Latest news with #Technicolor
Style Blueprint
14-07-2025
- Style Blueprint
From Paris to Nashville: Meet Anna Watson Carl of The Yellow Table
Share with your friends! Pinterest LinkedIn Email Flipboard Reddit Anna Watson Carl planned her first four-course dinner party at age 10, and never looked back. What started with Valentine's Day steaks for her parents turned into a life spent cooking across continents, from Burgundy chateaus to late-night bakery shifts in Nashville. Along the way, one thing remained constant: the yellow table, a family heirloom turned culinary anchor. Today, Anna owns crêpe-centric The Yellow Table in Nashville and is the author of a cookbook by the same name. Meet the woman who's turning a well-worn table into a way of life. Pin What inspired you to open The Yellow Table? I grew up in Nashville, eating around my family's big, yellow table … The yellow table was the center of our home, a place for conversation and connection, and delicious meals. It taught me what community looks like and inspired me to create a food blog, a cookbook, and a café — all called The Yellow Table. Another big inspiration for the café is my time in France. We had several French exchange students growing up, and I became obsessed with France at a young age … I studied abroad in Paris in college and was amazed by the food — the markets teeming with fresh produce, the bakeries and cheese shops on nearly every street, and the way the French took time to savor mealtimes. This was also when I fell in love with crêpes. I ate at a little family-owned crêperie in the Latin Quarter for lunch several times a week, and a tiny seed of an idea was planted in my head that one day I should open a crêperie in Nashville. Crazy to think that 24 years later, I actually did it! After France, I spent the next 11 years in NYC, working as a private chef, recipe tester, and food and travel writer for a variety of magazines … I moved back to Nashville in 2018 with my husband, Brandon, and our two kids, Evie and Grayson, and began thinking a bit more about the possibility of opening a cafe. Pin Is there a family recipe or culinary memory you return to again and again? It was during my first trip to France, at age 13, that my taste buds came alive. You know how, in The Wizard of Oz, it's black-and-white for the first part of the movie and then turns into brilliant Technicolor once Dorothy gets to Oz? That was how it was for me, culinarily speaking. Suddenly, the simplest things — like fresh strawberries, a crusty piece of bread with salted butter, or a flaky croissant — had so much FLAVOR! I kept a diary of all of our meals. I tried snails, duck, and double crème de Brie for the first time. Little did I know I was a chef/food-writer-in-training. You've worn many hats — personal chef, food writer, teacher … How does all of this experience show up at the Nashville café? I love making food that is both delicious and beautiful. I've learned we eat with our eyes first, so I want everything to be visually appealing. I care deeply about ingredient quality, and like to highlight the seasons in my food. We have specials that change daily, reflecting what's in season and what I'm in the mood to make. I also intentionally created (with the help of my dear friend Jenn Elliot Blake) a warm, cozy setting. I wanted people to walk in and instantly feel a sense of delight. Everything from the furniture to the artwork, the fresh flowers to the choices of plates and mugs, was chosen to spark joy. Pin What have been the most meaningful challenges and rewards of this venture? For me, the greatest rewards have been the people. I LOVE welcoming in people from both the neighborhood, and all over the world. Not only do I enjoy sharing my story, but I love hearing theirs. We have the most amazing neighbors in the building and the neighborhood. People walk to the café pushing strollers and walking dogs, and it's just such a sweet community spot. The biggest challenge for me has been running the business. I'm a creative and a connector, so creating the concept for the café and bringing it to life was the easy part. Now, trying to figure out how to grow the business and make it profitable … that's the challenge. I'm not a spreadsheet gal, but I feel like I'm earning an MBA on the job! If you could invite three dream dinner guests, who would they be and what would you cook? Ina Garten, Oprah, and Ruth Reichl. These women all inspire me SO much, as storytellers, writers, and entrepreneurs. (And in the case of Ina and Ruth, as chefs!) I'd love to meet any of them, much less have them over for dinner. In a nod to Ina, I'd probably make something really simple and delicious. If it were summer, maybe an heirloom tomato, peach, burrata, and basil salad to start, with pickled shallots. For the main course, a homemade pesto spaghetti with roasted cherry tomatoes and lemony grilled shrimp. And for dessert, a brown butter financier cake with whipped cream and fresh peaches. Pin Outside of cooking, what brings you joy? Yoga, hiking, time with my husband and kids, dinner with girlfriends, prayer, journaling, and helping others What's the best piece of advice you've ever received? Worry about the things that matter and let the rest go. Pin LIGHTNING ROUND Favorite comfort dish? Really good pizza (in Nashville, that's Roberta's) Favorite self-care product or treatment? A massage! I don't get them often, but wow — it's an amazing splurge. Most memorable recent meal in Nashville? I ate at Noko recently with my brother. We didn't have a reservation and were lucky enough to get a table on the patio. We shared a bunch of small plates that were all amazing, but I especially loved the crispy rice with spicy tuna, the salmon carpaccio, and the Szechuan green beans. Three things you can't live without: Good bread, good coffee, good wine As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. ********** For more inspiring stories, visit our FACES archives! About the Author Jenna Bratcher Jenna Bratcher is StyleBlueprint Nashville's Associate Editor and Lead Writer. The East Coast native moved to Nashville 17 years ago, by way of Los Angeles. She is a lover of dogs, strong coffee, traveling, and exploring the local restaurant scene bite by bite.
