 4WT Media. John's had a really fascinating journey from growing up in Alaska to building video teams at tech startups like Mahalo and DocStock. He's actually now running an award-winning production company behind content for Netflix, Google, and Indie Festival favorites at South by Southwest and Tribeca. So I'm really excited to get into how he blends storytelling, technology, and a practical approach to problem solving to simplify complex production workflows. If you're curious about what's next for filmmaking, I think you're in the right spot. So John, welcome to the show. Really excited to have you here. I was able to do some research on you before the show when putting together my questions. And I realized that you actually started out in Alaska as where your, your, your, your spawn point and then landed in a tech driven companies like Mahalo, like I was mentioning and DocStock. How did that unique journey from sort of outsider storytelling to startup analytics shape how you think about production today?

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John Trefry (01:09.388)

Well, thank you so much, Cameron. Really honored to be on. I'm a big fan of the podcast and also of the platform. And I'm just what I really love about what you guys are doing is that intersection between tech and entertainment. I think that for me, that's really been a defining milestone and really a guiding light for how I've defined my career and really

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I was born and raised in Alaska. That was really all I knew. I never realized the seasonality was so different until I moved out of the state. But I landed in LA ultimately because there weren't a lot of opportunities for what I wanted to do as a storyteller. And ultimately, that journey that you mentioned to really the foray into tech was really out of necessity. I was...

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struggling to find traction with more of the traditional pipeline for entertainment with you low level PA jobs, art department on some, you know unscripted shows and it was really just Being in the right place at the right time. I think where it was There was this huge boom with with YouTube online video that was really exploding around 2000 the 2010s

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And there was a real need for storytellers and content creators at tech companies. And so that was really how I was introduced to technical teams working with software programmers, engineers, designers, UX, UI, product managers, and really understanding that you can literally build software to do anything.

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It was like such a total light bulb, like game changing experience for me, where I started to see how there were these young operators, entrepreneurs who were building companies that were just totally disruptive and incredible. And it really, it really aligned with my spirit of being a filmmaker and a storyteller. And so I got really excited about how I could deploy that in my own.

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John Trefry (03:31.054)

in my own work and that was what led me to start 4WT Media. So the journey from both Mahalo, where I was focused on culinary content and led a team that was producing that type of content to then doing, I built a team from scratch doing video content at DocStock, which was then later acquired by Intuit. Both of those experiences working with venture.

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venture-backed tech companies was just, it was as my former CEO, Jason Dazaar, who's an incredible entrepreneur and mentor of mine told me when I started at DocStock that it would be like my own personal MBA course where I would get to create content from VCs and thought leaders to really help entrepreneurs and small business owners who were our

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customers and who we served and that's exactly what it ended up being Cameron for me was I got to learn not only you know about building content and you know content strategy and building a studio in-house from scratch building editorial staff and producing staff and really growing that team but also being able to learn directly from these amazing entrepreneurs from the tech world

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So from there, I started my own company, 4WT Media in 2012, and we were totally bootstrapped, had no outside investors, but had built a great reputation among largely the tech community in LA. And Google was one of my first clients and really parlayed that to working with other amazing companies like ZipRecruiter.

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as well as Netflix, who I've worked with for the last decade. And that has really enabled me to do also pursue original content, features and docs and series, episodic. So it's really that I think the defining characteristic for my career and journey, Cameron, has really been about, hey, how can we...

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John Trefry (05:51.174)

do things differently. How can we come in with the desire to touch and engage with audiences through storytelling in means or ways that maybe we haven't thought of before and not be tied or tethered to how things have been done, you know, just because they've been done that way.

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Cameron (06:10.21)

It's really exciting. mean, it's interesting. Your story has some similarities to my own. You know, I started a commercial production company in the Bay area instead of in Los Angeles. Most of the clients were technology companies. in my experience, we'd never scaled out a large content engine because we were never internal, but still super, interesting. And I think you and I both got to experience that interesting intersection between film craft and the internet and technology, all sort of intersecting and

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It's interesting to look back 10 years later and see how we might actually only now be at the start of that. It just continues to get interwoven into each other. You know, it's fascinating.

