Disqus - Latest Comments for neilbrimelow

Re: Mish-Mash Monday – The 2026 Box Office Is Getting Weird

Neil Brimelow — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 03:19:10 -0000

I think why "Scary Movie 10" is doing gangbusters this weekend because the Wayans are back involved in it and everyone is yearning for back in the good old days of the 90s and early 2000s that even the crappy movies were funny.
Today, everything is serious and unfunny.
Speaking of funny, anyone who is a fan of "Succession" should watch the creator's prior show, "Peep Show" which is the best written comedy series of the 21st Century.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lhfIoqo8kA

Re: Movie Review – The Backrooms

Neil Brimelow — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 07:17:42 -0000

I watched the original shorts back in the day and I never once thought, "Hey, this must be about a guy going through therapy." I always pegged The Backrooms as sort of a lost Twilight Zone episode where the govt. created this strange, weird world that some poor, unfortunate people would fall into.
The audience reviews have been oddly split with some people loving it and proclaiming proudly that anyone who doesn't love the film is too stupid to understand it, and those on the flip side who think it is one of the worst films ever made. To be honest, I would have preferred to see Kane Parson's undiluted vision of a Backrooms film vs. Kane + Hollywood writer.

Re: The May Scriptshadow Newsletter Should Be Hitting Your Inboxes Any Minute Now!

Neil Brimelow — Fri, 01 May 2026 17:06:29 -0000

Carson, have you ever seen Cregger in this sketch, lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_v8mJncl04Y

Re: Mish-Mash Monday – My Beef With Beef

Neil Brimelow — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 02:51:17 -0000

I really didn't understand the overall concept behind "Busboy." Two guys want to impress a girl and get a job a Mexican restaurant as Busboys?

Re: Screenplay Review – American Midnight

Neil Brimelow — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 05:24:29 -0000

Cool, I liked this movie better the first time around 20 years ago when it was called, "Let the right one in." The husband's really not a "serial killer" unless he was one before he met his wife. He's just helping her find food...and her food is people. :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICp4g9p_rgo

Re: MISH-MASH MONDAY – Screenwriting Evolves, JJ Abrams Devolves, and AI Crumbles

Neil Brimelow — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 04:37:21 -0000

Yes, yes, Ford suggested that to Lucas and Lucas made the right call as "Dead guys don't sell action figures."
https://geeksofdoom.com/2010/08/16/wait-what-han-solo-was-supposed-to-die-in-return-of-the-jedi-but-george-lucas-changed-it-to-make-more-money

Re: MISH-MASH MONDAY – Screenwriting Evolves, JJ Abrams Devolves, and AI Crumbles

Neil Brimelow — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 03:10:58 -0000

Jar Jar Abrams dropped fumbled with ball with The Force Awakens and he also admitted he had no plan at all.
He had one job. Get the gang back together one last time for one final romp (IN THE SAME ROOM) and hand over the reigns of the series to the young cast.
Instead he turned Luke Skywalker into a crazy, cowardly bum who was about to murder his nephew in his sleep because he had a bad dream and then decided to abandon his family and friends and become a bum drinking green space cow tiddy milk. Then Jar Jar Abrams killed off Han Solo and gave him a VILLAIN'S death, stabbing him in the heart and throwing him into a bottomless pit.

Re: Mish Mash Monday – Blood & Ink Deadline Extended and A Screenwriting Tip For the Ages!

Neil Brimelow — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 01:08:04 -0000

But I thought Frogs love rocks! https://uploads.disquscdn.c...

Re: Screenplay Review – The Waffle House Index

Neil Brimelow — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 03:21:21 -0000

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ed_86qgvSp8

Re: The March Scriptshadow Newsletter Will Be In Your Inboxes Within the Next Hour!

Neil Brimelow — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 19:27:27 -0000

Yes, AI can make music, but it can't make music timed perfectly to elicit emotion like an actual composer can. At least, not as of this moment.
https://youtu.be/kHKjqCUfqpg?t=79

Re: The March Scriptshadow Newsletter Will Be In Your Inboxes Within the Next Hour!

