My take: this is kinda obvious — but nice to see someone on the inside shake the cage. I’m actually surprised that thirty years in, Big Business hasn’t locked down the Internet yet. Anyone can post to YouTube and TikTok — for now..
The third instalment in the ensemble mystery franchise featuring Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc will screen in selected theatres globally for 14 days starting November 26 before streaming on Netflix on December 12, 2025.
In 2022, “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” played in 600 cinemas for one week one month before streaming.
My take: kudos to Rian Johnson for putting this in his Netflix contract. Could this become their new norm, after Netflix’s success with its two-day KPop Demon Hunter theatrical release?
My take: this is a perfect example of what I call Niche Concentration — in this case, Animation (a niche) multiplied by K-pop (a second niche) multiplied by Musical (a third niche.) You’d think that the audience would diminish each time you add a niche, but there seems to be an inverse effect as the concept becomes increasingly concentrated.
KPop Demon Hunters was largely animated by Sony Pictures Imageworks in their Vancouver and Montreal studios.
The film has tax credit money from Quebec, British Columbia and Canada — see the end credits.
Note there will be a KPop Demon Hunters Sing-Along limited theatrical event for one weekend only in the US and Canada on August 23 and 24. See SingKPopDemonHunters.com for more.
My take: kudos to Netflix for bankrolling this production.
“To resolve distribution issues in a sustainable manner, it is essential to tackle the structural problems throughout the entire value chain, both upstream and downstream of distribution.“
My take: this is a fascinating, if depressing, report on the state of film distribution in Canada. The best part, in my estimation, is the exhaustive list of (almost) every distributor in Canada, found in Appendix A on Page 25.
“You cannot compare street food to Michelin. Is Michelin food going to take over street food? No, not a chance. But there is an appetite for street food. There is an appetite for Michelin dishes.”
But she forecasts:
“People keep saying, you know, ‘TV is dying.’ It’s not dying. It’s just moving to the verticals, moving to the fragmented viewing. So if people move, you have to move with them, otherwise you’ll be eliminated.”
My take: You could say that TikTok forced Meta to introduce Reels to Facebook and Instagram, and Google to introduce Shorts to YouTube. Does that mean the Chinese love of microdramas is guaranteed to play out in North America too? I hope not. (I did like six-second Vines though.)
I’ve generated 30M+ views in 3 weeks using this exact workflow:
Write a rough script
Use Gemini to turn it into a shot list + prompts
Paste into Veo 3 (Google Flow)
Edit in Capcut/FCPX/Premiere, etc.
Concept
Kalshi is a prediction market where you can trade on anything. (US legal betting)
I pitched them on a GTA VI style concept because I think that unhinged street interviews are Veo 3’s bread and butter right now.
I guarantee you that everyone will copy this soon, so might as well make it easy and give you the entire process.
Script
Their team give me a bunch of bullet points of betting markets they wanted to cover (NBA, Eggs, Hurricanes, Aliens, etc)
I then rewatched the GTA VI trailer and got inspired by a couple locations, characters, etc.
Growing up in Florida…this wasn’t a hard script to write, lol.
Prompting:
I then ask Gemini/ChatGPT to take the script and convert every shot into a detailed Veo 3 prompt. I always tell it to return 5 prompts at a time—any more than that and the quality starts to slip.
Each prompt should fully describe the scene as if Veo 3 has no context of the shot before or after it. Re-describe the setting, the character, and the tone every time to maintain consistency.
Prompt example:
A handheld medium-wide shot, filmed like raw street footage on a crowded Miami strip at night. An old white man in his late 60s struts confidently down the sidewalk, surrounded by tourists and clubgoers. He’s grinning from ear to ear, his belly proudly sticking out from a cropped pink T-shirt. He wears extremely short neon green shorts, white tube socks, beat-up sneakers, and a massive foam cowboy hat with sequins on it. His leathery tan skin glows under the neon lights.
In one hand, he clutches a tiny, trembling chihuahua to his chest like a prized accessory.
As he walks, he turns slightly toward the camera, still mid-strut, and shouts with full confidence and joy:
“Indiana got that dog in ’em!”
Trailing just behind him are two elderly women in full 1980s gear—both wearing bedazzled workout leotards, chunky sneakers, and giant plastic sunglasses. Their hair is still in curlers under clear plastic shower caps. One sips from a giant novelty margarita glass, the other waves at passing cars.
Around them, the strip is buzzing—people filming with phones, scooters zipping by, music thumping from nearby balconies. Neon signs flicker above, casting electric color across the scene. The crowd parts around the trio, half amazed, half confused.
Process
Instead of giving it 10 shots and telling ChatGPT to turn them all prompts, I find it works best when it gives you back only 3 prompts at a time.
This keeps the accuracy high.
Open up three separate windows in Veo 3 and put each prompt in there.
Run all three at the same time.
3-4 min later, you’ll get back your results. You’ll likely need to change things.
Take the first prompt back into ChatGPT and dictate what you want changed.
Then it will give you a new adjusted prompt.
Let that run while you then adjust prompt 2. Then prompt 3. Usually, by the time you’re done with prompt 3, prompt 1 has its second iteration generated.
Rinse and repeat for your whole shot list.
Tips:
I don’t know how to fix the random subtitles. I’ve tried it with and without quotes and saying (no subtitles) and it still happens. If anyone has a tip, let me know and I’ll add it to this post.
Don’t let ChatGPT describe music being played in the background or it’ll be mixed super loud.
If you want certain accents, repeat “British accent” or “country accent”, etc. a couple times, I’ve found that it will do a decent job matching the voice to the face/race/age but it helps to prompt for it.
Edit
Editing Veo 3 videos is easy.
Simply merge the clips in CapCut, FCPX, or Premiere, and add music (if necessary).
I’d love to know if anyone has found good upscale settings for Veo 3 in 720p. My tests in topaz made the faces more garbled, so I try and cover it with a bit of film grain.
I like to add a compression/bass to the Veo 3 audio because I find it to be “thin”.
Cost and Time:
This took around 300–400 generations to get 15 usable clips. One person, two days.
That’s a 95% cost reduction compared to traditional advertising.
The Future of Ads
But just because this was cheap doesn’t mean anyone can do it this quickly or effectively. You still need experience to make it look like a real commercial.
I’ve been a director 15+ years, and just because something can be done quickly, doesn’t mean it’ll come out great. But it can if you have the right team.
The future is small teams making viral, brand-adjacent content weekly, getting 80 to 90 percent of the results for way less.
What’s the Moat for Filmmakers?
It’s attention.
Right now the most valuable skill in entertainment and advertising is comedy writing.
If you can make people laugh, they’ll watch the full ad, engage with it, and some of them will become customers.”
The BTS:
My take: high energy, for sure! That’s one detailed prompt for a three second clip.
In honour of our upcoming Canada Day, I thought it would be patriotic to take a look at the biggest all-time world box office numbers for Canadian movies produced in the last ten years.
Confused by these titles? Paddington in Peru? Movies are international productions now and get certain work done in tax credit-friendly jurisdictions for the money – and the excellent work skilled artists and technicians provide, of course.
CAVCO certifies Canadian movies. The CRA then refunds money to the Canadian producers of these movies, to the tune of millions of dollars. (Wouldn’t it be nice to know which movies Canadian taxpayers are helping fund and for how much? Other than checking the credits, I don’t know of a comprehensive list. But here’s a cost report from BC.)
Is Canadian investment in Canadian movies worth it? Check Cinema of Canada to see how small the Canadian production and box office numbers actually are. And direct employment in Canadian movies is less than 8,500 people. That’s a government subsidy of something like $25,000 per job. (Someone please tell me my math is wrong.)
My take:The Hollywood Reporter recently published a list of The 51 Best Canadian Movies of All Time – now where have I heard that particular number recently? Curiously, I don’t think any of these movies appear on their list.
Google Veo is arguably the best (but most expensive) AI video generator today. And Google Flow is arguably the best AI filmmaking tool built with and for creatives. Want to peak under the hood and reveal the prompts creating the magic? See Flow TV.
