April 28, 2026 • 47 mins
Everyone says AI is coming for your job, your art, your privacy, and maybe your soul. Hogan Shrum has a different idea.
In this lively and unexpectedly optimistic episode of Bald Ambition, Mookie Spitz sits down with Hogan Shrum, co-founder of PIPPA, a generative AI platform built not to replace creators, but to empower them. PIPPA lets everyday people create animated movies, custom cartoons, educational videos, branded content, and story-driven media with astonishing ease. But unlike so much of the AI world, this platform was designed with guardrails, ethics, and actual usefulness in mind.
What began as a father making bedtime stories for his children evolved into a serious creative tool with massive implications for parents, teachers, marketers, influencers, writers, and entrepreneurs. Upload your voice, type a story, choose a visual style, customize characters, tweak camera angles, add music, lip sync dialogue, and export polished animated content, and all from one interface.
Mookie digs into what makes PIPPA genuinely different: licensed artist styles with royalty payments, strict protections against abuse, safer family-friendly content controls, intuitive editing tools, and a clear lane in the market. The result is stylized animation rather than creepy fake-human AI slop.
The conversation explores how PIPPA could transform education by turning passive learning into active storytelling. They also discuss the broken public perception of AI, why most platforms ignore creators, how pricing makes professional-level output affordable, and why carving out a niche may be smarter than trying to become everything for everyone.
Give them a listen to discover how the future can feel less dystopian and a lot more fun.
The Guest
Hogan Shrum is the Co-Founder of PIPPA, the world’s first animation platform that lets anyone create animated videos, and his work sits at the intersection of storytelling, product design, and creator empowerment. At PIPPA, he’s helped develop innovative features to support artists and combat AI art theft, collaborates with a diverse team to improve user experience and platform functionality, and helps foster a creative community where users can express their ideas through animation. Before and alongside PIPPA, Hogan’s background includes brand-building and engagement work through A Little Bird, where the focus has been forging genuine brand-consumer relationships through innovative engagement strategies. His experience in experiential marketing and marketing communications gives him a sharp point of view on what makes people connect and engage with a brand, not just notice it.
The Company
PIPPA is a story-to-animation platform that transforms imagination into living animated worlds, making it possible to create, share, and revisit stories that feel unmistakably yours without the complexity of traditional animation or current AI animation tools, all while supporting visual artists and combatting AI art theft.
Discount Code
Enter MOOKIE to receive 25% off any new paid account at any tier.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Hello and welcome to the ambition podcast.
I'm your very bald host, MookieSpitz.
And the one with all theambition today is Mr.
Hogan Schrum.
He is co-founder of Hip Hop.
Welcome to the podcast.
Thank you very much, Mookie.
Glad to be here.
Glad to have you.
(00:21):
AI.
A few years ago, everyone waspredicting robots, behaviors,
reinforcement learning.
And this generative AI stuffcame as a surprise with the
large language model, withOpenAI, ChatGPT, November 2022,
(00:41):
the world changed.
And out of generative AI and thelarge language models, we've got
video as a key component, whichis super exciting.
It's been a little controversialto tell us about PIPA and how it
takes that take on generative AIwith custom video for
(01:05):
individuals, businesses, theworks.
SPEAKER_01 (01:09):
Yeah, so it was born out of an idea that uh my
co-founder and I had where weboth have young children and we
would tell them bedtime storiesat night.
And uh my co-founder, Sean, hadthe idea his way, his wife
walked by and said, You know,you should turn those into one
of those AI books.
And him being an AI guru geniuswas like, What if I could create
(01:31):
a cartoon instead?
And so he built his own littletool to upload audio that would
then convert from that audioalone, where he would just
record it on his phone, into acartoon.
And he showed me this and I wasblown away.
And I said, he was using hiskids' voices, his voice,
everything was verypersonalized.
And I was like, this is verydifferent than what I've seen
(01:51):
from generative video and AI.
Um felt very personal.
And I was like, man, if we coulddemocratize this and give anyone
the opportunity to create theirown stories, regardless of skill
level, that would be theultimate home run.
And then we talked immediatelyabout the AI art theft and the
(02:12):
controversy around a lot ofthese things.
And thankfully, he and I were onthe same page there.
He actually uh several of hissiblings are artists.
One of them is in fact ananimator for a large YouTube
show.
And so our idea was when welaunch this thing, we're gonna
fast track as quickly aspossible to get artists to
submit their artwork so thatthey can create their own styles
(02:35):
within Pippa that can be used bythe public.
And in so doing, we would bepaying those artists royalties
anytime their styles were usedas a percentage of our profits.
And the ultimate goal is thatall styles available on Pippa in
the near future are all artistlicensed.
SPEAKER_00 (02:54):
Amen.
What a great model! The bigplayers have been ripping
everyone off, right?
They they started out going toused bookstores and just OCR
scanning text and uploading itand just uh lawsuits flying
around, New York Times, SarahSilverman.
(03:15):
Everyone's angry, justifiablyso.
If you're a content creator,your stuff has been ripped with
no compensation.
So it sounds like the core ofyour business model is to take
proprietary content that thatyour that your bots use, but
actually pay the artist.
SPEAKER_01 (03:33):
Correct.
Very much so.
Um pay and promote, to be honestwith you.
So each artist is going to havetheir own profile page within
this that links to their sites,how whatever they'd like us to
promote for them.
But yes, basically anytimesomeone creates a video, as soon
as they select the style, thatartist gets paid.
Um, and moreover, while we dohave AI styles on there now as
(03:56):
we continue to grow, we arestill taking that same
percentage of profits anddonating that to an artist pool.
So artists are actually going tobe paid in the off chance that
someone uses an AI art stylehere in the near term.
Um, so it's still an opportunityfor them to earn by being a part
of PIPA and getting their artout there.
SPEAKER_00 (04:17):
I love the mission and the model.
It's inspirational.
Almost retroactively.
Why didn't they think of that?
And that's because they're toobig and too greedy.
That's why they didn't think ofthat.
Tell us about the experience.
Let's back up a couple steps.
What's your value prop?
How does the user experiencework?
(04:40):
And uh what kind of tiers do youhave?
I know you can do personalvideos, videos for business.
SPEAKER_01 (04:48):
Yeah, the use cases are pretty hard to quantify
because they just keep spiralingout like a web.
But as far as the userexperience goes, again, our our
objective here was we want tomake this as accessible as
possible.
I don't want this to just be foran AI expert, a prompting
expert, an animator, uh, a veryexperienced digital creator.
(05:09):
I want it, I want aneight-year-old to be able to use
this and bring their imaginationto life in ways they couldn't
even imagine.
Um, and so the user experienceis very straightforward, but
it's also meant to be just that.
A lot of the AI video generatorsout there now, it's a prompt,
wait, see what you get kind ofmodel.
Uh, this kind of takes you alongthe way.
So the the simplest and easiestwe have um is that first tier,
(05:33):
which is just essentially showme the magic, is what we call
it.
And you start that project,you'll open it up, uh, it gives
you three options.
