"Everything can be perfect in a world, but we might still not be happy and we might still feel isolated." — Verena Puhm Verena Puhm and Brian Wankum took second place at the Future Vision XPRIZE with Nobody Dies on Mars, a film about a chef who moves to Mars, loses his sense of taste, and lives in a colony where nobody is allowed to die. On this episode of GenTalks, they join Machine Cinema co-founder Fred Grinstein and co-host Jagger Waters to talk through how it got made: a story Verena threw out and restarted after a week, a brief that ruled out dystopia, and a feature script written in one week once the film reached the top ten. Brian explains what his VFX credit meant on an AI film: fixing the prop, the hair and the gibberish sign that would have pulled viewers out of the story, mostly with traditional compositing. The two go back to where they met, at the first Machine Cinema GenJams, and Verena shares what she is building at Matriarch. Before the guests arrive, Jagger and Fred watch the trailer for Gossip Goblin's Gods Don't Give Gifts, headed to theaters in December, and Jagger picks this week's 5-Star Slop. CHAPTERS 0:00 What if you could live forever? 0:25 Creator Crush: Gossip Goblin's Gods Don't Give Gifts 2:35 Joe Rogan, lore and the long game 6:18 5-Star Slop: Diana Ava 8:59 In defense of slop 10:58 The Future Vision XPRIZE 13:18 Verena Puhm and Brian Wankum 14:13 The team behind Nobody Dies on Mars 15:18 Why they entered 16:07 Sci-fi that isn't dystopian 17:36 The story: a chef on Mars who can't taste 20:23 Tools: Luma agents, Seedance 2 and 2.5 22:36 Brian: fixing what AI got wrong 24:13 GenJam memory lane 30:10 What collaboration taught them, and Garbage Person 36:05 Matriarch and what's next 37:52 AI studios are booked till January KEY TAKEAWAYS - The brief asked for a future that isn't dystopian. Verena's answer was to keep the world working and put the drama in the people: "if everything is fixed, what's the drama?" - She worked on a first version for a week, with five characters and a villain, then dropped it and rebuilt the film around two characters she liked together. - Verena named Seedance 2 and 2.5 as the only video models on the film, with Luma agents for ideation and batch rendering. Sound design and music were made traditionally. - Brian on his VFX credit: "I corrected where AI got things wrong." A wrong prop, wrong hair, a sign full of gibberish, fixed mostly with non-generative compositing. - Once the film made the top ten, the team had one week to write the feature script. Verena says it is now being packaged. - Verena on picking collaborators: she wants someone who carries as much as she does. She and Brian both stayed up until Garbage Person was done at a 48-hour GenJam. - Jagger on 5-Star Slop: creators who post relentlessly, don't overthink it, and have a look of their own. SHOWN IN THIS EPISODE - Gods Don't Give Gifts (trailer), Gossip Goblin - Diana Ava (Instagram) - Eric Weaver's LinkedIn post on slop - Nobody Dies on Mars, Verena Puhm - Garbage Person TOOLS MENTIONED Luma agents · Seedance 2 · Seedance 2.5 · Viggle · CapCut FIND VERENA Instagram: @verenapuhm and @nobodydiesonmars YouTube: @verenapuhm LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/verenapuhm/ FIND BRIAN Instagram: @brianwankum YouTube: youtube.com/@brian.wankum LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/brianwankum ABOUT GENTALKS GenTalks is Machine Cinema's conversation series with the artists, technologists and producers building with generative AI in film and media. Hosted by Fred Grinstein, with co-host Jagger Waters. Join the Machine Cinema community: machinecinema.ai #GenTalks #MachineCinema #AIFilmmaking #XPRIZE #NobodyDiesOnMars #GenerativeAI #Seedance #SciFi #VFX