Technically Creative by KoobrikLabs

🎙️ Meet the Woman Helping Film Culture Make Sense of Itself

In this episode of Technically Creative, Orlando Wood sits down with Cara Cusumano, Festival Director of the Tribeca Film Festival — one of the three major American film festivals alongside Sundance and SXSW, and still one of the most important gateways to legitimacy for filmmakers worldwide.

Film festivals remain the first real hurdle for a film or filmmaker to be taken seriously. The place where work moves from being made to being seen, debated, championed, and absorbed into the cultural bloodstream. And in a moment when more creators than ever are making more content than ever — with near–studio-level tools available from their couch — that curatorial role has never mattered more.

Cara oversees one of the most complex and influential selection processes in global filmmaking, sifting through more than 13,000 submissions a year to find what’s audacious rather than merely loud. As the filmmaking system is pressured on all sides — economically, culturally, and technologically — this conversation makes the case that festivals, and the humans who curate them, are more essential than ever.

Under Cara’s leadership, Tribeca has also been notably forward-thinking about new tools, including AI. Rather than sidelining creators who experiment, the festival has created intentional frameworks that ask the same timeless questions: Is there a point of view? Is there a voice? Is there something human at the center of the work?

What makes this episode especially resonant is Cara herself. When asked whether she actually watches everything, she laughs and admits she lives in fear of missing something great. That moves beyond love and into dedication — a reminder that taste-making isn’t algorithmic. It’s human.

🎧 Highlights include:

● Why film festivals remain the path to legitimacy for filmmakers

● How Tribeca filters signal from noise in an era of infinite content

● The evolving role of curation as the film industry fractures

● Tribeca’s approach to AI, tools, and creative experimentation

● Why taste, restraint, and vision still matter more than polish

● How festivals balance indie discovery with major cultural moments

● “I live in fear of missing something” — dedication as a curator

🔗 Learn more about the Tribeca Film Festival: https://tribecafilm.com

🔗 Visit KoobrikLabs: https://www.koobriklabs.com

🔗 Connect with Orlando: https://www.linkedin.com/in/orlando-wood

📍 Chapters:

[00:00] Introducing Cara Cusumano and Tribeca

[04:00] Film festivals as the path to legitimacy

[09:00] Signal vs noise in the age of infinite content

[15:00] AI, tools, and Tribeca’s forward-thinking stance

[23:00] Discovery, innovation, and community

[31:00] Programming across film, TV, games, and podcasts

[41:00] Shorts, new voices, and emerging formats

[52:00] “I live in fear of missing something”

[57:00] Why festivals — and curators — matter more than ever

#TechnicallyCreative #CaraCusumano #TribecaFilmFestival #FilmFestivals #Curation #Filmmaking #AIinFilm #Storytelling #CreativeTechnology #IndependentFilm #KoobrikLabs #OrlandoWood

In this second bonus episode of Technically Creative, Orlando Wood continues his conversation with one of the most talked-about — and least understood — figures in modern Hollywood: Jon Peters.

In Part One, we explored Jon’s unlikely path from beauty school to Barbra Streisand and A Star Is Born. In this episode, we move into the next chapter of his career — the years when Jon steps out as an independent producer, helps bring Caddyshack to life, and forms one of the most influential creative-business partnerships in film history with Peter Guber.

This conversation is still loose, funny, messy, reflective — and very “Jon.” We get deeper into how instinct, relationships, gamble-taking, and timing shaped a run of films that defined an era.

We explore:

• How Caddyshack became Jon’s first big independent producing moment

• Why Jon believes producing is really about spotting — and backing — raw creative talent

• The origin story of the Guber-Peters partnership

• How two unlikely partners built a string of hits together

• The road from producing movies to running Sony Pictures

• Loyalty, ambition, ego, conflict — and what happens when the stakes get massive

• How Jon looks back on all of it now

This is Part Two in a multi-episode series examining the real story behind the headlines — the ambition, the chaos, the successes, the fractures, and the emotional truth behind one of the most unusual careers in Hollywood.

If you’re interested in how big films really get made — and the personalities it takes to make them — this chapter goes even deeper.

More to come.

In this special bonus episode of Technically Creative, Orlando Wood sits down with one of the most mythologized and misunderstood figures in modern Hollywood: Jon Peters.

Jon’s life story reads like a Hollywood screenplay — from being pulled out of a troubled childhood and thrust into beauty school, to running a chain of iconic LA salons in the 1970s, to meeting Barbra Streisand and producing A Star Is Born, to orchestrating the Sony Pictures takeover, to holding the rights to Superman for nearly 25 years. His fingerprints are on Batman, Rain Man, Flashdance, The Color Purple, American Werewolf in London and more.