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John Trefry (06:54.546)

It is. you know, I just, I'm such a big fan of the company and the vision. We're actually working with Wrapbook as a client on two shows that I'm producing. I think that what you guys are doing is very exciting and, you know, not at all because it's a need.

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It's a real need in the industry for figuring out how we can use tools to make our lives easier. And I'm so surprised, honestly, to your point of how early we are in the journey, Cameron, of how many legacy companies and incumbents are out there that are just continually used. And it's like for producers, for filmmakers, it continues to be so much work and so laborious unnecessarily.

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And so that's why I'm really bullish on using new tools. You know, how can we make our lives easier and really put more money on screen?

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Cameron (08:03.768)

That's awesome. Yeah. mean, obviously my career is sort of a, a testament to sort of attempting to build these types of tools. And we've been very lucky to see that they've made an impact in clients' lives. But what's interesting about you is like, because you're so comfortable with these technology tools and these businesses and the way that like kind of building these tools sometimes film, because I think are intimidated about messing up the workflow. Like, Hey, we've been doing this forever. Like, let's just not mess with it. You seem to be of a different mind.

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which is interesting because you had mentioned to me that you've experimented with tools like ChatGPT and mid journey, which of these tools or tools that you experience in your workflows surprise you the most by sort of changing workflows, either on set or in post production. Like what, what's catching you off guard, maybe in good ways or, or, or weird ways.

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John Trefry (08:54.77)

Yeah, it's a great question. And I think AI is really such a misunderstood technology when it comes to entertainment and film and TV specifically. I see so many folks that are really just turned off by it at the name or the sort of mention of it. And I think what I really seek to do is understand the nuance and especially for any of us who work in post-production.

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we would know that AI or AI enabled workflows have been part of that pipeline for a long time. If you talk about Avid or Pro Tools, AI integration has been there for a long time. And so I think it's really been with the emergence of generative AI and chat GPT specifically that this has really caught a lot of the industry off guard.

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I would say, and for me, just coming from the tech space and seeing how you, like Uber is a client that I've worked with years ago, and to see how disruptive Uber was as an example to transportation. My mindset, Cameron, is basically that you can't stop the forces of a good product that finds fit with the market.

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It's totally a waste of time to swim upstream against that. And so I don't think that there's a perfect, there's a lot of ethical, I think, concerns and considerations on how AI models are trained and what the underlying IP and copyright considerations are.

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However, that doesn't change the fact that these tools are here to stay. And I think the horse is out of the barn when it comes to AI. So for me, I really find that ChatGPT is a tool that is extremely helpful in in simplifying and streamlining workflows.

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John Trefry (11:09.406)

And what I have found is very powerful is to create custom GPTs that are trained on my own data. So for example, I'm really passionate about short film. I recently spoke at South by Southwest all about short film finance. And I did a panel actually just yesterday with Kickstarter around this topic as well. And so one use case that I find for chat GPT Cameron is really

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How can I use all of this content that I've created around short film and specifically focused on empowering filmmakers to make exceptional shorts? And how can I use that custom GPT to really help me create more content to streamline what I'm doing, whether it's writing an email newsletter or creating a new event or whatever it might be, the power of this platform

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that is tailor-made to what I needed to do, and that's what custom GPT is, is game-changing. And I think for this to be so accessible and for most people just to not, and especially in our industry, most filmmakers, not to realize how useful it can be. For example, I just had a dinner with a director last night who...

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is really looking for a producer for his short film. Very experienced, has been in the industry for a long time. And I suggested to him, hey, if you need help on some of your producerial tasks with your short as you're in development, how about using ChatGPT to help you with this? How about asking ChatGBT to help you with a script breakdown or a budget? And his mind was literally blown.

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as someone who doesn't have a lot of those skill sets, that he was able to at least get a working version of those key documents that are really important for his project. And it's not a silver bullet by any means, but it's just about utilizing a tool that is so widely available. And again, I don't want to get stuck in the weeds, Cameron, on the ethical problems around it. I have much bit, we could have an entire...

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John Trefry (13:31.996)

conversation just around big tech and my issues with how pervasive technology is in our lives. But I think putting that aside for a second, I think any filmmaker who is not using AI in some way in their workflow, it reminds me of Scott Galloway, who's an amazing speaker and podcaster who I follow has framed it like this, which is

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It's not AI who's going to take your job. It's somebody who knows how to use AI. And I think that's true of us in the entertainment industry.