You can upload audio, kind ofharking, harkening back to how
Pippa was born.
Um, you can upload a document orstory, um, or you can choose ask
Pippa to help you write thatstory, where you can just
(05:54):
create, tell it what characters,what the general idea or plot
ideas for the story is.
You pick the genre, you pick thetone, you pick the length.
And then it will generate thatfor you right there on the
screen.
You have an opportunity to editor tweak anything it wrote for
you.
And then once you're happy withthe story, it takes you to pick
your your style selection.
Right now we have around 20different styles you can pick
(06:16):
from.
Um, anything from you know 3Danimation, classic, classic
Disney style animation, uhanime, you name it, watercolor,
crayon.
There's just so there's a ton ofoptions.
Um, once you pick that style, itwill then auto-detect the
characters in your story.
And that's an first opportunityfor you to really personalize
(06:37):
this outside of the storyitself.
You can upload a referencephoto.
If you're a star in the show, itwill look like you and whatever
that animation style is.
Um, and then it willautomatically generate the
screenplay and all of thestoryboard for you.
So you will, after a fewminutes, land on a page that
shows you your entirestoryboard.
Nothing's animated yet, butit'll also then give you an
(06:59):
opportunity to look at thoseindividual shots.
Did it do this correctly?
There are a bunch of little funediting tools.
You can pick camera angles, youcan honestly get pretty in the
weeds if you really want to.
And that's that's the stickypart.
It becomes really fun seeing howyou can really personalize and
create this the way you want itto be created, which virtually
no other AI tools and animationallow for the common user,
(07:23):
right?
Um, you're paying a whole lot ofmoney using a bunch of different
tools to do all of this, andthis all happens right there
within Pippa and a very easyinterface.
And then when you're ready, youhit animate, and within a few
minutes, you've got a fullyproduced cartoon.
It then drops you into uh whatwe call our composer, which then
allows you to write there withinthe platform, add sound effects,
(07:46):
do voiceover dialogue, music,all within the platform.
Once you're happy with that, andit uses a pretty similar
interface to interface to saylike a descript, where it's got
you know tracks of animation,audio, effects, et cetera, that
you can just drag and drophowever you want.
Um, it will lip sync for you anyof the dialogue that you want,
lip sync to the characters.
(08:06):
Uh, and then you can export, andyou can export it in 1080p, 4K,
and it can be exported indifferent formats based on say
your social channels.
So it'll do 16 by 9 for YouTube,it'll do Instagram, TikTok, etc.
Um, but again, you're neverhaving to leave the platform,
and it's meant to be this sortof guided creative experience.
SPEAKER_00 (08:28):
So, my goal as a user, whether I'm an individual,
I could even be uh a youngerperson, young adult, kid, uh, is
to create a dynamic animatedmovie.
That's my goal, right?
Yeah, and then you have anintegrated platform that uses
the tools of the trade to makethat as simple and as intuitive
(08:50):
and fun as possible.
And if I'm hearing you right,you could add an audio file.
Now, is this me making adescription of my movie?
So if I'm a kid and I justrecord my voice, or is it using
some kind of other source toinspire this creation for the
(09:14):
audio?
SPEAKER_01 (09:14):
So it could be it could be a combination of all
those things.
So we have the ability for youto use an AI voiceover.
Another area that we're reallygoing after soon is we just like
we have artists on there forvisuals, we want to have
voiceover artists that can beused on there as well where they
get paid instead of us using AIvoices.
Frankly, AI voices just don'thave the tone and personality
that you ever want from a lot ofthese, especially for the types
(09:37):
of uh content that we're makinghere, but it can be a
combination of things.
So uh you could you couldessentially have a narrated
story where the whole story istold, say, by a narrator in one
long audio file, and then theanimation will build around
that.
You can have a dialogue-drivenstory where it will detect what
characters are speaking, and youcan assign different voices to
(09:59):
them.
You can record right there inthe platform.
So let's say I'm a character, Iappear in these different
scenes.
On each storyboard, I can justhit voice, it'll allow me to
record the dialogue right there,lip sync it right there, that
shot is done, featuring myvoice, kids' voices, whomever.
SPEAKER_00 (10:16):
Okay, I was just a little confused as to whether
this audio file is commandingthe interface to do things, or
if it's the actual VO of adialogue or exchange within the
movie, and you're saying itcould be a combination of both.
Yeah, we've trained it to doboth.
Can it interpret or intuit basedjust on the input what I'm
(10:41):
intending to do?
Yep.
Okay, pretty, pretty impressive.
So I can put in there, you know,Hogan and Mookie are having a
podcast conversation aboutPippa, put together a little
two-minute movie, and we're allanimated in the style of
ex-artist, and then we'll moveoff to the races, or I could
(11:03):
input our actual mimic dialogueand maybe scat the first uh few
minutes of it, and then I'llinterpret that.
Is that what's going on?
SPEAKER_01 (11:13):
The fastest, easiest example of that.
If we took uh the audiorecording of this podcast, and
let's say we did the first twominutes and we just uploaded
that audio and then grabbed apicture of both of us for the
character references and thensent it on its way, it would
build that all out for you,storyboard it, etc.
SPEAKER_00 (11:30):
Awesome.
So it's off to the races.
So it uses all the power of AIintuitively and implicitly to
really interpret what the userwants based on those inputs, and
then the user can tweak it as itgoes along.
Now, one of the problems with alot of the AI platforms that
persist to this day isiterations.
(11:51):
So when you iterate, it's like Idon't want a yellow hat, I want
a blue one, and then it goesfrom a dinosaur to a chicken.
unknown (11:58):
Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00 (12:00):
Exactly.
Right?
It's that's been the problemwith generative AI since
inception, and it and itpersists.
So I can tweak, I can tweak PIPAas as I can change blue hats and
dinosaurs to chickens, and I cando all that in an iterative
process to edit as I go along.
Is that right?
That's right.
SPEAKER_01 (12:20):
We we've excitedly solved that problem for the most
part.
I mean, look, there's still somehallucinate hallucinations here
and there when it comes to AI.
That's uh uh essentially just alimit of AI right now in
general.
But the way we've set it up isso my biggest frustration when
we were building this was man,this got 95% of the image right.
And like that 5% is reallyannoying.
(12:42):
And my only option is toregenerate and cross my fingers
and hope it gets it 100% rightthis time, but it still starts
over.
So we actually recoded andimplemented a tool that's
similar to things you might seeon like a Canva or say Adobe,
where if you have the image andlet's say, oh, this is all
perfect, but why are theywearing a green coat?
They're supposed to be wearing ablue coat.
You can just put in AIinstruction and type character
(13:05):
should be wearing blue coat andit'll switch just the coat.
You can actually use a painttool where let's say there's a
random object that shouldn't bethere, and you just want that
removed.
You can point-click paint overit and say remove the object,
remove that object, and it'lljust take out what you painted,
but keeping all else the same,so you're not stuck in this
(13:26):
endless loop of regeneration andhope.
SPEAKER_00 (13:29):
That's novel.
That's novel.
