AI firm Asteria has introduced what the company describes as a new-model operating system for film and television production.
Dubbed Continuum Suite, the offering is from Asteria’s recently formed research and technology division. Asteria, co-founded by filmmaker and entrepreneur Bryn Mooser and actor and director Natasha Lyonne, has become known as a backer of “clean” or “ethical” AI models like Marey that avoid the pitfalls of copyright violation by not being trained on proprietary IP. Its backers include CAA and Comcast Ventures.
While copyright, deepfakes, workforce impact and other effects of AI’s implementation continue to animate conversations between studios and streamers above-the-line unions, Continuum Suite is focused on below-the-line efficiencies. It creates a unified workflow capable of taking scripts from written words to completed productions.
The cloud-native operating system, built on Amazon Web Services, and has already attracted notable customers. One is Pressman Film, the longtime production company whose 100-plus credits span American Psycho, The Crow, four Oliver Stone-directed films and a number of television projects.
When people hear the phrase “AI production,” they tend to think of text-to-video generative tools like OpenAI’s Sora. Continuum Suite is not that, but instead a system for organizing and coordinating many aspects of a production. Creative development, production co-ordination and animated workflows are all encompassed by the system, which uses AI tools to increase the pace of production.
Paul Trillo, a filmmaker and co-founder of Asteria, describes the new OS as “a centralized place where all departments can stay on the same page as updates are made. The idea came out of all the snags I’ve run into during production that create inefficiencies or miscommunication. There was also a desire to make all the task pre-production process less arduous and more collaborative.”
Atlas, Asteria’s persistent intelligence, sits at the center of Continuum Suite. It weaves together information, context, and decisions across every stage of filmmaking, with data continuously updated to reflect logistical information as well as script revisions or other variables.
In announcing the launch, Asteria described Continuum Suite as “a relational database and knowledge graph that grows stronger as your production progresses.”
After a script is uploaded, the system analyzes characters, scenes and locations, noting props and costumes. It creates sides, call sheets and schedules, builds storyboards and animatics and makes a database for the production.
Here is a video describing the system: