AI is OK?

🔗 10 Things We’re Paying Attention To

1. The Oscars Address AI and Revamp Voting Rules - The Academy struck a cautious middle ground on AI usage in an announcement this week that also has an interesting tidbit on the Animated Shorts voting process and laid out key dates for next year’s ceremony. Rob covers what you should know.

2. Brand Are Embracing Hollywood - A new datapoint for one of my top 2025 trends to watch—Indiewire examines advertising’s infiltration into entertainment, and plenty of S/W alums are covered in Brian Welk’s piece.

3. The Surprising Rise of Green Street Pictures - Variety profiles the fresh upstarts that have broken through with adult animation TV hits Scavengers Reign and Common Side Effects. Co-founder and S/W alum Sean Buckelew describes the company’s secret as, “We’re digitally grown-up artists that were raised on the internet.”

4. Watch Ryan Coogler’s Early Short, Locks - We love to revisit early shorts from big-time filmmakers, and with Sinners tearing up the box office, we recommend this 2009 short film from when Coogler was at USC.

5. What Filmmakers Really Want to Know - Data-cruncher extraordinaire, Stephen Follows, has a new piece that examines the most frequently asked questions from filmmakers. Pulling ten years of sub-Reddit data and over 160k posts, he tracks “…common points of pain on the path to filmmaking glory.”

6. New Alberto Mielgo Short Teases AAA Game “Marathon” - Oscar-winner Mielgo is back with this 8min promo for the new Bungie game “Marathon”, and Polygon has the details. More of a visual than narrative exercise, the short will appeal to fans of his Love Death + Robots work, though it doesn’t hit the emotional notes of The Windshield Wiper.

7. A Guide To Developing Animated Shows - S/W alum Emily Bundige has been in recent editions of the newsletter for the launch of her new AppleTV+ show, Goldie, and a successful crowdfunding campaign for a new show pilot. She’s now released a book that she describes as “A comprehensive, step-by-step guide to creating and developing original animated shows, packed with practical tools, expert tips, and actionable worksheets!”

8. Google to Get in on Nuturing AI Shorts - The search giant is partnering with Range Media to “commission films about the relationship between humanity and AI.” Two films have already been greenlit, and plans are being laid to submit them to film festivals this year.

9. Overlook Organizers Get Their Due in Variety - Kudos to Michael Lerman and Landon Zakheim, who completed another successful edition of their Overlook Film Festival earlier this month. Well-known to filmmakers for their various programming careers (Zakheim is a long-time shorts programmer for Sundance), the pair successfully kickstarted the coolest new horror festival of recent years, and Variety caught up with them to discuss the project.

10. What to Watch This Weekend - We close this section with our weekly recommendation of S/W alum projects in theaters or on TV screens. May we suggest heading to the multiplex to take in Isaiah Saxon’s A24 kids feature The Legend of Ochi? Saxon, co-founder of the acclaimed Encyclopedia Pictura, is one of the most distinctive commercial image makers of recent memory, and has been featured with Sunbelly and The Tale of Hillbelly. I caught this animatronic creature feature with my 7-year-old earlier this year, and he loved it! After playing NYC and LA this week, the film goes nationwide in theaters today.

🪐 Into the Shortverse

Tribeca ‘25 Short Films

Fresh off the press, Tribeca has announced its shorts lineup for June. We’ve rounded up the films into a Shortverse collection for your perusal. New films from Ben Proudfoot and Duncan Cowles catch our eye, as does a vampire short from X filmmaker Ti West.

Cannes ‘25 Shorts

Sticking with festival previews, we’ve got a collection for this Spring’s Cannes Film Festival. Neither the Official Selection nor La Cinef has been announced yet, but we have lineups for the Critics’ Week and Directors’ Fortnight sidebars, and will update this collection as more announcements arrive.

📅 This Week on Short of the Week