Neil Brimelow — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 19:21:31 -0000

There's a local lawyer here who is the scum of the earth. The lawyer takes a huge retainer up front, then 100% ghosts the client and then six months to a year later when the client has realized they've essentially been scammed and complains and wants their money back the local lawyer invents several thousands of dollars the client magically OWES the lawyer in legal fees. This lawyer has been reported to the bar over and over and over again for this and the bar has done nothing. My friend who was represented by this lawyer went pro se with AI and has done more in with AI then three years with lawyers.

Re: The March Scriptshadow Newsletter Will Be In Your Inboxes Within the Next Hour!

Neil Brimelow — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 07:40:01 -0000

This test is a good example of how AI handles a period piece. Yes, it is disjointed and is full of AI issues, but the people interact, talk, dance and have emotions. Again, these are all issues that will be corrected in the next few months, not years.
https://youtu.be/NV6O1XGVayM

Re: The March Scriptshadow Newsletter Will Be In Your Inboxes Within the Next Hour!

Neil Brimelow — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 07:21:21 -0000

For film making, the last big hurdle will be integration of AI soundtrack/music, which I think will still be always best left to humans. I don't think an AI is going to effectively replicate a real-life John Williams scoring the ending to "E.T." as an example.
I made this promo two weeks ago for the new Imagine AI video generator in only a few hours and it took me longer curate the music and time it out than it was to make the video portions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dDwhdY52-A

Re: The March Scriptshadow Newsletter Will Be In Your Inboxes Within the Next Hour!

Neil Brimelow — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 07:11:53 -0000

I'm looking at AI as a power up, a boost, not a crutch. Having an ILM-level pitch deck or pitch reel isn't going to hurt when pitching a genre film especially.
The first Deadpool film had literally the best pitch reel of all time made by a top VFX house and a top VFX director and the Fox executives. still were not convinced. The Fox executives were only later shamed into making the film after the test reel leaked on the internet years later.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikP9KG-HlnE

Re: The March Scriptshadow Newsletter Will Be In Your Inboxes Within the Next Hour!

Neil Brimelow — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 07:06:45 -0000

Yeah, that's old news. The current LLMs can hallucinate, but GPT PRO 5.2, Claude Opus 4.6 and Gemini 3.1 are considerable leaps over what was available just a few months ago. Just last week a lawyer buddy of mine was able to craft a 23 page appeals court brief using AI research that was so devastating to the opposition that the opposing counsel screwed up in almost ten different areas in their response to his brief. Yes, he has to double check everything, but that's what good lawyers do anyway. The AI research saved him tens of thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours.

Re: The March Scriptshadow Newsletter Will Be In Your Inboxes Within the Next Hour!

Neil Brimelow — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 06:52:47 -0000

Actually dramas are going to be easier than you think for AI to tackle. I made this as a test to recreate this shot from "The Hudsucker Proxy" back with ancient 2024 technology. All I did was cut the two shots together and add back in the original music from that scene.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptpHxQO4U6o

Re: The March Scriptshadow Newsletter Will Be In Your Inboxes Within the Next Hour!

Neil Brimelow — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 06:25:36 -0000

https://uploads.disquscdn.c... A couple of things regarding AI image and video generation.
What took years, then months, now is taking just weeks to progress. It isn't going to take till 2030+ till we have 1.5 hour long videos as there are programs that can generate entire worlds on the fly from prompt or picture (or both).

The big threat isn't Hollywood firing everyone because they're going to "Looker it" (c1981), or dudes in their basement making the next $300,000,000 blockbuster by typing a prompt. The big threat is very intelligent AI systems automating the whole process and literally making AI slop 24/7 forever and ever and ever. Billions/Trillions of videos clogging up and pushing out real content.

I've been working in the AI image/video realm for over four years now and I can say that Seedream 2.0 caught everyone off guard. Yes, it is still rough around the edges, but this is AI video's first baby steps. For me, what is much more impressive is that Seedream 2.0 and Sora 2 (to a lesser extent) is capable of making relatively good sound design and effects to match what is on screen. Also, with Seedream 2.0 it is very capable of having its AI avatars elicit some complex emotional range.

That said, what I'm not seeing is people using IMAGINATION+AI to make something really awesome. It seems everyone plays around with Midjourney for five minutes, gets an output that is okay and just throws that in a video without a story. With Nano Banana Pro true consistent character design is now possible, but you still have to have an imagination, and work at it.

The attached picture is of a Witch Queen for a project I'm writing right now and I ran HUNDREDS of different designs just for her, tweaking her over and over again until I got her final design perfect. The Witch Queen pictured is from the REJECT file.

What I'm doing is creating not just a pitch deck, but every aspect of the film from weapons to character and creature design to set design. To me, it isn't just enough having a fantastic script if anyone can create "$200,000,000" films in their basement now. You have to be able to SHOW why it should be made.

But again, the real battle in the very near future isn't going to be the film making. It is going to be finding actual human eyeballs to see your work, let alone pay for it.

Re: These Queries Didn’t Make the Cut – Find Out Why!

Neil Brimelow — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 21:14:22 -0000

Thanks! You can check out the pitch deck I made two years ago.
It was cutting edge then. :)
www.thefacetakers.com

Re: These Queries Didn’t Make the Cut – Find Out Why!

Neil Brimelow — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 02:47:48 -0000

The thing is now after Seedance 2.0 has now been unleashed on the world, you may need an AI reel in order to sell a script.
Yeah, yeah, I know that a good or great script doesn't need pictures or video, but a good, or great pitch deck or pitch video can't hurt. :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dDwhdY52-A

Re: These Queries Didn’t Make the Cut – Find Out Why!

Neil Brimelow — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 02:41:01 -0000

I actually made a whole mega pitch deck a few years ago.
I could update it and make it look really sharp, but I've moved onto better things. :)
www.thefacetakers.com

Re: These Queries Didn’t Make the Cut – Find Out Why!

Neil Brimelow — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 01:57:15 -0000

In fairness, my query was Carson-specific. as I've been coming here since 2009 and I was one of the first people to use his services. A cold query IRL would not have been as aggressive! :)

Re: THE EMPEROR IS DEAD – KATHLEEN KENNEDY IS TOSSED INTO THE SARLACC PIT

Neil Brimelow — Sat, 17 Jan 2026 19:52:53 -0000

Star Wars will remain dead unless they nuke the sequel trilogy as the sequel trilogy effectively invalidates all of Star Wars that came before it.
Just make the sequel trilogy "Expanded Universe" and make just one new film with Luke, Han and Chewie to pass the torch to the next generation instead of burning the entire house down, which is what they did with the sequel trilogy.

Re: Mish-Mash Monday as Netflix Takes Over Hollywood

Neil Brimelow — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 17:51:25 -0000

Netflix may not actually win this battle, but it is a brilliant bit of soldiering! If they do eventually win and are allowed to buy Warner Bros. then they get all of the WB data from the past 100 years to train A.I. Even if they are eventually blocked from buying Warner Bros. that means production at Warner Bros. is going may be severely hampered over the next 1-2 years as production at WB may slow to a crawl. Why greenlight anything, as profit or creating value is irrelevant as the studio is already locked into a sale price? Even if Netflix "loses" they have effectively slowed down their biggest competitor by 1-2 years.

Re: Screenplay Review – Capture The Flag

Neil Brimelow — Tue, 18 Nov 2025 04:37:37 -0000

The passive concept doesn't make any sense. People stopped caring about the moon in the early 70s. A more active concept would be something crashed into the moon and is emitting a light and signal at the Earth that everyone one Earth can see/hear with the naked eye. Thus there's a race to get to the moon to see what the heck it is.

Re: TV Pilot Review – Pluribus

Neil Brimelow — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 03:03:17 -0000

I haven't watched it yet, but the premise seems to be the Truman show in reverse...which I don't know how they're going to keep that premise up for (now) 16 hours, as the show just got renewed. I'm sure they'll figure it out. They've got probably the best writers room in Hollywood right now.
Speaking of sci-fi, a show most have never seen that everyone should watch is "Counterpart." It was on STARZ, so nobody knew it existed.
https://beebom.com/vince-gilligans-pluribus-confirmed-for-season-2/