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Academy Museum Brings ‘Wonders of Technicolor' Series to New York with ‘Willy Wonka,' ‘The Red Shoes,' ‘Cabaret,' and More
Since Netflix bought and restored The Paris Theater, one of New York City's last remaining single-screen movie theaters, the streaming service has used the historical venue to give a big-screen showcase to its original films. The streamer has also used The Paris to host increasingly robust retrospectives, and today IndieWire exclusively announces that Netflix has partnered with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to bring 'The Wonders of Technicolor' series to New York this summer. The retrospective series originally played this fall at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles to accompany the museum's 'Color in Motion: Chromatic Explorations of Cinema' exhibition. More from IndieWire 'Prime Minister' Review: An Up-Close-and-Personal Peek Into Jacinda Arden's Six-Year Term Shows What Thoughtful Leadership Can Look Like Danny Boyle and Alex Garland Had Planned a 'Sunshine' Trilogy, Boyle Recalls 'Big Blowout' with Fox Exec Over Sci-Fi Movie Technicolor IV was introduced in the 1930s. The three-strip color technology produced saturated and vibrant colors, often described as 'crisp' due to how the three-strip color negative and printing process kept the colors distinct from one another, avoiding the 'bleeding' that became common after the process faded from the industry. Hollywood used the enormous Technicolor cameras — which required special color consultants to advise on cinematography, costumes, and sets — for its biggest productions, especially musicals, up until the mid-1950s, when the old Studio System started to crumble. The shot in 'Glorious Technicolor' branding on posters and in the opening titles signaled to the audience that they were in for a special big-screen experience. The series at The Paris will kick off the weekend of June 28-29 with 'An American in Paris' and 'The Wizard of Oz,' and run through August 6. Other classic Technicolor films screening as part of the series are 'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,' 'Fantasia,' 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,' 'The Red Shoes,' 'The Black Pirate,' and 'The Women.' Also included in the series are Alfred Hitchcock's 'Vertigo' and Bob Fosse's 'Caberet,' which were shot after Technicolor's heyday on Eastman color film stock, but then printed on Technicolor stock, a combination resulting in a more modern and less studio-stage look for the color technology as it faded from existence. For 'The Wonders of Technicolor' screening and ticket information, visit The Paris Theater's website. Best of IndieWire Guillermo del Toro's Favorite Movies: 56 Films the Director Wants You to See 'Song of the South': 14 Things to Know About Disney's Most Controversial Movie Nicolas Winding Refn's Favorite Films: 37 Movies the Director Wants You to See
Yahoo
01-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Five Movies Worth a Repeat Watch
This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Welcome back to The Daily's Sunday culture edition. Not all movies are meant to be watched twice. Some leave a glancing effect; others emanate so much intensity that the idea of sitting through them again feels unbearable. But then there are those films that draw you back in, even after you've seen it all before. So we asked The Atlantic's writers and editors: What's a movie you can watch over and over again? Raising Arizona (available to rent on Prime Video) I've probably seen Raising Arizona, the Coen brothers' 1987 classic with Holly Hunter and a 22-year-old Nicholas Cage, a half dozen times over the years. But I've watched the opening sequence many, many more times than that. It's a whole movie-within-the-movie, building up to the title shot with Cage's deadpan narration, rapid-cut scenes, and a jaunty musical bed that goes from whistling and humming to weird ululating. The screenwriting has some all-time great lines ('I tried to stand up and fly straight, but it wasn't easy with that sumbitch Reagan in the White House,' says Cage, with wild hair, aviators, and a 12-gauge shotgun, preparing to stick up a convenience store). The other day, I made my 12-year-old watch it for the first time. When Cage says to his chatty prison bunkmate, incredulously, 'You ate sand?!' my son nearly fell on the floor. A true marker of timelessness. — Nick Miroff, staff writer *** White Christmas (streaming on Prime Video) It makes me miserable to contemplate how many people have never once seen the 1954 film White Christmas, let alone given it 10 to 20 percent of their attention while focusing on other activities, which is the ideal way to view it. Then again, the film's surprising obscurity is its hidden ace: From the moment you press 'Play' on White Christmas, no one who glances at the screen will be