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Cameron (14:08.609)

I mean, I think that's true with any sort of tool that gets widespread adoption, whether that be, you know, people utilizing steam engines over their competitors, you know, during the last industrial revolution. So totally with you there. I mean, I am curious though. I mean, there's custom GPTs, there's people talking about GPT wrappers, there's still classic workflow, B2B SaaS, there's all these different types of

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tools that are emergent, what's your own personal filter for figuring out which tools are genuinely helpful to you and which are just mostly hype?

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John Trefry (14:47.056)

Yeah, that's such a powerful question. I think for the productions that I'm working on currently, I'm dealing with a lot of traditionalism, which I think is very common, especially in television. And the barometer that I try to use, Cameron, is if the tool is adopted by the team and it's really helpful, that's really how

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I measure whether it's successful or not. If it's something where I have to mandate it and there's being a lot of pushback, then I think it's not worth really fighting for. But I'm a huge fan of Slack as another tool that I think is just underutilized in production.

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Real time communication and it's shocking to me how many productions rely on like text message or WhatsApp groups when Slack is just such a better solution to really cut down on email and really enable a lot more real time communication and collaboration. So I use, I use Slack as another part of my stack and what I really find is, helping and by the way, being very widely adopted, you know, and, and very

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you know, people who are new to the platform saying, this is great. This is making my life easier. And that's really my guiding light, whether it's my own for my own workflow or for, you know, a team. I think the key is, Hey, is this making our lives easier? And that's a great starting point. and, and, know, this is, this may sound hyperbolic, but I also find that like chat, GPT is very helpful for evaluating tools.

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You know, and I'll say, for example, I've been experimenting with note taking, you know, software. And I think this is like a really powerful AI enabled tool that, you know, many filmmakers and producers would benefit from. And there are a lot of those on the market. So how do you evaluate which one is best for you, what your needs are? Well,

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John Trefry (17:06.46)

Here's a tool, ChatGPT, that I find is very helpful to go through and do some of the deeper dive research that, you know, it might take me an hour or two to do that research when I can do a smart query and give it a prompt, you know, and utilize the deep research function and then, you know, come back and have cut down my workload by, you know, 95%.

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Cameron (17:31.23)

It's a, it is pretty powerful at the time of this recording. Open AI has just released their O3 model, which is actually multiple models in sort of one interface. It's both the reasoning model plus like sort of deep research light. can search the internet and use multiple tools and it's producing some like really incredible queries. And, it is sort of just up to our own imaginations to figure out where and how to prompt effectively to create some really powerful automations, which is awesome.

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I want to shift gears just a little bit, John, which is, do come from this tech heavy background. If I recall correctly, Mahalo was sort of a content aggregator, a content creator, taking smart advantage of SEO and then figuring out how to monetize that at scale. Is that correct? Did I remember that correctly?

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John Trefry (18:20.146)

Yeah, yeah, that's largely a good summary. We were known for how-to content primarily.

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Cameron (18:26.74)

Right, right. So then like if you're a consumer looking up WikiHow or Mahalo or Wikipedia, like this was a sort of a pretty broad in-depth mechanism for capturing traffic online, which is a very analytical science. And then at the same time, you were marrying that with this sort of creative storytelling. I'm sure you were getting a lot of rich insight that like a lot of filmmakers don't.

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usually get, you know, you get the box office, but that's usually way after the fact. So like you're getting to experience as a filmmaker, this incredible feedback loop. So you have that one part of your background. And then you also have like an actual original storyteller, classic distribution modalities, whether that's Netflix or film festivals or whatever. Can you recall a time when trusting data, maybe at the Mahalo days or

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trusting software led you astray creatively and then how you recalibrated afterwards.

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John Trefry (19:27.92)

Yeah, that's fascinating. think that the what you're really describing Cameron is where I think there's a huge disconnect, which is the the traditional film and television pipeline and Internet Internet audiences and filmmaking. And I'm really passionate about this bridge because I think that although you have examples, I point to like

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you know, uh, Jeffrey Katzenberg with Quibi, right? Where it's like, Oh, this, this failed and this is, this is a, there will never be this crossover, right? Where premium content actually is, is enjoyed and can actually be sustainable for online audiences. But what I, just to go to the heart of your question, what I think is, is unmistakable and I think would never lie is how audiences respond to storytelling and content.

