Kevin Friel Is A Pixel Wizard

If there was ever any doubt the spring has begun to unfurl, may your views also put that notion drastically at rest. Apologies to the Ontario clan who are being forced to wait quite a bit longer. I shall revel on your behalf. #spring #vancouver #flowers #morningviews

So hard to believe, and equally believable, that it has already been 4 years since you left your physical body. I hear you and feel you in ways, everyday, that seem more vivid than even in reality. Your hand pushes pieces that I know would not have moved so divinely if you weren’t up there in the ethereal peanut gallery. It’s been simply amazing to travel through so much life, in pain and grief… and then in joy and willlld movement in these few years. I’m truly in an unimaginable place in life, work and love through it all. While I’m grateful for all the challenges that have transmuted to deep gifts from your passing, I so wish I could bend your ear lobes and see your shimmering intelligence and pride through your wise Irish eyes. It is so confounding to be grateful for energetic presence while still mourning the physical loss. It’s the embodiment of the plethora of intersecting truths, often contradictory, of the human condition. I’m also deeply touched at the cosmic humour you have gained, putting the 2 most substantial days of the year so far in the B.C. + AI Film club meetup tonight on the night of the anniversary of your passing, and the first major screening of my current AI VFX project on your birthday of April 13th…. At the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, where I basically grew up in the orchestra pit, no less. Well played, papa. ☘️ In where and whenever you may be, I hope there is so much joy filling your moments. You are missed deeply, and I will chat with you soon. Love you always. #anniversary #life #grief #dad #mourning

Last month, things got deep…and a little weird. The Mind, AI, and Consciousness (MAC) crew took over the @spacecentreyvr and explored embodiment and quantum consciousness, synesthesia as consciousness litmus tests, love and romance, and whether LLMs are mirrors reflecting human knowledge or something closer to minds. Ready to confront your beliefs and assumptions? The full videos will be released over then next week. Stay tuned. 🎥 @megapolis_films x @serbin_photography #vancouverai #bcaiecosystem #artificialintelligence

#BCAIFilmClub February meetup was one for the books. 🎬 @mrpixelwizard kicked things off by defining the 'Orchestration Era.' Creators aren't just prompting anymore; they're conducting multiple models (like Google DeepMind's Veo 3.1 and Kuaishou Technology's Kling 3.0) to build coherent creative pipelines. Here's what went down: • @belcimbilgincom shared her inspiring journey of using AI avatars (@iambe4ai ) to continue her storytelling work.. • @brianhockenstein stunned us with a nature-focused short film, proving that these tools can capture "deep time" and human emotion. • @mtippett el premiered a new trailer for Episode 18 of his @mrcanadatoday series and as Kevin noted, his work truly goes fair beyond making films, encompassing a "universe of tools, helpers, and community nurturing." • Michel LeBlond showed us how to turn static character sketches into fully animated YouTube Shorts using Grok. • Jakub Kuczyński premiered "Hardcore," a blistering action short made in Unreal Engine that felt like a AAA game, complete with incredible one-human sound design. • Daniel Moon introduced Tide Theory, a new tool for generating bespoke music briefs and scores directly from video inputs. • Joel Flynn (@podstreamstudios ) gave us a masterclass on "tertiary artifacts" and using tools like @soundtrap to "catch the song." Announcements 📣 Next Challenge: ASMR. It’s time to get weird and auditory. Next Month's Venue: We are moving to the new @multimodal space in Gastown! See you at the next one: March 12! - ​Kevin, @kriskrug , @imayumir , @lukeminaker , and the BC + AI Ecosystem team 👋 📸: @tristanbrand #VancouverAI #BCAIEcosystem

When @lukeminaker dropped the prompt challenge at our BC + AI Film Club for ‘make a toilet paper ad at our Jan 8th meetup, I was not expecting to have the wild power of Kling 3 to play with! Multi-shot prompting, amazing consistency through all those shots with an input image, fantastic and nuanced character direction and really great audio made this spot come together in just 7 generations! Suno for the score and stings, ElevenLabs for the CTA VO, DaVinci Resolve studio for cut, colour and mix. More to come from the other 11 clips from our community, all really playful and amazing. What an honour to open a stage to so many creative folks and get to play along. #ai #film #ad #aliens #kling3

What… a…. Night! The first monthly BC + AI Film Club Meetup was a massive success. So much energy, creation and brilliance in one room! Grateful to everyone who presented, shared, contributed and vibed so dang well. We’re only just starting! Special thanks to @bc.ai.ecosystem @kriskrug @yangos @multimodal_media_lab @clearleddisplays @rozmcn @mtippett @johnmutter @lukeminaker @tinyghoststudiosinc Daniela, Mayumi and so many volunteers for taking this all to the next level. Can’t wait to see you Jan 28th at the main @vancouver_ai meetup, and the next Film Club on Feb 12th! Register early on Luma. I love this, and all of you, so damn much. Thank you! ❤️😭🤖🎥🎉 #ai #film #bcaiecosystem #bcaifilmclub #community