able to predict or even comprehend any aspect of the Technicolor encephalitic fever dream exploding before them unless they have previously seen White Christmas. In any given frame, a viewer might be confronted with a horde of people cavorting inside a giant purple void, waggling tambourines adorned with women's faces; the bombed-out smoldering remains of 1944 Europe; or the virtuoso dancer Vera-Ellen, in head-to-heel chartreuse, executing pirouettes at faster-than-heartbeat speeds (for no defined reason). Muted, it makes for terrific social lubricant at a party—there's something dazzling to remark upon nearly every second if conversation lags. Don't concern yourself with the plot; the film's writers did not. — Caity Weaver, staff writer *** The Lord of the Rings franchise (streaming on Max) I suppose my answer is less of a love letter to a movie than it is one to my family. My husband is the movie buff in our family—I'll rarely be caught rewatching movies. But his undying loyalty to the Lord of the Rings franchise means we've watched the trilogy together multiple times, more than once in an 11-plus-hour binge. (Yeah … it's the extended editions, every time.) The movies are a genuinely gorgeous feat of storytelling, bested only by the books; fantasy and action sequences aside, they spotlight friendship, loyalty, and the dueling motivations of pride, duty, and greed. And for our family, at least, they'll be a regular feature—I'm pretty sure it was implicit in our wedding vows that we'd indoctrinate our kids into the LOTR lore—which means that the films are about carving out time for one another as well. — Katherine J. Wu, staff writer *** All Your Faces (available to rent on Google Play and Apple TV) I've watched the French film All Your Faces three times in the past eight months. The movie isn't a documentary, but it's based on real restorative-justice programs in France that were introduced about a decade ago. Why did I repeatedly return to a film about an idiosyncratic feature of a foreign country's criminal-justice system? There's something about the encounter between victim and perpetrator, and the instability and unpredictability of these interactions, that surprised me each time I watched it. Equally intense was the tenderness between the instructors and the programs' participants, most evident between the characters played by Adèle Exarchopoulos and Élodie Bouchez. But it's Miou-Miou, playing an elderly victim of petty street crime, who delivers the most haunting line in the movie: 'I don't understand the violence.' A mantra for our time. — Isaac Stanley-Becker, staff writer *** Little Women (streaming on Hulu) Little Women first came to me as a comfort movie. Based on Louisa May Alcott's 1868 novel, Greta Gerwig's 2019 film adaptation features not so much plot as simply vibes: a familiar tale of four sisters and their childhood friend, scenes of a snowy Christmas morning perfect for the holidays. But with each subsequent encounter during my lonely postgraduate months in a new city, I began to appreciate the little rebellions that make Gerwig's Little Women so special. The story is full of moments of seeing: Professor Bhaer turns around to watch Jo watching a play, Laurie gazes into the Marches' windows, and we, as viewers, feel seen by Jo's boyish brashness. But Gerwig also chooses to focus on Jo's many anxieties. Early in the film, Jo uncharacteristically dismisses her own writing ('Those are just stories,' she says. Just!); later, her monologue reveals a vulnerable desire for companionship (But I'm so lonely!). Gerwig honors the story's essence, but her version is not a granular retelling; rather, it serves as a homage to the art of writing itself—and women's mundane, humble stories, which Jo and Alcott are desperate to tell. — Yvonne Kim, associate editor Here are three Sunday reads from The Atlantic: The perilous spread of the wellness craze Bring back communal kid discipline. The conversations Trump's doctors should be having with him The Week Ahead Ballerina, an action movie in the John Wick franchise starring Ana de Armas as an assassin bent on avenging her father's death (in theaters Friday) Season 3 of Ginny & Georgia, a comedy-drama series about a single mom and two kids trying to settle down in a new town (premieres Thursday on Netflix) The Haves and the Have-Yachts, a book by the journalist Evan Osnos featuring dispatches on the ultrarich (out Tuesday) Essay Diddy's Defenders By Xochitl Gonzalez Diddy—whose legal name is Sean Combs—has pleaded not guilty to the charges he faces of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking. Many Americans have taken to the comment sections to offer their full-throated belief in his innocence. Despite the video evidence of domestic violence, the photos of Combs's guns with serial numbers removed, and the multiple witnesses testifying that Combs threatened to kill them, this group insists that