The New Creative Infrastructure
in partnership with
AWS brings two sessions to Tribeca X exploring what creative production looks like when cloud and AI are foundational — not retrofits. In the first, director c. Craig Patterson, Asteria Co-Founder Benjamin Michel, and AWS discuss the making of ChikaBOOM!, an animated short premiering at Tribeca built using Asteria’s Continuum Suite on AWS. The second features Untold Studios sharing how they built one of the world’s first fully cloud-native creative studios and are integrating AI across ideation, animation, and production. Together, the sessions offer two perspectives on the same industry shift: what becomes possible when technology expands — rather than replaces — human creativity.
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From Script to Screen: The Human-Anchored Future of AI Filmmaking
When director c. Craig Patterson set out to make ChikaBOOM! — an animated short premiering at this year’s Tribeca Festival — he did it with a cast including Yara Shahidi, Natasha Lyonne, Daveed Diggs, Tika Sumpter, and Roy Wood Jr., and a production pipeline built on Asteria’s Continuum Suite and Amazon Web Services. Blending 2D, CG, and AI-driven animation, the film explores what becomes possible when technology supports, rather than replaces, creative vision. Join AWS, Asteria Co-Founder Benjamin Michel, and Patterson for a conversation about cloud-native filmmaking, AI as a creative collaborator, and the human judgment and craft still at the center of the process.
C. Craig Patterson
Director
Benjamin Michel
Co-Founder, Asteria
Annie Ayres
Head of Music and Brand Partnerships, Untold Studios
Josh Bagnall
Untold Lead Technologist
Thomas Winkler
Amazon Songline Executive & Head of Publisher, Songwriter, and Society Relations at Amazon Music
Croi McNamara
Moderator (AWS Studios)Born in the Cloud: How Untold Studios Rebuilt the Creative Studio for the AI Era
A creative-first conversation on how Untold Studios is evolving the modern studio model around craft, culture, and world-class talent. Going behind the scenes of Untold’s partnership with Amazon Songline, using the A$AP Rocky Songline project as a live example of what happens when a creative idea is supported by the right infrastructure, tools, and production model. The panel explores how ambitious creative work is shaped through collaboration between artists, directors, producers, technologists, and partners. As the first cloud-based creative studio, Untold has removed traditional barriers to accessing the best global talent, enabling seamless collaboration and more efficient delivery for clients - all in service of the idea. This is not a technical deep dive, but a look at how the right infrastructure and production model can quietly support creativity, elevate craft, and help bold work travel further.