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And so for me, I've really, I've had a complex relationship with YouTube and social media platforms because there's lots of aspects around the content that really performs well on those platforms that is not truly resonant for me. I'm at my heart like a cinephile, you know? I love, you know, one of my favorite memories is having dinner with David Lynch.

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You know, and that's really what I'm passionate about. But the point is, that audiences are smart, whether you're talking about sitting in a theater watching your film or, you know, watching your piece on a phone. And I don't really draw that much distinction, Cameron. I think that we need to be where audiences are. And I think that for me, now where I am is...

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as a storyteller and my career, I'm really passionate about how do we build that bridge? How do we create those links in such a way where there's all of this amazing storytelling that film and television has perfected over a hundred years. And it's so siloed and disconnected from TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, where younger audiences are. And I've worked with Netflix for a long time. And if you listen to their

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John Trefry (21:52.358)

you know what Ted Sarandos is saying and how they position themselves, YouTube is their biggest competitor. They're not competing against, you know, the legacy media companies. And that's a recognition that younger audiences do not differentiate of whether they are watching something on the TV or on this, you know? And so I think that's a similar to the,

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idea of round AI that we're talking about where the toothpaste is already out of the tube. Like that's the case for how I feel about where audiences have shifted, you know, viewing behaviors to be more, we need to be more focused on reaching them where they are as viewing on mobile and really interested more in short form as opposed to longer form content. And

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I'm actually really bullish on VR as well. I think that there's this really interesting opportunity where VR, especially for younger audiences, can really have them fall in love with the more rich cinematic experience that I think, you know, I would say, I would venture a guess has been definitive in shaping not just my career, but probably yours as well. And I actually am hopeful that like for my sons and younger audiences,

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that that will be a way where they can, maybe they're not having the same experience of going to see a movie in the theater that is really touching them the same way. But I think that there is a cool opportunity with how emerging technology like VR could create more of that immersive, really visceral experience.

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And so that's where I'm actually really optimistic despite how much change is happening in our industry. I know I'm kind of dodging the question in a little bit of a way, but the point is that I don't think that audiences, data that you're getting from audiences will ever lead you astray because audiences are smart wherever you find them.

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Cameron (24:08.16)

That's awesome. That's great. Yeah. I mean, it is fascinating to think about all of these different types of modalities that have been tested and then even how consumption habits have changed so rapidly in the last couple of years. I mean, you mentioned Jeffrey Katzenberg with Quibi and like, I've been seeing highlights recently that this midform content is explosively popular right now. And, you know, he may have the opportunity to be saying, I told you so, coming up here in a little bit, you know, it's interesting. And then on the AR front,

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the VR front as well, it's fascinating. think some of the work that Meta has been doing with the augmented reality is fascinating as well. And you could imagine, and you've seen how popular like Pokemon Go was and augmenting that type of storytelling in your waking life mixed with these different types of more and more immersive storytelling. It seems like regardless of how the trends and technologies evolve that there is a constant which is that humans really

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respond to storytelling, storytelling as a means of understanding the world around them and as a means of connecting with their neighbors. So, super fascinating. And I like how you sort of bridge the gap by saying like, don't fall for this trap that analytics is this sort of cold mechanistic map that can't really tell you that much. Actually it can, you're just listening to consumers, audiences are smart. So.

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John Trefry (25:32.114)

exact.

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Cameron (25:32.362)

It just, it depends on how you sort of interpret what you're looking at from the data lens.

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John Trefry (25:38.0)

Yeah, and if I could just add to that, think to offer storytellers, producers more of a brass tacks application of what this could look like, I just am really, what has been formative for me in working in tech is really seeing that you have an ability to connect with audience so easily, whether it's YouTube, whether it's surveys, whether it's...

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through mailing lists and really getting that input on whatever it is that you're developing. For example, I'm really excited about, I'm working on a couple different crowdfunding campaigns for projects I'm producing. here's an amazing platform. There's amazing opportunities with platforms like Kickstarter or Seed &Spark.