The the dollies and the grocksof the world are all prompt
driven, and you can't really dipin there.
Yep.
So that's that's pretty prettydamn cool.
And it sounds like you have apost-production experience.
Yep.
With uh with the with thelayering.
SPEAKER_01 (13:49):
It depends on how deep you want to go.
That's the thing, you're notrequired to, but you have the
opportunity to.
So it will produce a very solidvideo with minimal with minimal
influence by the user if that'swhat they choose.
But what we found is that onceyou start getting in there, the
tool itself is fun.
It gives you controls that arevery intuitive, like, oh, I wish
(14:10):
the I wish it was a view overhere where you just open the
camera box and it allows you tojust pick the perspective you
wanted to take in the image, andit'll make that exact same shot
just from a different angle.
SPEAKER_00 (14:22):
This is terrific.
And you're highlighting contrastwith like Sora.
Sora from OpenAI got the plugpulled fairly recently, and it
was just bombarding the internetwith AI slop, everything from
fake news to harassment to, toyour point, copyright
infringement.
So you're solving a lot of theseproblems.
(14:44):
Number one is is you're payingthe artists whose styles you're
using, the other one is is isease of use and depth of that.
So I can tweak, I can adjust.
It doesn't just barf out oneiteration with little changes.
Exactly.
And I also get thispost-production aspect, and I
get to play with it.
(15:05):
And it sounds like uh a neat aneat solution to a lot of the
problems that are in generativeAI for video.
Very much so.
It's fun.
Can you can you can you talk usthrough a few examples of the
different use cases and some funvideos that exemplify Pippa's
(15:26):
capabilities?
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01 (15:28):
So, one that I was working on a while through with
through our testing phase, whichI was like, if we can once we
can get Pippa to do this, we arehome.
Um, I wanted to make a videothat was starring my kids and
and my wife, and my kids, twoyoung boys, four and a half and
two and a half.
They love superheroes, ofcourse.
And so I was like, Oh, I'll havea video of them being put to
(15:50):
bed, and and a kidnapper comesin to try and steal our cat, and
they transform into theirsuperhero ultra egos and save
the day and kick the robber out,and that's the story.
Um, and so I used Pippa to helpme write out and flush out that
story, utilize, you know,pictures of my kids as
inspirations for the character,same with my wife.
(16:12):
Um, was even able to create abedroom that looked very similar
to our own home bedroom or ahouse from the outside that
looks just like our house.
And uh set to work on that.
It turned out to be about atwo-minute, 15-second video, but
it had all like it tested allthe limits of what AI is at the
(16:32):
bleeding edge of AI, right?
Which is sort of complexactions, characters switching
outfits, but then keeping themconsistent throughout.
Um, you know, required a lot ofsound effects, different camera
angles to have it, you know, gofrom this sort of serene bedtime
to action-packed, we got to savethe day to resolution at the
(16:53):
end.
Um, you know, and it's rainingoutside.
And so I really got into the indeep on, okay, yes, this got the
characters right, but one of theother challenges we had in the
early stages of developing this,any AI users may be familiar
with, when you're trying torecreate shots within the same
room, the limit with AI is thatit always produces from scratch.
(17:15):
Whereas we figured out how tobuild within our tool scenes.
So anything that takes place inthis bedroom, the bedroom always
looks the same.
You can move the camera anglearound.
SPEAKER_00 (17:28):
I mean, the furniture isn't moving around
and morphing, and the drinks arechanging color.
Exactly.
SPEAKER_01 (17:35):
Yep, everything always looks consistent.
The walls don't go from blue togreen to orange.
Um, and so it really helps withthat sort of continuity feel,
right?
It doesn't take you out of theexperience in a way that a lot
of AI content does.
So we nailed that.
Um, you know, was able to do thelip syncing with my kids, have
them transform from onecharacter to another, uh, sync
(17:58):
all the dialogue, uh, the soundeffects, you know, on the
post-production was able tolayer in beyond the dialogue
itself, you know, differentmusic that obviously is serene
at the beginning, and then asthe action picks up, it kind of
changes into this sort of actionaction music.
Was able, we added in soundeffects like, you know, doors
slamming, rain, like it's thethe movie starts with an
(18:22):
exterior shot of the house and athunderstorm.
And then, but once it goesinside, you can still hear the
rain sort of trickling on theoutside, and it's just very
clean, more cinematic feel.
And all of that was done withinthat that sort of composer tool
at the end to layer in all ofthese different effects and
audio pieces that brought it alltogether.
SPEAKER_00 (18:42):
How easy and intuitive is that
post-production?
And how easy and intuitive is uhtweaking it midstream, like
altering camera angles andvisuals.
SPEAKER_01 (18:56):
Yeah, so if you hover over, let's say you're in
the composer storyboard, youhover over any of the images,
and there's a simple littlethree-wheel, a little box that
says AI edit, and that will openup so you can give it an
instruction if you just wantedthe image tweaked and not
redone.
You can click voice, which allowopens the thing and allows you
to upload an audio clip orrecord it right there in the
(19:18):
platform for lip syncing.
Um there's a camera button, youcan hit camera and then it opens
up the little widget that showsyou all the different rotations
around.
You can go high, you can go low,you can go 360 around.
Um, and then even within theanimation uh modules themselves,
there's an even longer list ofcamera angles you can choose
(19:39):
from.
So, say aerial shots, panoramicshots, high angle, low angle,
like tight framing of face, zoomin on hands.
Like all it's all kind of therein a in a very easy to
understand way.
And that's where the fun,playful aspect of this is you
get in there and you're like, ohwow, like it gives you ideas on
ways to create unique contentand unique angles and visuals,
(20:05):
etc.
SPEAKER_00 (20:05):
Yeah, it sounds like a science fiction version of i
iMovie.
Remember the Apple movie app, ofcourse.
And uh, and kids would lovethat.
They would make their own littlehome movie, and then they would
churn through like a hundredmegabytes, you know, a gig of
your of your hard drive, andthen you'd yell at them that
they're wrecking your your yourMacBook.
(20:28):
But uh, but it was timeconsuming and it was relatively
laborious, and it and it didn'thave nearly this kind of
AI-driven functionality.
So I could see kids reallygetting into this from a
learning point of view, how tohow to think of storytelling,
how to storyboard, how to driveaction, how to show, not tell,
(20:51):
how to compress a big idea into30 seconds a minute.
This is a great educational toolwith hands-on learning.
They become director, actor,producer, voiceover talent.
They're really making their ownmovie.
SPEAKER_01 (21:08):
Exactly right.
And I'm glad you brought upeducation because we see that as
a another major opportunity anduse case for PIPA on the
traditional education level.
So think about you know, my kidsare young.
Sometimes getting them to paypay attention to um, you know, a
teacher talking for 20 minuteson a subject is more
(21:28):
challenging.
Um, but the idea that a teachercould within five minutes create
a you know, two to five minutevideo that t teaches any lesson,
whether that's your ABCs,singing songs, you know,
animals, you name it, they canturn lessons into animations
within minutes that they can usewithin their classes.
And then to your point, as saykids get a little older and now
(21:51):
they're responsible for say, oh,you need to do a one page essay
on the American Revolution.
Um, you could assign that, buthave them make it.
As a cartoon instead of writingsomething out so they can really
go with the life.
SPEAKER_00 (22:04):
You're gamifying education and you're integrating
storytelling and you're makingthe whole thing very, very
engaging and exciting andinteractive.
So instead of sitting there in aclassroom bored out of your
mind, yeah.
I I grew up with the opaqueprojector.
You know what I mean?
Get out of here with that.
(22:24):
And now they're they're makingtheir own stories and they're
integrating all these ideas andbringing history to life, math
to life, science to life.
That's very uh very intriguing,fun.
SPEAKER_01 (22:36):
Yeah, and uh, you you may have heard this too, and
this is not meant to be atangent.
I do think it's related, right?
There's there's a there was abig reveal about, what was it,
six months ago, that they saidthis gener this new generation
is the first generation inhistory that's not as smart as
their parents.
And the main factor associatedwith that in research is that
they introduce computers andcomputing into education so
(22:58):
early that a lot of theseplatforms do a lot of the
thinking for them.
And so the creativity, theproblem solving that came from a
more analog style of educationis a real thing.
And we actually see this as away to bring back that sort of
tangible, less do it for me andmore help me along, but it does,
(23:22):
but it encourages input.
It encourages you to give itwhat it needs to create your
vision, uh, but in a fun way,right?
So who's gonna hold up theirpaper to your point and say,
look at the essay I wrote?
Instead, they're gonna say, lookat this 30-second cartoon I just
made on the American Revolution.
And the act of doing it wasn'tjust to say, here's the story of
the American Revolution.
(23:43):
They still have to makeconscious decisions and be
engaged in the creation of thatpiece of content.
SPEAKER_00 (23:51):
Yeah, I love it.
I love it, love it, love it.
And as we all know, whetheryou're a marketer, an educator,
multimedia has a hundred X theengagement and interest of just
text.
Yep, exactly.
And at least 10 times just anuninflected image.
So by making it dynamic, turningit into little movies, kids are
(24:12):
all excited and you get you gotthem.
And you make learning fun, andyou make this kind of uh
experience and communicationfun.
So you're giving kids the powerto create these things, they're
using their own images.
What about other peoplepotentially using their images?
What about the generation ofinappropriate content?
(24:33):
What kind of guardrails have youset up?
Because you are appealing toit's cartoonish, it's a younger
audience, and you've got a broadrange of users.
So assuage the fear of theparent.
SPEAKER_01 (24:46):
Yeah, of course.
Obviously, so first andforemost, it goes without
saying, as far as security goes,privacy, any images uploaded are
owned and protected entirely bythat user.
Not even we as administratorshave access to that, those
files.
Um, so all of that is strictlyregulated and protected and
secure for every user.
Um, it's also trained that oncethat image is uploaded and is
(25:10):
tied to you, if a duplicateimage were uploaded by someone
else, it would flag it and say,this is an image, it's owned by
another user, it cannot beutilized.
It does the same thing for allcopyrighted characters.
So obviously, one of my biggestfears in launching this was we
can't have someone out theremaking a Mickey Mouse adult
(25:31):
film.
You know what I mean?
We don't want Disney knockingfor something crazy like that.
Or even an adult film of one ofyour artists.
Of course, anything.
Yeah, so it has strictregulations there where um, and
you know, it's interesting,sometimes we have to almost flag
it for being too restrictive.
So, for example, in that videowhere the the robber or the
(25:54):
kidnapper was trying to stealour cat, you know, the one of my
sons throws a book and it bonkshim on the head, and then he
shoots a little toy arrow thatsticks to his chest, and it
wouldn't re wouldn't generatethose things because it was too
violent.
Um, so it's like even toyviolence like that gets flagged.
So we're kind we're we're alwaysbeing monitoring that, but
anything regarding, say, nudity,violence, um, basically anything
(26:17):
that could be flagged asinappropriate, we err on the
side of caution in that it willnot allow that.
We'll take specific inquiries,and if we're learning that, you
know, hey, it's just it's tryingto do a toy gun, we're gonna
train it to do something thatwill work for that.
But it you would be it would beimpossible for you to create
anything R-rated.
SPEAKER_00 (26:38):
You guys are like an anti-grok.
Yeah, yeah.
You guys are the grokalternative.
So that that that is alsorefreshing.
You know, I'm sure it can be alittle bit frustrating at times,
but it's worth it to protect thechildren's, which is necessary
and responsible.
SPEAKER_01 (26:56):
And that's not to say you can't create, say,
adult-oriented content, right?
Like you can still be cleverwith your sense of humor in the
way that Pixar is, you can stilltell stories that aren't for
kids by any by any stretch.
It's just if you push the limitson on specifically around things
like violence, gore, or sexualcontent, it will absolutely not
(27:17):
allow those things.
Um, but other than that, it'sit's pretty flexible from a
content creation standpoint.
SPEAKER_00 (27:25):
Talking about content, and I'm I'm sure I'm
leading the witness here.
You guys are starting with youngadult and kids, cartoons, this
this generative AI ideagenerated from you thinking
about using it with your kidsand you know, your your your
co-founder.
This has limitless potential forother types of generative AI.
(27:49):
You have a lot of capabilitiesthat you rattled off, which to
me sound unique and not reallyavailable from the other video
generating platforms, especiallyfrom the big frontier models.
Sure.
So are you are you setting yoursites in in a broader context as
well, or are you comfortable nowin this more cartoon world for
(28:14):
young adults, kids, education,that kind of stuff?
SPEAKER_01 (28:18):
And it's well, and look, I think I think create
call it your social mediacreators of all ages and types
can use this.
Uh, for example, um, one of ourearliest customers was um a guy
who's a major influencer infoster parenting.
He's fostered over 60 pluschildren.
He's a huge advocate online forthe not just the benefits to
(28:39):
foster parents and parenting andthe benefits one gets from that,
but of course the benefit tofoster children.
And he wanted to utilize PIPA totell the story of one of the
kids that he adopted fromUganda.
Um, and he shared the story, andand we helped him produce the
background story of how he grewup in Uganda, his life, and then
(29:01):
how he how he was found by thefoster parent and all the
benefits that came from it.
And he uses that as call it aPSA of source to promote the
benefits of foster parenting.
Um, and again, there's a lot ofdifferent types of stories you
can tell.
You can we've worked with uh acouple partners on creating like
a cooking show cartoon wherewe're working with, say, a chef
(29:24):
or or a couple of guys that thatwork on on grilling and they
want to create a cartoon versionof their themselves doing a
cooking show.
So, like, think about this wayuh, you know, you're grilling,
and their whole concept isabout, you know, grilling
recipes and things like that.
But you know, they're basicallylimited to what they can film in
their backyard or on a set.
(29:45):
But if they wanted to talkabout, say, the history of
barbecue and you wanted to goback to caveman times and show
when the first person threw aribeye on a hot rock, you can do
that now.
We can tell what the rock iscooking with Pimpa.
Yeah.
Well played.
Um, so it when you think aboutstart thinking about it that
way, any site sort of creator wewe are already going after.
(30:09):
So it's definitely not justlimited to parents and kids.
Um on the on the flip side ofyour question, though, one thing
we're not interested in pursuingis going after anything in
generative AI that mimics reallife.
So we're not out there trying todo movies and uh sort of
anything that's going to mimican a non-animated piece of
(30:30):
content.
Uh, one, it's it's much harderto regulate uh AI theft in that
in those particular instances.
And we would argue, you know,that takes away even more work
from different types ofcreators, um, say in traditional
film um mediums.
But what we and and the otherreason for that, frankly, is
because we feel that that typeof content screams AI from the
(30:55):
very beginning.
The human eye notices, the humaneye picks up on something that's
attempting to be real.
Whereas with animation, we don'thave that problem because it
already looks fake.
It's a cartoon.
Um and we've even implemented itto where you can export in the
traditional frame rates thatanimated cartoons are animated
(31:17):
in.
So it's like, you know, when HDTVs first came out and it was
almost that too good picturewhere it looked like you were
looking to, it's like it was theframe rates were too high.
It was almost jarring.
You could tell it wasn't real.
Um, so it will actually producethese in a way that feels more
like an authentic piece ofcontent that you had when you
grew up.
SPEAKER_00 (31:37):
I think that's brilliant on a number of
different levels.
So you you create a box foryourselves that's safer, it's
compliant, it doesn't enter themuck of AI slop and it can't be
misused.
And it also makes a hell of alot of sense from a positioning
and marketing point of view.
unknown (31:56):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (31:57):
Because you guys have your niche in this world of
generative AI, everything foreverybody.
You guys have carved your placeas cartoon stylized video.
And I think that's bang onpoint.
That's really, really smart tofocus that way.
SPEAKER_01 (32:17):
Yeah, again, the idea is that we want to we want
to be a creativity platform,something where someone can tell
any story in the way that theywant, but you know, also have it
be clear that we're not tryingto replicate reality here.
We're we're kind of taking thisin one way or another into a
fantasy world.
It gets you off the hook for alot of these problems.
(32:38):
But it yeah, and and I thinkit's more of a like right now,
especially we know, like AI ingeneral is kind of a bad word.
Everybody associates it withtaking away.
And that was our focus onartists, too, is we we don't
believe that AI has to take awayfrom people.
It can actually support artistswith a new opportunity for
(33:02):
income, for example.
It can support, even think abouta um like a children's book
author who's always wanted tohave the animated version of
their books.
They can easily take theillustrations and work that
they've already done and createit into a cartoon for themselves
that they can then sell ifthey'd like or use as a way to
promote their children's books.
(33:24):
We talked about educators.
There's just there's businesses,right?
Like how expensive it's been inthe past to create an
educational video or awalkthrough or things like that
that utilize animation.
These were in the thousands ofdollars.
You know, we also built this tobe access accessible from a cost
perspective.
You know, you can create a threeto five-minute cartoon fully
(33:47):
produced for under$20.
And so that changes the gametoo, um, to ensure that
everybody can do this and not bepinched financially in order to
get their creativity out in theworld.
SPEAKER_00 (34:00):
I love it.
It's the democ democratizationof AI, generative AI.
You're paying the artists,you're protecting the kids,
you've delineated a swim lane,which is fantasy and and this
kind of stylized comic-y kind ofuniverse.
And you led you led the witness,namely me, which is I think a
(34:23):
poll just came out that thattwin only 21% of people are in
favor of AI, which means that79% hate it.
So AI is more hated than uh, youknow, than a bunch of other
things we could think of in thishateful kind of culture that
we're forced to live in.
(34:44):
And you're turning thatnarrative around, which is it's
an amazing tool, it's an amazingtechnology, and if done in a
smart, strategic way, couldreally add tremendous value to
people's lives.
Exactly.
Instead of taking jobs away, itcould actually pay artists who
otherwise wouldn't be paid.
And instead of sitting in aboring classroom, you become a
(35:05):
participant in your education,learn storytelling and layout
and all that good stuff.
And uh, and people have fun withit instead of complaining about
it and wondering if it's gonnatake your job and take over the
world.
SPEAKER_01 (35:20):
Yeah, and I was even uh talking to someone today.
I'm like, this turns screen timeinto something that's far more
engaging than just doomscrolling and and junk and junk
content.
Zombieing out, you're activelyengaged with actively engaged
and creating and seeing it cometo life right before your eyes
(35:42):
in a way that feels veryinteractive and rewarding, but
also again in a way that'screatively stimulating.
And I think many would arguethat you know telling stories
and and using your create thecreative side of your brain is
the best mental exercise you cangive yourself.
Hogan, you are my hero.
SPEAKER_00 (36:06):
I'm sure you've heard that a few times.
I think this is really terrificon all the levels that we're
describing.
Can you give us a peek under thehood?
Uh without giving up too muchproprietary information, but
just um but just what's publicdomain and what you're
comfortable talking about.
What powers your engine andwhat's what's going on behind
(36:29):
the scenes?
SPEAKER_01 (36:30):
Yeah, so at first, when we were testing this, we
were essentially plugging in abunch of different existing
tools to see what would work.
And really what that turned intowas us figuring out what each of
them does very well, and thentaking those specific pieces and
building it into our ownplatform.
(36:50):
Now, that doesn't mean so forvideo generation models, um, and
this is where we can get intothe weeds a little bit, when
you're generating your images,you can choose different image
generation models based on howpremium you want it to look.
Um, so for example, for likewide hero shots of a landscape
(37:11):
or things like that, you cantypically use a slightly cheaper
model for generating becauseit's not getting into heavy
details.
There aren't multiplecharacters, multiple actions.
But let's say you want to havethree characters on screen at
the same time, and we alwaysneed them to look the same
across each shot that they're onthe screen at the same time.
There are more premium modelsthat you can use to ensure the
accuracy of those images.
(37:32):
And when you're going through,it will actually auto-recomend
those for you based on what isin that particular shot and the
direction it's been given.
You can opt out becauseobviously it's a little more
expensive to use the morepremium models.
But anything from hot Hilo isprobably our cheapest version.
Um, and then we're actuallyupgrading every day.
(37:53):
So they just launched GPT 2.0image generation that's been
really successful for us.
Um and so you have these variousAI models for image generation.
The same applies for bothanimation and lip sync.
It will always give you theoption to choose what model you
want to use for your animationor lip syncing, and it will give
(38:14):
you a description of what it'srecommended for.
So you're not flying blind,you're not trying anything.
It will say, you know, clingversion this is best for lip
syncing characters when thereare more than one character on
screen versus others.
So it's built to optimize theuse of these various image
generation and video generationmodels for the user so that
(38:35):
they're not flying blind and/orpaying more than they need to
for each of these images.
SPEAKER_00 (38:41):
But it's all through your user interface.
