Emmy award winning director, AI filmmaker & Dad. My grandpa played for the @Nuggets https://teapaw.org/t.co/BBl85XG1nR
Los Angeles, CA
Joined March 2024
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Jared Cotton retweeted
My son works full time here in Florida. Let me run his numbers.
State minimum wage is $14/hour. He's at $15.
40 hours a week = $600/week
That's about $2,600/month before taxes.
Florida has no state income tax the thing they sell you on. So after federal and FICA he takes home roughly $2,200.
Average one-bedroom in our area runs about $1,600.
That's 73% of his entire paycheck gone to rent before he eats a single meal.
Leaves him around $600 a month for:
- groceries
- gas
- car insurance
- health insurance
- phone
- emergencies
- savings
Car insurance alone eats a third of that in this state.
He works 40 hours a week and cannot save a dollar. Not because he's careless because there's nothing left to be careless with.
I spent thirty years paying off a house here. He's doing the same job I did at his age and he can't afford a one-bedroom.
That's not a discipline problem. That's not avocado toast.
The floor moved and nobody lowered the ceiling.
Working full time should cover a roof. In Florida it barely covers the rent on one.
Jared Cotton retweeted
I spent 25 years directing crews. The transferable skill was not camera placement. It was orchestration. Clear intent. Specialized roles. Tight feedback loops. Daily review. That is also how useful AI agents get built.
Jared Cotton retweeted
Really appreciate your thoughts here! I share a lot of similar sentiments here.
As someone who has funded/produced/directed/written/edited actual feature films and worked in that industry, it’s been absolutely incredibly freeing to now be able to from idea in your head to viable end deliverable product entirely on your own, outside of any external investors/producers/extra meddling hands.
Makes for some very fun free flowing creations! The AI slop argument will always be there I think, and I certainly don’t intend to stop filming things with real cameras, but I’m certainly not afraid to dive into AI and use it for all it’s worth 🧡
Jared Cotton retweeted
3 things The Social Network sequel tells us about filmmaking in 2026:
1. The distribution pipeline is broken. The whistleblower story broke 5 years ago, the film arrives now. 2–5 years from script to theater means cinema can't talk about the present.
2. Tech is still filmed by outsiders. That's why it rarely feels true on screen, and why the biggest industry of our time has no insider cinema.
3. Hollywood can't make films that fuel ambition anymore. The Social Network (2010) shaped a generation of founders (including me). This one looks like a warning.
If you want to capture reality, find faster ways to make films.
Jared Cotton retweeted
Todd McFarlane on AI: "I still need to hire an animator. But if you’ve gotta hand-draw every single thing, you're gonna give me three options. Now you can give me 20... now we're going to come up with a better-looking show."
The legacy gatekeepers think AI is here to replace the artist. The auteurs know it’s here to destroy the bottleneck.
The old manual friction forced you to settle for the third option because you ran out of time or budget. Generative tools remove the bottleneck so you can hunt for the absolute best version of the vision.
This quoted post is unavailable.
Jared Cotton retweeted
The Obsession art director post. Man, what a choice.
One year total experience. Only credit pre-Obsession is a single short film. Sign on to a low budget indie. Agree to rate. Movie explodes. You're suddenly the Art Director fo the most talked about film of the year.
If this ever happens to you, let me give one piece of advice. Embrace it. Use the credit to fight off offers, get a BTL agent, turn those difficult three weeks into an incredible career.
Do NOT cut every connection you have to the filmmakers, put out tweets about how you wish you'd shut down their production, and complain about the rate you agreed to (which isn't even like $100 or some student film sketchiness).
Do you know how many indies I have done as an actor for $240/day? A fucking lot. Every single time I know what I'm getting into and I hope to god it turns out well and leads to another opportunity. I cannot even imagine getting cast in Obsession and then putting out a career ruining post about it instead of trying to leverage it into more work.
Jared Cotton retweeted
The more you learn about Hollywood the more evil you realize it is, and the less worried about AI you are.
The amount of creative gatekeeping is insane. The amount of control is insane.
Bring on the AI art. Bring on the AI anime, movies, and series. We're going to have a supernova of creative content.