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to not just raise money for our projects, but also to build audience and evangelize our projects. And so many filmmakers I find are just like, well, I don't know how to do that, so I'm not gonna do it. And it's actually not that complicated to learn how to do these things. And the more that we can really be integrated with our audiences, and especially for those of us who produce like indie film, you know, the...

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The acquisitions pipeline is completely changed and the festival circuit is not the lucrative seller's market that it once was for Indie film. I think we need to be very creative about how we are building audience really from the ground up and thinking about how we can really bring audience to our projects no matter what our distribution pathway looks like.

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Cameron (27:23.512)

John, I love that. I think it's really interesting. In my life as an entrepreneur, it is so easy to look back and be upset that you missed some massive arbitrage opportunity on a marketing channel, right? So it's easy to look back and go, God, if only I had been posting on Instagram 10 years ago, I would have this massive audience and I'd be able to do all of these things. But you bring up something to me that is brilliant, right? Or if you're the filmmaker, you'd say, man, if only I was alive and making indie films or short films.

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and I could go to Sundance and sell it for $10 million. My first film, right? Like, man, if only, but you just described something, know, seed and spark, a wonderful platform. I actually just spoke with Emily for the podcast. She's awesome. And she's done so much thinking about this. You mentioned like chat GPT deep research. Why don't you take advantage of deep research and think about how to build an audience right now. That's a tool that is probably underutilized right now. You can get so much edge on how to actually like.

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build audience, move forward, build a program so like you can think to yourself, I don't know how to do this. Or you could actually ask a really smart LLM to do the research for you and help you like put into motion what it takes to build an audience around your story. Like that's happening right now. No one's stopping you. You can just do it, which is pretty fantastic.

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John Trefry (28:42.596)

Yeah, and just to add one other tactical takeaway for any producer, I mean, or filmmaker, including myself, another way to utilize ChatGPT is to really use it as a thought partner to think about what it is that you do in your day to day and how it is that you can streamline efficiency, create automation, use these tools, not just ChatGPT, but other tools, you know, to describe

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I'm Cameron, I run this amazing company. My team is this big. are the challenges that I'm facing. Here's what I do on my day to day. Here is our audience. Here is our customers. And any of us can benefit from that kind of totally objective and unbiased, well, I won't say unbiased, but really powerful research to your point of really gathering.

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some of the best of available data from all over. And I guarantee you, I mean, that no matter where you are in your journey, no matter what your focus is or function is, that you can benefit from that kind of insight. It has been really powerful for me and my day today.

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Cameron (29:56.782)

It's cool. Yeah. mean, even tactically, could imagine that, Hey, I made a short film. I made a doc. made something. I'm having problems getting it seen. This is what it's about. Help me think through tactics to get this scene or communities that would be interested in this. Do deep research. It's going to come up with a bunch of organizations you've never even thought of that maybe would connect with your story. I mean, it's, could do it today. It's fast. It's fascinating and really interesting. That's awesome. So shipping gears just a little bit.

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to just like nuts and bolts of production. You've managed budgets ranging from entire internal video orgs to big brain campaigns to indie short films, TV shows, all this stuff. How do you keep your financial process transparent and efficient across such varied projects and have certain tools simplified that complexity for you?

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John Trefry (30:48.996)

Yeah, it's a great question. Well, I mean, no plug here, but Wrapbook has been great and I'm really happy about how the platform has been working and working across two productions. Really great feedback from

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production accounting who a team who's never used Wrapbook before and and I got actually feedback from a producer that works with me that the onboarding for Wrapbook was the easiest of any entertainment payroll company ever and this is from a know veteran in the industry of like two decades so I really that as a tool that has been really helpful for me and

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Also, I'm a huge believer in just organizational structure. So shared Google Drive and Google Sheets, really all the productions that I manage, it lives and breathes on G Suite and shared drives. I mean, so much of what I think holds production back is siloing of information.