Diddy's biggest sin is nothing more than being a hypermasculine celebrity with 'libertine' sexual tastes. Read the full article. More in Culture What the show of the summer knows about intimacy Five books that will redirect your attention Unraveling the secrets of the Inca empire How a recession might tank American romance A film that captures a 'friend breakup' Catch Up on David Frum: The Trump presidency's world-historical heist Adam Serwer: The new Dark Age The coming Democratic civil war Photo Album Take a look at the beauty of the North. These photographs are by Olivier Morin, who captures remarkable images of the natural world, largely focusing on northern climates. Play our daily crossword. Explore all of our newsletters. When you buy a book using a link in this newsletter, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Atlantic
01-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Atlantic
Five Movies Worth a Repeat Watch
This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Welcome back to The Daily's Sunday culture edition. Not all movies are meant to be watched twice. Some leave a glancing effect; others emanate so much intensity that the idea of sitting through them again feels unbearable. But then there are those films that draw you back in, even after you've seen it all before. So we asked The Atlantic 's writers and editors: What's a movie you can watch over and over again? Raising Arizona (available to rent on Prime Video) I've probably seen Raising Arizona, the Coen brothers' 1987 classic with Holly Hunter and a 22-year-old Nicholas Cage, a half dozen times over the years. But I've watched the opening sequence many, many more times than that. It's a whole movie-within-the-movie, building up to the title shot with Cage's deadpan narration, rapid-cut scenes, and a jaunty musical bed that goes from whistling and humming to weird ululating. The screenwriting has some all-time great lines ('I tried to stand up and fly straight, but it wasn't easy with that sumbitch Reagan in the White House,' says Cage, with wild hair, aviators, and a 12-gauge shotgun, preparing to stick up a convenience store). The other day, I made my 12-year-old watch it for the first time. When Cage says to his chatty prison bunkmate, incredulously, 'You ate sand?!' my son nearly fell on the floor. A true marker of timelessness. — Nick Miroff, staff writer White Christmas (streaming on Prime Video) It makes me miserable to contemplate how many people have never once seen the 1954 film White Christmas, let alone given it 10 to 20 percent of their attention while focusing on other activities, which is the ideal way to view it. Then again, the film's surprising obscurity is its hidden ace: From the moment you press 'Play' on White Christmas, no one who glances at the screen will be able to predict or even comprehend any aspect of the Technicolor encephalitic fever dream exploding before them unless they have previously seen White Christmas. In any given frame, a viewer might be confronted with a horde of people cavorting inside a giant purple void, waggling tambourines adorned with women's faces; the bombed-out smoldering remains of 1944 Europe; or the virtuoso dancer Vera-Ellen, in head-to-heel chartreuse, executing pirouettes at faster-than-heartbeat speeds (for no defined reason). Muted, it makes for terrific social lubricant at a party—there's something dazzling to remark upon nearly every second if conversation lags. Don't concern yourself with the plot; the film's writers did not. — Caity Weaver, staff writer The Lord of the Rings franchise (streaming on Max) I suppose my answer is less of a love letter to a movie than it is one to my family. My husband is the movie buff in our family—I'll rarely be caught rewatching movies. But his undying loyalty to the Lord of the Rings franchise means we've watched the trilogy together multiple times, more than once in an 11-plus-hour binge. (Yeah … it's the extended editions, every time.) The movies are a genuinely gorgeous feat of storytelling, bested only by the books; fantasy and action sequences aside, they spotlight friendship, loyalty, and the dueling motivations of pride, duty, and greed. And for our family, at least, they'll be a regular feature—I'm pretty sure it was implicit in our wedding vows that we'd indoctrinate our kids into the LOTR lore—which means that the films are about carving out time for one another as well. — Katherine J. Wu, staff writer All Your Faces (available to rent on Google Play and Apple TV) I've watched the French film All Your Faces three times in the past eight months. The movie isn't a documentary, but it's based on real restorative-justice programs in France that were introduced about a decade ago. Why did I repeatedly return to a film about an idiosyncratic feature of a foreign country's criminal-justice system? There's something about the encounter between victim and perpetrator, and the