Yep.
Right?
So it's not like you know,you're making recommendations
and then go over to Grok or goover to uh to Claude.
You it's all plugged in.
Correct.
It's all plugged in.
And is there like a pick list?
So you could you could go small,medium, large when it comes to
(39:03):
uh power?
SPEAKER_01 (39:04):
Yeah, so the it when you're using the what we call
the show me the magic version,um, and that's sort of the
quickest.
You don't need to have you,you're not a type of person
that's gonna get in the weeds oneach shot and things like that.
It will tend to automaticallydefault to the most economical
option, unless there arespecific shots that demand a
specific model for it to work.
(39:25):
Because in the end, we we stillwant the product to deliver what
you're expecting.
Um, and there are just gonna becertain shots and things that
aren't capable that othercertain models aren't capable
of.
Um that said, when you get intolike again, you can be as
production hand-on as you want.
When you start opening upindividual modules and you click
(39:46):
animate, it will give you a listof options and it tells you the
different benefits of each oneand where they're going to be
the most applicable.
It will tell you the associatedtoken cost for each of those.
So it's very transparent onhere's what each of these does
well, here's what they cost.
You can select your model ifyou'd like, but it'll always
actually tell you a recommendedversion based on what's in that
(40:06):
job.
SPEAKER_00 (40:08):
And can you give us a flavor for range?
Like how expensive it is it?
Let's say if I'm a parent, I gotmy kids just like you, and they
want to play around.
How does it compare to some ofthe other Frontier models and
the other things that might beavailable to me and my kids, or
to me and my class, or to me andwhomever?
SPEAKER_01 (40:29):
Uh, they are so our pricing tends to be a little
cheaper than most of the modelsout there, while at the same
time really being the only onethat has all of this
functionality within one tool.
So the I the main takeaway isyou get about four to six
minutes, depending on how in theweed you get, right?
Like if you really want to startmaking a lot of edits and tweaks
(40:52):
to things, of course, that'sgonna start running up the token
cost.
But um, even if let's say you doan average amount of editing,
you can get about five to sixminutes uh on our$20 a month
plan.
And that's fully produced.
So it's not just, oh, I just gotall my animations, but there's
no audio, there's no nothing.
No, that's like that's acompleted project.
(41:13):
Um, and truth be told, thebetter you get at using the
tool, the more you'll be able toget out of it for that that
price.
And truth be told, with thespeed with which AI is going
now, it's very likely thatwithin three months that that
minutes number is gonna doublefor the same price.
SPEAKER_00 (41:31):
Yeah, with data centers and uh just the models
themselves are getting betterand better to do the to do the
crunching.
SPEAKER_01 (41:39):
Yep.
And so our highest tier model,which we call our studio tier,
um, is 250 a month, but thatgets you about 35 to 40 minutes
of full animation.
So theoretically speaking, youcould make a feature-length
animated film for under athousand dollars.
SPEAKER_00 (41:59):
That's impressive, and then so just in general, I
have it.
Sounds like there's two options,it's just I pick a tier and I go
for it.
And if I over overshoot thetokens, then I pay extra based
on that.
SPEAKER_01 (42:10):
Yeah, so we have a free option that gives you
enough to basically see what ananimation can look like.
You can't export or get thefinal video without the pay.
The teaser.
Yeah, but we want to make surepeople right now, a lot of these
models, you can't get it evenget in there and play without
paying.
And we want people to see nowow, this is actually producing
something cool that I will usebefore they have to make that
(42:32):
purchase.
Um, and then that starter tieris 20.
We've got a creator tier at 50,we've got a professional tier at
150, and then or at a at 100,sorry, and then our studio tier
is the 250.
And the studio tier is you know,got all the bells and whistles,
and that's for creators that aregonna get in there, like I do at
(42:52):
this point, because I'm picky,where I'm gonna pick every
camera angle, I'm gonna makesure every shot's perfect, I'm
gonna use every featureavailable.
SPEAKER_00 (43:01):
Can you can you give me hair?
Can I have hair?
All right.
It won't look like a toupee oranything, yeah.
Or at least a hat, right?
Exactly.
Now, this is this is uh amazingstuff.
Uh, can can you share maybe afew examples of super cool
videos that pop to mind thatusers have created or that you
(43:24):
use as case studies or examplesjust to get get people excited
about the potential of Pippa?
SPEAKER_01 (43:33):
Yeah, and uh I'd say a good portion of them have been
on the uh obviously with me andSean as as our as the founders
have been, you know, how do webring our kids to life in cool
ways?
But then um there's anotherproject I haven't published yet,
but I will shortly uh is a uh meand my friends, this is dating
back about 15 years.
We've always been prettycreative, and we we actually
(43:54):
started an email storytellingchain where I'd write a chapter,
my buddy would write a chapter,and then we would just back and
forth it.
And we ended up with like ahundred and fifty page book.
And it's it's ridiculous.
You know, it's boys being boysand living in a fantasy world
and all of we're all heroes andin an action-packed environment.
But uh one of the projects thatI'm finishing up for them is I
(44:14):
actually turned, I took thatstory and turned it into a movie
trailer that now is a movietrailer for that story.
If it were made into a moviefeaturing all of our characters,
they don't know it's coming.
It's gonna be a surprise and belike, look at it.
Um and that one's like this, youknow, apocalyptic apocalyptic
desert landscape action typefilm, if you will.
(44:38):
Um, but done as a movie trailerwith all the quick cuts and the
action scenes and things likethat.
So that's a really fun one.
SPEAKER_00 (44:44):
Thanks for taking us through Pippa, Hogan.
I've got another podcast show,the science fiction and fantasy
podcast, too.
I almost feel like doubling thisup because uh it's intriguing.
As a writer, as a creator, youwant to see your stuff come to
life.
Everyone's waiting for thatNetflix deal and adaptation, but
(45:05):
it would be neat to do what youjust mentioned, create a little
trailer for your book.
That kind of stuff is is superexciting.
So, how does how does one goabout connecting?
We're gonna put links below tothe Pippa website and
registering, and and it's it'sjust the usual, which is create
a profile and go for it.
SPEAKER_01 (45:26):
Yeah, so uh if you go to gopippa.ai, you can sign
up for free there.
Um, we are also about a day ortwo away from having the Pippa
app on the App Store for Applewith Android soon to follow.
So hopefully by the time thisepisode airs, that's available
to everyone.
We're just waiting on the finalapproval Apple approval.
(45:46):
Um, I will say that the app isdesigned to give you the
seamless, simplest walkthrough.
The the experience for thosethat really want to get into the
weeds on editing is much betterif you hop onto a computer.
But you can start a project onyour app and then hop over uh to
do any of the other deep divestuff.
Um, but I would also say we canoffer your listeners uh 25% off
(46:08):
the first month.
SPEAKER_00 (46:10):
This is this is the first deal from a guest.
Happy to do it.
I think I think this might bepodcast 300 of what I've done so
far.
And you are the first guest tooffer a bald ambition discount
code.
All right.
Let's have it be uh Mookie 25th.