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And I think that the more that we can just empower our collaborators to have transparency into documents, whether it's financial documents or reporting or creative documents, why is it that we need to send someone an email? Can you send me the latest budget? Can you send me this? And so I think that really,

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Access and collaboration is so important to what you're describing of really having that very clear like leadership on down viewpoint of you financial tracking and management

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Cameron (32:44.654)

That's awesome. Uh, for those that listen to on production, they know that like, I don't really talk about wrap up that much because maybe I don't like to be too self referential, but delighted to hear that that has been a really helpful tool for you. And, and obviously it's really awesome to just hear about how you think about breaking down silos for communication across your entire productions, regardless of its size or scale. Shifting gears just a little bit, John. mean, you've talked about in interviews I've seen with you before about

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how important big risks were to your career. Can you share some examples and how those risks have really experienced or altered your approach to moving forward?

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John Trefry (33:25.498)

I think that risk taking is a theme that continues to be deeply resonant for my life. I'm a father of two young boys and going back to the journey that really helped me as an entrepreneur, as I shared with you on transitioning from doc stock and adventure backed.

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tech company that you know where I was a salary position I you know, had equity in the company to then starting my own business with no safety net was a huge risk but it really just instilled in me this This Feeling that even if there is a risk that that you are afraid of There's ways to really work incrementally to

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Offset that and increase your likelihood of success  and it's and it's a really Analytical way I guess to think about a bigger picture strategy whereby for me What is so powerful I think about being an entrepreneur and Not having the security is that it's all dependent on you

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And anyone who manages a team is responsible for payroll will certainly appreciate that. But what is also, I think, so fulfilling about that is that you really have the opportunity to create and design whatever the lifestyle and the business that you imagine. so it's really that taking that initial risk to starting my own business to later than

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you know, pivoting my business to start doing original content and even to becoming a father. You know, these are all like milestones along my journey that have really been defined by a lot of fear and anxiety initially of something that is unknown. But what I think is beautiful is that whether you're a first time director or you're doing your first big show, everyone who I think

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John Trefry (35:43.442)

is ambitious and wants to achieve will be in a situation where you've never done something before. But we are in an amazing time and place in human history where we have so much access to information and support. And even smart people, I've been following your content and I'm a huge fan of all the resources that you guys share and of this podcast.

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you know, here, here we are talking and I'm getting to learn from you and really exchange and connect with you. So it's, that's what's so incredible about how connected we are. And for me, it's really just about being very clear about what values drive the kind of, not only the kind of work that I want to do, but also the kind of person that I want to be, how I want to show up in the world and the types of people that I really want to align with.

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and how we can then join forces together and then create something that's greater than the sum of its parts.

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Cameron (36:44.886)

That's awesome. I've got one last question for you and it's sort of a doozy. I want you to use your imagination and fast forward to 2030. You're green lighting a film. Okay. What do you think the production workflow is going to look like from the initial pitch to final post? And no matter how advanced technology gets, which human elements do you think will remain essential?

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John Trefry (37:09.456)

This is a great question and I might wade into some murky waters here, but I think that in 2030, what will be seen is that there's a huge emergence of generative AI as storytelling and maybe it's not even called like film anymore. I think that it could be that it's really this convergence of AR and VR where maybe

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What we're talking about would be a project whereby it's actually green lighting someone who is not necessarily a director in the same way that we would think about it now, but more of like a curator for what the experience could be, where the experience could be individualized for each audience member based on what their background is, what their preferences are, but that curator or that filmmaker, that artist, if you will,

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is really painting the picture in such a way where they, someone can come in as an audience member into an immersive experience that's deeply touching, but it's unique for them. And I think that that's where this idea of how film and storytelling is the same, basically, for all of us right now. We all see Pulp Fiction, we see the same movie.

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I think in the next five years, what's going to happen, Cameron, is that we're going to see the emergence of a lot more programmatic or personalized content that is really designed for an individual user. Because I think that's where people ultimately are going anyway. You see so much niche content, and that's what's really exploding right now. And I'm really excited to see what that looks like in the future. And ultimately, of course, I'm

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always going to be a cinephile. And I want creative people to be involved in every step of that process that they can be. And so this is where I think like it'll just be an evolution of maybe it's not a production designer in the same way of the folks that, you know, we've worked with in the past of, you know, doing a lot of physical set building and design and things like that. Maybe it's more in a digital space and that's still a really amazing artistic

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John Trefry (39:30.044)

contribution and effort, but it's just something that has changed and morphed over time. And ultimately the goal is the same, which is to connect with people and bring us together through amazing storytelling.