instability and unpredictability of these interactions, that surprised me each time I watched it. Equally intense was the tenderness between the instructors and the programs' participants, most evident between the characters played by Adèle Exarchopoulos and Élodie Bouchez. But it's Miou-Miou, playing an elderly victim of petty street crime, who delivers the most haunting line in the movie: 'I don't understand the violence.' A mantra for our time. — Isaac Stanley-Becker, staff writer Little Women (streaming on Hulu) Little Women first came to me as a comfort movie. Based on Louisa May Alcott's 1868 novel, Greta Gerwig's 2019 film adaptation features not so much plot as simply vibes: a familiar tale of four sisters and their childhood friend, scenes of a snowy Christmas morning perfect for the holidays. But with each subsequent encounter during my lonely postgraduate months in a new city, I began to appreciate the little rebellions that make Gerwig's Little Women so special. The story is full of moments of seeing: Professor Bhaer turns around to watch Jo watching a play, Laurie gazes into the Marches' windows, and we, as viewers, feel seen by Jo's boyish brashness. But Gerwig also chooses to focus on Jo's many anxieties. Early in the film, Jo uncharacteristically dismisses her own writing ('Those are just stories,' she says. Just!); later, her monologue reveals a vulnerable desire for companionship (But I'm so lonely!). Gerwig honors the story's essence, but her version is not a granular retelling; rather, it serves as a homage to the art of writing itself—and women's mundane, humble stories, which Jo and Alcott are desperate to tell. The Week Ahead Ballerina, an action movie in the John Wick franchise starring Ana de Armas as an assassin bent on avenging her father's death (in theaters Friday) Season 3 of Ginny & Georgia, a comedy-drama series about a single mom and two kids trying to settle down in a new town (premieres Thursday on Netflix) The Haves and the Have-Yachts, a book by the journalist Evan Osnos featuring dispatches on the ultrarich (out Tuesday) Essay Diddy's Defenders Diddy—whose legal name is Sean Combs—has pleaded not guilty to the charges he faces of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking. Many Americans have taken to the comment sections to offer their full-throated belief in his innocence. Despite the video evidence of domestic violence, the photos of Combs's guns with serial numbers removed, and the multiple witnesses testifying that Combs threatened to kill them, this group insists that Diddy's biggest sin is nothing more than being a hypermasculine celebrity with 'libertine' sexual tastes. More in Culture Catch Up on The Atlantic Photo Album Take a look at the beauty of the North. These photographs are by Olivier Morin, who captures remarkable images of the natural world, largely focusing on northern climates.
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
VFX Leaders Weigh Potential of Forming a Global Trade Association and Gauge Impact of AI on the Workforce
Asserting that visual effects companies are 'still abused' and 'taken advantage of,' industry luminary Scott Ross, whose four decades in the industry included co-founding Digital Domain and serving as an exec at George Lucas' companies including Industrial Light & Magic warned, 'if it's not changed, we'll continue to see companies go out of business and creative, wonderful people be unemployed.' Ross was direct as he shared his views on the potential of forming a global trade association (a subject that isn't a new one but has been back on the minds of many in today's volatile business climate and in the wake of the collapse of Technicolor), as well as the 'elephant in the room,' AI, during a panel at the FMX (Film & Media Exchange) confab, which wrapped this weekend in Stuttgart, Germany. He started the panel, moderated by veteran entertainment and tech exec Dave Gouge, by admitting to the audience 'you're not going to like me because I'm actually going to tell the truth.' More from Variety Producer Chris DeFaria on Creator Economy and Strategy Behind Startup Chronicle Studios: 'We're Trying to Invert the Development Process' Technicolor Bankruptcy: Framestore Adds MPC Supervisors; Mikros India Talent Joins Cinesite's Assemblage Technicolor Bankruptcy: Thinkingbox's The Heist Hires Band of Creatives from The Mill and Expands Services The largely non-union VFX industry has the Visual Effects Society, an honorary society, but not a trade association and amid the VFX industries struggles, it's a model that has been reexamined. 'I was always a proponent of trade associations,' Ross said, though he added that he is unsure if today there is a clear path. 'One of the problems that I saw with the people running the VFX companies is fear sort of stopped them from going to the clients and saying, 'we're mad as hell and we're not gonna to take it anymore.' So I thought a trade association, if we signed up most of the majors, could provide the ability to be able to have leverage' in changing what many view as a broken business model. 