Nice.
(46:31):
Let's do it.
SPEAKER_01 (46:32):
Enter that code, and you will get 25% off whatever.
SPEAKER_00 (46:37):
Um that's super fun.
That way, everybody can getchance to try.
I wish you and your co-founderthe best of luck.
Um, it would be fun to maybefollow up in six months a year,
given the amazing rate of changeof the technology.
And I have to just reiteratethat you're turning the AI doom
scenario on its head.
(46:58):
You're empowering creators,you're protecting the kids,
you're accentuating everythingpositive about generative AI,
and you're focusing on a waythat that's fun, easy to use,
and and affordable.
So more power to you.
SPEAKER_01 (47:15):
AI can be used for good, and that's our mission.
SPEAKER_00 (47:18):
Yeah, dunda, add that to your superhero uh
trailer.
Yes.
The good guys of AI.
Thanks so much, Hogan.
Like, comment, share, subscribe,everybody.
Check the discount code.
It's a it's a podcast first forthe Mookie universe.
And start with Tippah.
(47:39):
Give it give it a whirl.
Thank you so much, Hogan.
Thank you for having me.
Hello and welcome to the ambition podcast.
I'm your very bald host, MookieSpitz.
And the one with all theambition today is Mr.
Hogan Schrum.
He is co-founder of Hip Hop.
Welcome to the podcast.
Thank you very much, Mookie.
Glad to be here.
Glad to have you.
(00:21):
AI.
A few years ago, everyone waspredicting robots, behaviors,
reinforcement learning.
And this generative AI stuffcame as a surprise with the
large language model, withOpenAI, ChatGPT, November 2022,
(00:41):
the world changed.
And out of generative AI and thelarge language models, we've got
video as a key component, whichis super exciting.
It's been a little controversialto tell us about PIPA and how it
takes that take on generative AIwith custom video for
(01:05):
individuals, businesses, theworks.
SPEAKER_01 (01:09):
Yeah, so it was born out of an idea that uh my
co-founder and I had where weboth have young children and we
would tell them bedtime storiesat night.
And uh my co-founder, Sean, hadthe idea his way, his wife
walked by and said, You know,you should turn those into one
of those AI books.
And him being an AI guru geniuswas like, What if I could create
(01:31):
a cartoon instead?
And so he built his own littletool to upload audio that would
then convert from that audioalone, where he would just
record it on his phone, into acartoon.
And he showed me this and I wasblown away.
And I said, he was using hiskids' voices, his voice,
everything was verypersonalized.
And I was like, this is verydifferent than what I've seen
(01:51):
from generative video and AI.
Um felt very personal.
And I was like, man, if we coulddemocratize this and give anyone
the opportunity to create theirown stories, regardless of skill
level, that would be theultimate home run.
And then we talked immediatelyabout the AI art theft and the
(02:12):
controversy around a lot ofthese things.
And thankfully, he and I were onthe same page there.
He actually uh several of hissiblings are artists.
One of them is in fact ananimator for a large YouTube
show.
And so our idea was when welaunch this thing, we're gonna
fast track as quickly aspossible to get artists to
submit their artwork so thatthey can create their own styles
(02:35):
within Pippa that can be used bythe public.
And in so doing, we would bepaying those artists royalties
anytime their styles were usedas a percentage of our profits.
And the ultimate goal is thatall styles available on Pippa in
the near future are all artistlicensed.
SPEAKER_00 (02:54):
Amen.
What a great model! The bigplayers have been ripping
everyone off, right?
They they started out going toused bookstores and just OCR
scanning text and uploading itand just uh lawsuits flying
around, New York Times, SarahSilverman.
(03:15):
Everyone's angry, justifiablyso.
If you're a content creator,your stuff has been ripped with
no compensation.
So it sounds like the core ofyour business model is to take
proprietary content that thatyour that your bots use, but
actually pay the artist.
SPEAKER_01 (03:33):
Correct.
Very much so.
Um pay and promote, to be honestwith you.
So each artist is going to havetheir own profile page within
this that links to their sites,how whatever they'd like us to
promote for them.
But yes, basically anytimesomeone creates a video, as soon
as they select the style, thatartist gets paid.
Um, and moreover, while we dohave AI styles on there now as
(03:56):
we continue to grow, we arestill taking that same
percentage of profits anddonating that to an artist pool.
So artists are actually going tobe paid in the off chance that
someone uses an AI art stylehere in the near term.
Um, so it's still an opportunityfor them to earn by being a part
of PIPA and getting their artout there.
SPEAKER_00 (04:17):
I love the mission and the model.
It's inspirational.
Almost retroactively.
Why didn't they think of that?
And that's because they're toobig and too greedy.
That's why they didn't think ofthat.
Tell us about the experience.
Let's back up a couple steps.
What's your value prop?
How does the user experiencework?
(04:40):
And uh what kind of tiers do youhave?
I know you can do personalvideos, videos for business.
SPEAKER_01 (04:48):
Yeah, the use cases are pretty hard to quantify
because they just keep spiralingout like a web.
But as far as the userexperience goes, again, our our
objective here was we want tomake this as accessible as
possible.
I don't want this to just be foran AI expert, a prompting
expert, an animator, uh, a veryexperienced digital creator.
(05:09):
I want it, I want aneight-year-old to be able to use
this and bring their imaginationto life in ways they couldn't
even imagine.
Um, and so the user experienceis very straightforward, but
it's also meant to be just that.
A lot of the AI video generatorsout there now, it's a prompt,
wait, see what you get kind ofmodel.
Uh, this kind of takes you alongthe way.
So the the simplest and easiestwe have um is that first tier,
(05:33):
which is just essentially showme the magic, is what we call
it.
And you start that project,you'll open it up, uh, it gives
you three options.
You can upload audio, kind ofharking, harkening back to how
Pippa was born.
Um, you can upload a document orstory, um, or you can choose ask
Pippa to help you write thatstory, where you can just
(05:54):
create, tell it what characters,what the general idea or plot
ideas for the story is.
You pick the genre, you pick thetone, you pick the length.
And then it will generate thatfor you right there on the
screen.
You have an opportunity to editor tweak anything it wrote for
you.
And then once you're happy withthe story, it takes you to pick
your your style selection.
Right now we have around 20different styles you can pick
(06:16):
from.
Um, anything from you know 3Danimation, classic, classic
Disney style animation, uhanime, you name it, watercolor,
crayon.
There's just so there's a ton ofoptions.
Um, once you pick that style, itwill then auto-detect the
characters in your story.
And that's an first opportunityfor you to really personalize
(06:37):
this outside of the storyitself.
You can upload a referencephoto.
If you're a star in the show, itwill look like you and whatever
that animation style is.
Um, and then it willautomatically generate the
screenplay and all of thestoryboard for you.
So you will, after a fewminutes, land on a page that
shows you your entirestoryboard.
Nothing's animated yet, butit'll also then give you an
(06:59):
opportunity to look at thoseindividual shots.
Did it do this correctly?
There are a bunch of little funediting tools.