Not the sanitized, committee-approved garbage we have today.
For those that remember the Golden Age of the anime OVA, we're going to get that.
No more gatekeepers. No more ratings agencies. No more big business. Totally uncensored and creatively liberated storytelling.
Jared Cotton retweeted
This is a strange take.
Filmmaking has never been defined by the tools used to create it. Directors went from film to digital. Editors went from razor blades to nonlinear editing. VFX artists went from practical effects to CGI. I know, I did some of it in multiple verticals, not just one.
Nobody stopped being a filmmaker because the tools changed.
There was no such thing as a digital filmmaker until there was.
There was no such thing as a CG filmmaker until there was.
There was no such thing as a smartphone filmmaker until there was.
New tools create new disciplines. That’s how creative evolution works.
If someone is developing stories, directing performances, designing shots, building worlds, editing sequences, crafting pacing, shaping emotion, and delivering a finished film, they’re participating in filmmaking. The medium may change. The craft does not.
AI is a new production medium, not a replacement for filmmaking itself. So defining people exclusively by the tool they use while simultaneously acknowledging its growing role in production feels contradictory.
The audience doesn’t care what the workflow was. They care whether the film moved them. That’s always been true, AND WILL ALWAYS BE TRUE.
And ultimately, the people creating meaningful work with these tools will define what this category becomes, not investors, gatekeepers, or people arguing definitions on the internet. Especially when so many of those conversations are influenced by financial incentives, institutional interests, or personal agendas.
History has never been written by the people trying to stop new creative tools. It’s written by the people who use them to make something worth remembering.
😎🤷♂️
Jared Cotton retweeted
AI makes it possible for ordinary people to realise their vision. Logically, the only people who would want to prevent that are a) people who don’t like ordinary people or b) people who don’t have any vision.
Jared Cotton retweeted
Being shit on for being at the bleeding edge of fundamentally life and cultural altering technology is and should be a badge of honor.
When you invoke that type of emotion from people you’re doing something right.
Jared Cotton retweeted
8:00 PM PT
🎶 TheAiCreativeCorner | 3 A.M | X: @NeonPulse24
🎶 Dezknoph | The Deserted Mystic Rust | X: @dezknoph
🎶 Andrea | Crown Demon Freestyle ~ AiKo | X: @AcquireXcel
🎶 S.Oliver | Pimping Ain't Easy Official Music Video | X: @RealBoon22
🎶 Zenith Apex | Constellations Above Constantinople | X: @zenith_apex__
🎶 Zenith Apex | The Bells Opened Zion | X: @zenith_apex__
🎶 Cloaked Worlds | Legends of Scotland | X: @CloakedWorlds
🎶 Hillsbilly Hellfire | The Party Train | X: @CyberMetalRec
8:30 PM PT
🎶 Cloaked Worlds | Neon Sunset | X: @CloakedWorlds
🎶 Pastor Fussycat | TechnoMessiah (Glitch God Remix) | X: @FussyPastor
🎶 CottonCreative | AFTERGLOW — Official Music Video | Metal Warrior | X: @CottonCreative
🎶 NahPlaya | PinkBumper | X: @nahplaya
🎶 Grimfel | Nayri The Witch x A Dark Orchestra x Grimfel - Petty | X: @GrimfelOfficial
🎶 Oatmilk Fan | Flying Through (穿梭) | X: @TheOatmilkFan
🎶 Meesha | February 14 | X: @WyldeChyldeRec | @LYLLegacy
Jared Cotton retweeted
The loudest critics love throwing around the term "AI Bros." It’s a lazy stereotype. They picture hustle-culture tech grinders who only care about VC money and scale.
They completely miss the actual revolution.
The real AI Creator community isn't a tech incubator. It’s a wildly diverse group of artists, misfits, and storytellers who were locked out of the traditional gatekept system. For every established legacy name playing with these tools, there are a thousand independent artists with beautiful spirits who finally have a way to share their art with the world.
Jared Cotton retweeted
Reality check: An extraordinarily small percentage of artists will ever work on a handmade animated film from a major studio. You have a better chance of making it to the NFL. If you do work on one, it’s work-for-hire, which means you don’t own the IP. You get paid, and when the project is over, you’re laid off. If you’re lucky and the film does well, you get to work on the next one. There are only a handful of jobs available on these projects, so opportunities for new artists are rare.
Guillermo will get paid for his films until he dies. Most of the crew will get paid once and then hope they can find another job. My son started a stop-motion channel when he was 12. At 21, he gets paid every month from his library of 552 videos. He owns everything and has hard-earned skills.
Guillermo isn’t an animator, model builder, storyboard artist, or character designer. Disney couldn’t draw better than his worst artist. And that’s okay. They are master storytellers who use skills they don’t personally possess to realize their visions.
Here are your options if you have stories to tell through animation: start making films on your own. I don’t care what medium you use, including AI. Build a fan base that can support your work.
If you’re among the tiny fraction of artists who get a chance to work at a major studio, go in knowing that you’ll get paid and own nothing. Don’t act shocked when you’re laid off. Plan on adapting, and use your time at the studio as social capital. I still get a lot of mileage out of having worked on Space Jam.
Use AI as a force multiplier. Prove Guillermo wrong. Show that you can tell great stories using skills you don’t personally have, just like Disney and Guillermo. You now have the power of an entire studio on your computer, and everyone is underestimating you. Show them you’re making stories by humans, for humans.
You can die with the ideas in your head, or you can use AI to help bring them to life.
Whatever you choose to do, ignore the internet mob. They can’t tell stories better than you. They can’t draw. They can’t create characters. They’re not there on principle. It’s a social contagion. They all repeat the same chants and slogans they’ve been programmed to regurgitate. They won’t be there to pay your bills.
And if a big-shot director looks down on you, tell him his opinion might matter when he starts sharing the life-time profits from his movies with the crews who supplied the skills he didn’t have.
🤖 Made with AI
Jared Cotton retweeted
GM! IT'S DROPPING TODAY WARRIORS @1PM PST (FRI MAY 29!) Hang onto your bags, purses, and other belongings & don't spill your popcorn 🍿...It's going to be a bumpy ride!
bit.ly/Afterglow_TSDCExpress
@MetalWarriorOFL @StoneGreg @CottonCreative
Jared Cotton retweeted
I post anything about AI and I get hit with a ton of “but AI can’t do XYZ and it’s therefore not appropriate for production,” and yet every major studio is investing in it. The absolute best way to make sure that you are unemployed in a few years is to pretend AI is not a viable technology and ignore it.
Amazon MGM Studios is embracing AI with its newly-announced GenAI Creators’ Fund, which is providing funding and access to AI production tools to filmmakers, digital creators and tech startups for developing premium “cinematic” TV shows and movies.
variety.com/2026/tv/news/ama…
Jared Cotton retweeted
If you are really, REALLY serious about AI filmmaking/storytelling you won’t be automating production beyond 5-15% of your workflow.
If you are automating more than that, most probably your work will be 90% trash.
Jared Cotton retweeted
People worry that AI is going to replace art because you can make some garbage action movie without having to use all the traditional ways of making a garbage action movie. I just think it’s going to evolve things. People will start to see that modern movies are often actually kind of corny. AI or not. And then maybe people will get to back to telling real stories. Get away from some of the storytelling techniques that have consumed film over the last 20 years. Anyway, here’s my new movie I made it this morning. #Ai
Jared Cotton retweeted
Imagine if this whole time Zahi Hawass was like that Medjai dude from The Mummy, trying to keep us all safe.
We ignore him, we dig on the plateau and we awaken the old gods he had sworn to protect humanity from.
Now that'd be a plot twist worthy of 2026.
Jared Cotton retweeted
Soon some kid you’ve never heard of, without the financial means or nepo-baby connection will make a movie using new technology that will rock the world and change their life forever.
Jared Cotton retweeted
It is wild to see the ideological reversal associated with USPS.
Hundreds of green socialists crying "No, you have to let the capitalist megacorporations raze hundreds of millions of trees! You have to let the government force-feed consoooomer advertising to your family!"