'My concern is that a lot of the majors are owned by the studios,' he continued, citing as examples that Netflix bought Scanline and Disney owns ILM. 'If they own the [VFX companies], it's in the studio's interest not to change the business model. … The ability to have leverage that I thought years ago might have gone away, and so I don't know if a trade association would work at this point, but I think it would be a shot worth taking.' Similar to Ross' point, panelist David Li, CEO of Dream Machine FX, a collective for VFX brands Important Looking Pirates, Fin, Zero VFX, Mavericks VFX, and ARC Creative (which it launched in February with a group of talent formerly of Technicolor's The Mill) noted, 'every industry in the world has [a trade association]. I think there's a substantial opportunity for advocacy and collaboration. 'What I will say is that it feels like different studios play by different rules in the visual effects industry, that is probably the bigger driver of the absence of one,' he added, saying that should the industry come together to drive change, 'everyone needs to self-enforce that.' Li (who reported during the panel that Dream Machine has been 'profitable every single year') concluded the trade association discussion with a pledge. 'I do think it is the right thing to do,' he said. 'If you started a trade association, we would certainly join, Dream Machine, I would commit that to everyone here. And I think you're right, shared advocacy I think would be very beneficial.' During the last couple years, some VFX practitioners have taken steps to join labor union IATSE, including in-house VFX workers at Marvel and Walt Disney Pictures. But Ross warned that to achieve the benefits of unionization, it would need to be an international union. He related that IATSE covers Canada and the U.S. and estimated that it costs about 20% more to run a union company. 'And so if my pricing increases by 20% [and there's] a non-union shop, and they're located in London or located in India, I'm hurting myself.' Ross also spoke frankly about his concerns surrounding the notion of AI as a tool for creatives. 'Having run large visual effects companies, the majority of the staff of the visual effects workers were actually not core creative people. There was a group of people, let's say 15 or 20% of a staff of 500 or 1000 that actually were … creative, but tertiary creative and secondary creative at best.' He added that 'they were taking direction from a core creative person, the director, and a secondary creative person' such as a visual effects supervisor, art director or animation director. 'But I think a lot of the community takes this whole 'I'm an artist' thing to a level that we're fooling ourselves,' he warned. 'Many people within a visual effects company are actually putting tires and brakes and fenders on a car. They are not designing cars. And having to try to transition my life from being a person who ran a visual effects company or two to being a producer and coming up with creative and writing screenplays and developing screenplays, it's a quantum leap. 'At the end of the day, at least the clients that I work with, they wanted quality [VFX] work. The best there was. They wanted it on time, and they wanted it cheap,' Ross continued. 'When AI winds up becoming a really substantive force, I wonder about what that will do to the visual effects workforce.' Li was more optimistic, suggesting that creativity is becoming all the more important. 'We've done a lot of research into AI, and what we've found is that if 100 is the percentage it needs to be, in terms of, you know, quality, to go from zero to 50, it takes, like, nothing. … And to go from 80 to 85 it takes, you know, 300 [people] and 300 graphics cards, and every step of the way just becomes incrementally harder.' Li predicted opportunities, 'but I think that will only enhance those in this industry who truly have a great deal of creativity, artistry and a very special eye.' 'I agree with him,' Ross replied, stating that creative people 'will be more in demand than ever. However, that's a very small portion of what the overall manufacturing process is for visual effects.' Ross concluded this thought be reminding the audience that AI is developing at a rapid pace, 'it's clunky and it has problems today, but it also is the fastest learning mother that is out there. And so what we're looking at today will be different in three months, in a year, in three years.' Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week Emmy Predictions: Talk/Scripted Variety Series - The Variety Categories Are Still a Mess; Netflix, Dropout, and 'Hot Ones' Stir Up Buzz Oscars Predictions 2026: 'Sinners' Becomes Early Contender Ahead of Cannes Film Festival