Built an Apple-style AI commercial on a startup budget for @onliweb_ Bono AI ... and honestly… this one stretched me in the best way. Bono AI is an AI voice assistant that turns real phone conversations into content, leads, follow-ups, and booked consults. You talk. It publishes. The challenge wasn’t the tech. It was the feeling. How do you make an AI product feel: human. emotional. quietly powerful. not like another dashboard demo. So I built this as a live, modular, AI-native film pipeline that could evolve as the product evolved—right up to final delivery. Every frame, voice, and sound was generated with: Midjourney • Google Veo 3.1 • Claude • Suno • ElevenLabs UI in Figma and Adobe After Effects Final look, colour, mix & master in DaVinci Resolve Studio The film follows people just living their lives—walking, working, hanging with family—while the AI quietly runs the content engine in the background. No hustle energy. No screen obsession. Just life… supported by software. Big respect to the Bono AI team for trusting a very fluid, experimental process while the product itself was still taking shape. ⸻ I’m opening up a few limited client spots for founders who want this level of cinematic AI brand storytelling. If it feels aligned, DM me. #CreativeAI #AIFilm #StartupMarketing #BrandStorytelling #GenerativeVideo #FounderLife #MotionDesign #FutureOfContent #PixelWizard

Thank you @multimodal_media_lab and @yangos for such a brilliant night of AI Showcases, including my own ‘The Visitor’ short, at your fantastic new facility last night. A lot of familiar faces and good deal of new ones to mingle with. What an incredible hub for forward thinking digital creatives at a fantastic location downtown. It’s a deep honour to be amongst those celebrating your launch. I’m very excited to soon be a very active participant here, and to meet and collaborate with other Vancouver creatives and tech wranglers. We’re really lucky to have such an expansive facility like this here! Let’s make the very most of it and hit the world stage harder than ever! #ai #showcase #vr #xr #ar #led #new #opportunities #community

Getting ready to join this very important discussion in a couple of hours, and am thrilled and honoured to be a part of it with some very big brains! The AI & The Climate Paradox: Building a Responsible Creative Industry panel explores AI’s dual role: streamlining production and reducing waste while carrying a carbon cost. Join industry experts and technologists as they unpack how AI can move beyond hype toward a truly responsible and resilient entertainment future. Speakers: Liz Marshall, @Kevin Friel, @Kei Baritugo, and @Catherine Warren 🔗 Join us on November 4 at SPF25 Vancouver to learn more: /spf25-vancouver #spf25 #vancouver #ai #artificialintelligence #climateaction #climatechange #vancouverevent #vancity\

​We’re back in the planetarium to do what this community does best... show the work, ask sharper questions and celebrate the weirdos pushing the edges. Join us for the next Vancouver AI Community Meetup at H.R. MacMillan Space Centre on October 29th.

Veo 3.1 is impressive! Took the Ingredients feature in Fast for a spin, using the isolated elements (Swipe to see Alien on an alpha channel, Newscaster on a white BG and the news set cleaned of any characters with Photoshop generative fill) of what would have gone into my Runway References workflow back in late May when I originally made 'The Visitor'. Very impressed with the consistency this maintained! Audio generation is much cleaner so far, free of the heavy artifacting that came with most generations. Also the humour of the performance of the anchor peering around... nice touch! Prompt: Make the Alien in image 1 sit at the newsdesk on image 2. The News Anchor in image 3 is peering around a background set corner at the alien in disbelief. The Alien is talking about ways to bring about world peace instantly. Note that Ingredients is only available for Veo 3.1 Fast directly through Google's Flow platform.... which is quite worth the Ultimate price tag if you're doing high volumes of generations (you can generate 20 clips at once!), as Fast generations are still unlimited! More to come as we learn more about this new beast of a model. #alien #cliffhanger #veo3 #google #deepmind #test #consistency #film #ai

📡 Static hum. Corporate hold music. A voice that might be God—or tech support. AGI TV Volume 1 📺 The broadcast has begun. This is what happens when you collaborate with an AI that actually gets comedy. @soraofficial 2 doesn’t just follow absurd prompts—it amplifies them, adding details I never imagined. 🎞️ AGI TV is my attempt to curate a hyper-existential Saturday-morning cartoon network: Think Adult Swim at 3 AM. Think MTV interstitials before brand safety existed. Reality, glitching into cosmic absurdity. ☕ The recipe: Take something painfully mundane (DMV, job interview, coffee run). Ask: “What if this existed in the void?” Sora 2 handles the rest—rendering the bureaucratic and the metaphysical into slapstick transcendence. “It’s comedy for a species still pretending it’s in charge.” The signal continues. The algorithm is watching. Volume 2 uploads itself soon. Follow the wobbly slipstream on the Sora app in realtime with MrPixelWizard 🌀 #AGITV #Sora2 #AIFilmmaking #AbsurdistComedy #AI #chatGPT #Claude #AdultSwimEnergy #ExistentialHumor #PixelWizard #VancouverCreatives