'Paranormal Activity' Producer Steven Schneider, Artlist and Secret Level Reveal Plans to Make AI-Powered Feature
Secret Level's Jason Zada will write and direct horror feature 'Terrarium."
By Carolyn Giardina
To explore and demonstrate the potential of AI in feature filmmaking, AI production platform developer Artlist and AI-native studio Secret Level are teaming up with Steven Schneider—the producer known for horror franchises including Paranormal Activity and Insidious—to make a “hybrid” AI/live action horror feature titled Terrarium.
With the project, announced as the AI on the Lot conference kicked off, Artlist makes its foray into film production. It will finance (the budget wasn’t revealed) and executive produce the feature, which is currently in preproduction, alongside Schneider. Terrarium will be written and directed by Secret Level co-founder Jason Zada, an Emmy winner for 2011 interactive film This is Lollipop who made his feature directorial debut with 2016’s The Forest (Zada previously teamed with Schneider on The Houses October Built.) Christina Lee Storm (Nate Parker’s Newborn, Jurassic Punk) is producing for Secret Level.
From a technical standpoint, the workflow will be unique. Key to the partnership is the integration of Artlist’s recently launch Studio AI production platform directly into Secret Level’s proprietary AI filmmaking pipeline. Zada suggests that with the AI capabilities, the team will work in a more nonlinear manner. “We’re in the middle of casting (news expected in the coming weeks), and we’re in the middle of storyboarding, and looking at testing shots. You can do so many things at the same time with AI,” he says. Plans call for live action to be filmed in Los Angeles.
The filmmakers report that the production would work in “a fully DGA and SAG-AFTRA-compliant workflow.” Zada adds, however, that other departments will be non union as filmmaking roles evolve. “We’re pulling in a lot of experts. We’re gonna pull in a cinematographer, pull in a production designer, to basically help us craft the shots,” he said. “We’re getting into a world where I think one person can play a lot of different roles on a production …. so we’re trying to find multi hyphenated people.
“Just because things have been done one way doesn’t necessarily mean we have to do them the same way, so we’re just making the best choices that push this production into making it something really unique.”
Earlier this year, Secret Level launched AI production training program Secret Level Academy, underscoring his views. “I really want people to upskill themselves and learn that there are ways to keep your career going and be relevant, and it’s not all doom and gloom,” he said. “It’s actually quite fun and liberating. I don’t see it as scary at all.”
In today’s announcement, Schneider says: “What drew me to Terrarium was Jason. He has a rare ability to make audiences experience something they can’t explain, something that stays with them long after the lights come on. With Terrarium he’s pushing into completely new territory. The way he’s making this film is unlike anything I’ve been a part of in 20 years of genre filmmaking.”
Artlist co-founder and co-CEO Ira Belsky describes Artlist Studio as software designed to “basically mimic real production in a digital environment.” He adds that he hopes Terrarium will serve as “proof that AI can enhance the creative process. … This is about expanding creative possibilities and not replacing human imagination.”