This first conversation is wide-ranging, messy, intimate, and completely Jon. We explore:

His unlikely path from hairdresser to Hollywood power player
His time with Barbra Streisand and the origin of their creative partnership
The chaos and brilliance of his producing years
His relationships with Peter Guber and studio heads like Steve Ross
His battles with addiction, his recovery, and the love that grounded him
Why his confidence — and instinct — became his superpowers

This is part one of a multi-episode series diving into the real story behind the legend, pulling apart what’s myth, what’s true, and what only Jon could possibly describe.

If you’re fascinated by Hollywood history, improbable careers, or the personalities behind the films that shaped generations, this is the beginning of a remarkable ride.

Stay tuned — the next chapters go even deeper.

🎙️ Meet the Man Shaping Hollywood's Future

In this season finale of Technically Creative, Orlando Wood sits down with Yves Bergquist — Director of the AI & Media Project at USC’s Entertainment Technology Center (where every major studio, from Warner Bros. to Netflix to Sony, collaborates on the future of storytelling), and CEO of Corto AI, a company decoding the narrative DNA of films, ads, and media.

Yves is one of Hollywood’s leading voices in AI — helping the industry understand how technology, data, and culture intersect. But this conversation isn’t just about algorithms or analytics. It’s about stories: the ones that shape audiences, and the ones we tell ourselves.

In a remarkably candid exchange, Yves shares how his work mapping creative data has paralleled his own journey of reinvention — from public failure to personal growth. It’s a rare, human look at how the next wave of creativity will be built on both intelligence and empathy.

🎧 Highlights include:

● How USC’s Entertainment Technology Center is redefining AI for Hollywood

● The “Content Fingerprinting Initiative” — using math to protect IP in generative media

● Corto AI and the narrative DNA of storytelling

● Why Gen Z wants a John Hughes-style revival of “people misbehaving” movies

● What Yellowstone and House of Guinness teach us about storytelling as marketing

● Yves’ personal story of failure, forgiveness, and self-discovery

● Why the next Golden Age of creativity will be the most human yet

🔗 Learn more about USC’s Entertainment Technology Center: https://www.etcenter.org

🔗 Explore Corto AI: https://www.corto.ai

🔗 Visit KoobrikLabs: https://www.koobriklabs.com

🔗 Connect with Orlando: https://www.linkedin.com/in/orlando-wood

📍 Chapters:

[00:00] Introducing Yves Bergquist — data, culture, and storytelling

[04:00] Inside USC’s AI & Media Project

[07:00] The “Content Fingerprinting Initiative” and copyright in the AI era

[12:00] Decoding the narrative DNA of stories

[17:00] Global storytelling trends and the Gen Z renaissance

[25:00] Corto AI and the future of brand storytelling

[34:00] How data and emotion drive creativity

[44:00] Yves’ candid story of failure and redemption

[57:00] Why the future of creativity is deeply human

#TechnicallyCreative #YvesBergquist #USC #EntertainmentTechnologyCenter #CortoAI #AIinHollywood #Storytelling #DataScience #CreativeTechnology #Innovation #FilmIndustry #KoobrikLabs #OrlandoWood

Every few years, advertising reinvents itself. This time, it’s happening from the inside out.

In this episode of Technically Creative, Orlando Wood sits down with Martin Pagh Ludvigsen, Director of AI and Creative Technology at Goodby Silverstein, one of the most iconic agencies in the world. Martin leads The Labs, a department that lives inside the creative floor (not the IT wing) and prototypes the impossible. His team bridges imagination and production, helping GSP’s creatives turn wild ideas into tangible reality.

From the “Ask Dalí” project; where museum visitors could literally talk to Salvador Dalí, to the BMW “Real for Real” campaign that tackled AI Slop head-on, Martin explains how creativity and technology can coexist when AI becomes the subject of the idea, not just the software behind it.

Together, Orlando and Martin explore how The Labs operates inside a 40-year-old agency that still acts like a startup, and what happens when creative technologists are trusted as artists, not just engineers. This is a conversation about curiosity, craft, and culture in an age where “trust is the new oil.”

Orlando and Martin explore:

● How Goodby Silverstein built a creative R&D department inside its creative floor

● Why “Ask Dalí” became one of the most talked-about AI art experiences in the world

● The making of BMW’s “Real for Real” and the cultural backlash against AI Slop

● Why great creative technology starts with why, not how

● How AI can elevate creativity when it’s part of the idea, not just production

● Why “trust” and “authenticity” will define the next era of advertising