One Film, Two Ways: Presenting, A Very Long Carriage Ride
Presenting ‘A Very Long Carriage Ride,’ heralding a new age of the malleable film.
A film is no longer a film. A film is now a series of possibilities.
One critique of my work imagined the future as a horror show: films will be reverse engineered by algorithms.
What they don’t realize is that this is exactly what audiences have come to demand. They have adjusted the output to where we are branching off into two forms of cinema: films for audiences, and films with unique points of view by directorial auteurs.
This branch has to begin somewhere and even conjoined at points, before we split off into two separate philosophies of cinema. The automated film, and, the ultimate auteur film; One Man, One Film.
AI presents all paths, just as a blank canvas presents all paths.
But to understand A Very Long Carriage Ride and what’s behind it, I explore new phenomenon has emerged in the last decade, as well as its solution…
We have seen the emergence of a new audience demand. Audiences now want an equal voice in the creative process.
This has been supremely frustrating for creators because, simultaneously, the audience doesn’t know what it wants. In fact, every time audience demands are met, a portion of these disgruntled audiences often gets even angrier.
Nothing in culture happens in a vacuum.
This is not to say the audiences are wrong to push back against cinema they dislike. There is something inherently wrong there as well, of a small group people in control of a mechanism with an active antagonism against its own audience.
The question turns in both directions, inward, through the weaponization of attention, both ends become antagonistic toward the artist at center.
What happens when both input and output are corrupted?
AI did not come from nowhere, but out of total necessity.
Machine cinema allows us to see evolution in real time. I have said time and time again, AI is not the evolution of cinema, it is evolution itself. It was always leading to this, we just didn’t realize it in the preceding decade as we were reaping the benefits of automation, collectivization and streamlining this would seep into cinema too.
For now the machine cinema will allow any audience to have any movie in any aesthetic, happening, algorithmically with one click of a button.
One Man, One Film, may eventually become One Click, One Film.
So I present A Very Long Carriage Ride, proving the concept I outlined in The Living, Breathing Cinema in my book of essays, The New Machine Cinema: Foundational Essays in AI Film Theory.
It begins with a concept: One Film, Two Ways.
Do you want the film in the anime version, the live action version in the style of noir, or the claymation?
Whatever audiences want, they can have.
Audiences can now choose exactly what brings them the most amount of pleasure.
In any way, any how.
I present history’s first feature film released in two ways, simultaneously.
I present:
A Very Long Carriage Ride.
This is not complicated, and there is a reason I did not complexify the proof. In May 2025, I will be releasing two versions of A Very Long Carriage Ride; two versions of the exact same film.
The fully AI golden age style 2D animated version inspired by classic Disney films.
And the fully AI stop motion animated version.
I considered complexifying the proof.
I considered making both versions have two alternate endings. A happy ending, and a sad ending. Or two different music scores.
After all, where audiences demand bend it is not only surrounding aesthetics, but outcomes.
Instead, I present A Very Long Carriage Ride offering the simplest proof of concept, nothing else: One Film, Two Ways.
Other filmmakers, studios, algorithms, can take this in any direction they want, any way, any how. Different endings, different scores, different outcomes. In fact, I have gone through considerable lengths to make my movie twice simultaneously so that others may follow.
Every mountain that I climbed, I turned around returning, climbing it a second time.
In doing so, I took the long way.
I did not make one single version and then press a button creating a 1:1 approximation. I painstakingly crafted and animated the film one image at a time, generating both movies separately.
It had to be hard to prove the concept. It had to be difficult, so that it will be easy later. In one click.
A film can now happen exactly how someone wants it. A film can have different endings or plot developments or different characters. “You” can see yourself as the star of the movie. Any style, any way, with the click of a button.
We have identified the problem–audiences and creators are completely out of lockstep due to the increasing variety of needs. And solved it forever. As solved it can’t be unsolved. You cannot unsee it.
So my purpose in presenting A Very Long Carriage Ride in two ways with one film is just that. One Film, Two Ways.
It is the plainest possible starting point for this concept, and from this, others can take the concept and run with it.
Can a film unfold in five different ways?
Can we type in a prompt and see different scenarios play out?
Can we watch a film 100 times and every time it’s different?
Can we figure out through audience consensus what is the most beloved possible ending for this movie? Or, what is the most hated ending for this movie?
In proving the Living, Breathing Cinema, we can now play with our films like toys.
Last, I want to say, A Very Carriage Ride is, irrespective of the technology, a work I went through great lengths to make a good film for viewers to enjoy.
The film is a passion project, not a tech demo, and the film I have been waiting to make for my whole life, and only AI has made that possible. I dare not speculate which version is better. Where I go back and forth, I am certain the one I’m watching in the current moment was best. I will leave it for viewers to decide.
