Ellison calls AI a creative unlock while Skydance's filing counts it only as savings

Cinematographers at Camerimage push back on greybox shoots, where AI adds the lighting after the shoot

At Camerimage, cinematographers say greybox shoots, where actors are filmed on plain sets and AI adds the sets and lighting later, move the look of a film into post. The Bitcoin detail rests on one IndieWire line.

Asked whether he enjoys greybox work, cinematographer Bartosz Nalazek didn't hesitate: "Totally not. It's horrible, I'm brain-dead." For people whose craft is light, the fear at Camerimage this week is that the job shrinks to setting up a blank frame for someone else to finish.

Greybox is the word the festival keeps returning to. Actors are filmed on a plain, neutral set, and AI adds the production design and the lighting afterward. IndieWire reports it was used on Doug Liman's upcoming Bitcoin and is spreading to other projects, and Nalazek says a major TV show he just wrapped shot 40 percent of its scenes that way. Cinematographers describe directors asking for the softest, most generic light on set, not because it looks best but because it leaves the cleanest canvas for changes later.

Nobody in Toruń is pretending the method is useless. It takes weather and locations out of the schedule, and speakers who have worked on these sets point out that the productions still hire hundreds of crew. The festival has drawn its own line, too: Marek Żydowicz, its founder, told The Hollywood Reporter that Camerimage does not accept films generated entirely by AI and favors hybrid films where the live actors decide how far AI may change their images.

Our take: greybox doesn't remove lighting, it moves it to post. Whoever sets the look there owns the image, a seat open to cinematographers and AI creators alike. What nobody at the festival has answered yet is whether the people who light for a living will be the ones sitting in it.

Source: IndieWire, Nov 9, 2026; The Hollywood Reporter and Deadline, Nov 8, 2026. Camerimage runs in Toruń through Nov 14.

Disney names Adobe its AI partner, with private models trained on Disney characters

Adobe will build Firefly Foundry models on Disney characters, environments and styles that only Disney staff can use. No value, term or film title was disclosed, and the parks sketch tool dates from June.

Disney has decided how AI gets near its characters: inside models it owns, and nowhere else. For independent creators that means studio-grade tools behind a locked door, while Disney keeps suing the open tools that trained on its films.

On Monday Disney named Adobe its Official AI Innovation Partner in a multi-year deal. Adobe will build private Firefly Foundry models trained on Disney characters, environments and visual styles, and Reuters reported they will be proprietary to Disney. Neither company disclosed a value, a term or a film title.

The sketch-to-concept-art tool getting the headlines is five months old: Imagineering announced it in June. What is new is the partner title, work with StudioLAB, the Walt Disney Studios innovation hub whose first projects are custom models for post-production and VFX, and projects with the ESPN archive.

Disney's quote came from its head of Corporate Alliances, the team that runs brand partnerships, and Adobe will grow its presence across Disney's media platforms. It reads as much like a sponsorship as a technology choice, though nobody has said which way the money moves.

It also runs the opposite way to Disney's last AI deal. The Sora license pushed characters out to fans until OpenAI shut Sora in March. This one pulls AI inside, where only Disney staff can touch it.

Our take: this is a template for control, not access. Fan work with Disney characters is no safer than it was last week, so build your own visual library and style, because nobody is licensing theirs to you.

Source: Adobe newsroom and Reuters, Nov 9, 2026.

Read the full article: thegenerated.com/stories/disney-adobe-ai-partner-private-models-20261110

An AI knockoff of El Empleo went viral, then sent viewers to a $49 monthly course

An Instagram account's AI remake of the award-winning short El Empleo came down after co-director Patricio Plaza objected. The reported 5 million views are unverified, and the account denies being paid by the course it promoted.

An AI remake of El Empleo, the award-winning 2008 Argentine short, reportedly hit 5 million views in under a day. Then its caption turned that audience into leads for a $49-a-month course, and every honest AI maker pays when viewers learn to read a viral AI post as a sales pitch.

The Instagram account Nightframe, with about 16,000 followers, posted a 30-second photoreal restaging of the hand-drawn short by Santiago Bou Grasso and Patricio Plaza, which won the FIPRESCI prize for short films at Annecy in 2009. The caption told viewers to send the word AI to learn how it was made. That opened an automated chat in Nightframe's own inbox, which asked people to follow the account before it sent a link to AI Film School, a paid online community.

Plaza objected and the video came down. He said the account was infringing the film's copyright to make an AI business go viral, which is his view of the law, not a ruling. The operator told Cartoon Brew they are a student running the page as a hobby, that the original was credited, and that the school has never paid them. We are not alleging a payment, and the 5 million figure is reported: no screenshot shows it.

Our take: crediting a film is not permission to remake it. A restaging of someone's whole short is an adaptation, and once the post sells a course it is marketing built on two animators' work. Ask before you adapt a short, and show how you work on original pieces.

Source: Cartoon Brew, Nov 9, 2026; Instagram; Skool.

Read the full article: thegenerated.com/stories/el-empleo-ai-knockoff-course-funnel-20261110