I’d love to hear from everyone here. As this group continues to grow, I want to make sure we’re building something that is actually useful, practical, and worth your time. So here’s the question: What would you most like to get out of this community? I want your top 3. But Skool only lets you vote once. So please add a comment with your 2nd & 3rd choices. If something's missing, tell me. This community is yours as much as it's mine. I'd rather build what you'll actually use than guess. 😉 Thanks, Larry

Hey Everyone, I've been under the weather. Well, that's an understatement. Some kind of stomach virus has had me completely knocked out. However, I saw the doc today, and I'm hoping it will be gone in the next few days. If things go as planned, next week, I'm doing the first of a 12-video series for founding members. We start from the beginning. Foundation models, what they are, what they mean, and where they actually fit into your AI filmmaking workflow. I'm excited about it, and I think you're going to like it. Talk soon, LJ

What happens when AI-generated creatures are designed for motion first, not just visuals? 8 original creatures to life using a cinematic framework grounded in real-world

A mystery AI video model called HappyHorse-1.0 showed up on the Artificial Analysis benchmark last week with no name attached. Within days it was #1 in text-to-video AND image-to-video, beating Seedance 2.0, Runway Gen-4.5, and every other model on the board. Then Alibaba raised their hand. Turns out it was built by their ATH AI unit, led by Zhang Di, the former VP of Kuaishou who built Kling AI's technology. The guy who built the previous champion just built the new one. For a different company. The numbers aren't close. 1333 Elo in text-to-video (60 points ahead of #2). 1392 Elo in image-to-video (37 points clear). And here's the part that matters: it generates video and audio together in a single pass. Not two separate models stitched together. One transformer, 40 layers, everything at once. They've confirmed it's going open source. API access starts April 30. If that open source release actually delivers benchmark-level quality, the math changes for everyone paying monthly for Runway or Kling. The best model in the world, free to download and run locally. Worth paying attention to. What do you think this means for the paid tools? Does free + best quality kill the subscription model? Drop your take below. Founding Members are getting a full technical breakdown of HappyHorse's architecture and what it means for your workflows this week.

Google dropped a quiet bombshell this week. Veo 3.1, their AI video generation model, is now free for anyone with a Google account. Ten video generations per month, no subscription needed. You can open Google Vids right now, type a prompt, and get a high-quality AI video clip back. Free. They also added: - AI avatars you can direct (change outfits, pose them in scenes, keep voice consistent) - Custom music generation via Lyria 3 (30-second clips up to 3-minute tracks) - One-click publish to YouTube For indie creators testing ideas, prototyping a pitch, or mocking up a concept before committing real budget, this is significant. Ten free generations won't cover a full production, but they'll cover the "what if I tried..." phase that every good project starts with. If you're on a Google AI Ultra plan, you get 1,000 generations per month. That's a different conversation entirely. What's your move? Have you tried Google Vids yet? If you have, what's your honest take on the output quality compared to Runway or Kling? Drop your experience below.