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Cameron (39:42.286)

That's awesome, John. You know, there's a fantastic musician and pioneer Brian Eno, who, you know, is like really the inventor of like ambient sound music and an amazing producer. He has this cool piece of art in San Francisco at a really cool salon called the Long Now Foundation, where it's a piece of art that will never produce the same image twice for tens of thousands of years. And it's like really...

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sort of interesting and core to some of the values that Brian Eno has in his life and in his work. And I'm sure you've seen this, because I know you're out on the film circuit at these festivals, but there's a new documentary about Brian Eno's life. And every time they show it, it is not the same movie twice. It is a compilation of all of this incredible content over the course of his career. And what's interesting about what you're saying, I had not

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thought of this, but similar to like GPTs, right? Like being able to build your own GPT. You can sort of set a constitutional framework of what the output should look like, the base prompt. And think about being able to make a movie where you as the director, the filmmaker, the curator, the exhibitor, you set the baseline values that you want your content to articulate. But that as the world changes,

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the content changes with it. And yet the values, the vision, the feeling, the desire, the filmmakers somehow still imbued in that content. Regardless of if AI or machine learning mechanism is actually changing what you're seeing and how you're feeling it. But that's a fascinating vision, super interesting, and sort of to me, it feels inevitable, which is really inspiring, John. Thank you for sharing that.

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John Trefry (41:32.398)

It's honestly, it's a little scary, I think for all of us, because we just don't know what that's gonna look like. But I think you just hit the nail on the head, which is it's inevitable. And at least for me, I'm trying to skate where the puck is going and trying to be at the cutting edge of what storytelling is going to look like. Because I really, this is my life's calling. I wanna continue to be able to do this and connect with audiences and whatever the tools are that enable us to do that.

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I think that's where we should be.

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Cameron (42:03.894)

Yeah. I mean, for me on the scary bit, I mean, just to chat about it from my own perspective on this, there's existential risk in the world, whether it's AI annihilation or not. There's super volcanoes, there's comets, there's pestilence, there's disease. And I don't know how the human project continues without figuring out how to solve these problems. I think that alignment concerns are very valid.

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And that we should slow down in order to speed up in some regards or speed up where others are going slow, depending upon. mean, these are really complex issues and the future is not a sure thing. But for me, I meditate that the future never was a sure thing and that we should try to bring about tools that enable us to solve our most pressing problems. And I feel like there is like an 80 % chance or more, or maybe better that we do.

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get to march into, or at least slouch towards utopia, I think, as Tyler Cowen talks about it, which would be really exciting. there's a lot of things that are weird already, that the fact that we're able to communicate through time and space through a digital mechanism here, or that language exists, or that even cinema itself is bizarre and interesting, that we can.

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communicate ideas and feelings at scale globally already is sort of amazing. sort of being able to do that in a new way, in a more exciting way, or just a different way should be pretty fascinating in the next 10 years.

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John Trefry (43:41.562)

Amen. I'm so with you on the optimism, Cameron. think that's also what it takes is that we have to really believe in manifesting that. think that I hope that that more filmmakers and more producers and storytellers really embrace technology as a.

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as a resource, as an ally, instead of something to be feared or rejected. Because what really concerns me is that there are people who do not have the love of storytelling and are really much more focused on growing businesses or making a lot of money who are happy to come in and take that place. And so I think that this is an

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and why this conversation is so exciting for me is because I think that there is this amazing opportunity, especially now more than ever for people who are non-technical, who don't know how to code, who have no background in technology to just become familiarized with it and come in and utilize tools in ways that are literally life-changing. mean, I don't have a technical background and we just had an amazing conversation, Cameron, about how

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disruptive these technologies are to my work and my career in a really positive way. So if I can do it, literally anyone can.

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Cameron (45:09.964)

Absolutely. Well, John Tree Fry, thanks for joining me on a production. Super insightful and a privilege and a pleasure to spend some time with you. Thanks for joining.

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John Trefry (45:17.446)

Thank you so much, Cameron.