You can pick camera angles, youcan honestly get pretty in the
weeds if you really want to.
And that's that's the stickypart.
It becomes really fun seeing howyou can really personalize and
create this the way you want itto be created, which virtually
no other AI tools and animationallow for the common user,
(07:23):
right?
Um, you're paying a whole lot ofmoney using a bunch of different
tools to do all of this, andthis all happens right there
within Pippa and a very easyinterface.
And then when you're ready, youhit animate, and within a few
minutes, you've got a fullyproduced cartoon.
It then drops you into uh whatwe call our composer, which then
allows you to write there withinthe platform, add sound effects,
(07:46):
do voiceover dialogue, music,all within the platform.
Once you're happy with that, andit uses a pretty similar
interface to interface to saylike a descript, where it's got
you know tracks of animation,audio, effects, et cetera, that
you can just drag and drophowever you want.
Um, it will lip sync for you anyof the dialogue that you want,
lip sync to the characters.
(08:06):
Uh, and then you can export, andyou can export it in 1080p, 4K,
and it can be exported indifferent formats based on say
your social channels.
So it'll do 16 by 9 for YouTube,it'll do Instagram, TikTok, etc.
Um, but again, you're neverhaving to leave the platform,
and it's meant to be this sortof guided creative experience.
SPEAKER_00 (08:28):
So, my goal as a user, whether I'm an individual,
I could even be uh a youngerperson, young adult, kid, uh, is
to create a dynamic animatedmovie.
That's my goal, right?
Yeah, and then you have anintegrated platform that uses
the tools of the trade to makethat as simple and as intuitive
(08:50):
and fun as possible.
And if I'm hearing you right,you could add an audio file.
Now, is this me making adescription of my movie?
So if I'm a kid and I justrecord my voice, or is it using
some kind of other source toinspire this creation for the
(09:14):
audio?
SPEAKER_01 (09:14):
So it could be it could be a combination of all
those things.
So we have the ability for youto use an AI voiceover.
Another area that we're reallygoing after soon is we just like
we have artists on there forvisuals, we want to have
voiceover artists that can beused on there as well where they
get paid instead of us using AIvoices.
Frankly, AI voices just don'thave the tone and personality
that you ever want from a lot ofthese, especially for the types
(09:37):
of uh content that we're makinghere, but it can be a
combination of things.
So uh you could you couldessentially have a narrated
story where the whole story istold, say, by a narrator in one
long audio file, and then theanimation will build around
that.
You can have a dialogue-drivenstory where it will detect what
characters are speaking, and youcan assign different voices to
(09:59):
them.
You can record right there inthe platform.
So let's say I'm a character, Iappear in these different
scenes.
On each storyboard, I can justhit voice, it'll allow me to
record the dialogue right there,lip sync it right there, that
shot is done, featuring myvoice, kids' voices, whomever.
SPEAKER_00 (10:16):
Okay, I was just a little confused as to whether
this audio file is commandingthe interface to do things, or
if it's the actual VO of adialogue or exchange within the
movie, and you're saying itcould be a combination of both.
Yeah, we've trained it to doboth.
Can it interpret or intuit basedjust on the input what I'm
(10:41):
intending to do?
Yep.
Okay, pretty, pretty impressive.
So I can put in there, you know,Hogan and Mookie are having a
podcast conversation aboutPippa, put together a little
two-minute movie, and we're allanimated in the style of
ex-artist, and then we'll moveoff to the races, or I could
(11:03):
input our actual mimic dialogueand maybe scat the first uh few
minutes of it, and then I'llinterpret that.
Is that what's going on?
SPEAKER_01 (11:13):
The fastest, easiest example of that.
If we took uh the audiorecording of this podcast, and
let's say we did the first twominutes and we just uploaded
that audio and then grabbed apicture of both of us for the
character references and thensent it on its way, it would
build that all out for you,storyboard it, etc.
SPEAKER_00 (11:30):
Awesome.
So it's off to the races.
So it uses all the power of AIintuitively and implicitly to
really interpret what the userwants based on those inputs, and
then the user can tweak it as itgoes along.
Now, one of the problems with alot of the AI platforms that
persist to this day isiterations.
(11:51):
So when you iterate, it's like Idon't want a yellow hat, I want
a blue one, and then it goesfrom a dinosaur to a chicken.
unknown (11:58):
Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00 (12:00):
Exactly.
Right?
It's that's been the problemwith generative AI since
inception, and it and itpersists.
So I can tweak, I can tweak PIPAas as I can change blue hats and
dinosaurs to chickens, and I cando all that in an iterative
process to edit as I go along.
Is that right?
That's right.
SPEAKER_01 (12:20):
We we've excitedly solved that problem for the most
part.
I mean, look, there's still somehallucinate hallucinations here
and there when it comes to AI.
That's uh uh essentially just alimit of AI right now in
general.
But the way we've set it up isso my biggest frustration when
we were building this was man,this got 95% of the image right.
And like that 5% is reallyannoying.
(12:42):
And my only option is toregenerate and cross my fingers
and hope it gets it 100% rightthis time, but it still starts
over.
So we actually recoded andimplemented a tool that's
similar to things you might seeon like a Canva or say Adobe,
where if you have the image andlet's say, oh, this is all
perfect, but why are theywearing a green coat?
They're supposed to be wearing ablue coat.
You can just put in AIinstruction and type character
(13:05):
should be wearing blue coat andit'll switch just the coat.
You can actually use a painttool where let's say there's a
random object that shouldn't bethere, and you just want that
removed.
You can point-click paint overit and say remove the object,
remove that object, and it'lljust take out what you painted,
but keeping all else the same,so you're not stuck in this
(13:26):
endless loop of regeneration andhope.
SPEAKER_00 (13:29):
That's novel.
That's novel.
The the dollies and the grocksof the world are all prompt
driven, and you can't really dipin there.
Yep.
So that's that's pretty prettydamn cool.
And it sounds like you have apost-production experience.
Yep.
With uh with the with thelayering.
SPEAKER_01 (13:49):
It depends on how deep you want to go.
That's the thing, you're notrequired to, but you have the
opportunity to.
So it will produce a very solidvideo with minimal with minimal
influence by the user if that'swhat they choose.
But what we found is that onceyou start getting in there, the
tool itself is fun.
It gives you controls that arevery intuitive, like, oh, I wish
(14:10):
the I wish it was a view overhere where you just open the
camera box and it allows you tojust pick the perspective you
wanted to take in the image, andit'll make that exact same shot
just from a different angle.
SPEAKER_00 (14:22):
This is terrific.
And you're highlighting contrastwith like Sora.
Sora from OpenAI got the plugpulled fairly recently, and it
was just bombarding the internetwith AI slop, everything from
fake news to harassment to, toyour point, copyright
infringement.
So you're solving a lot of theseproblems.
(14:44):
Number one is is you're payingthe artists whose styles you're
using, the other one is is isease of use and depth of that.
So I can tweak, I can adjust.
It doesn't just barf out oneiteration with little changes.
Exactly.
And I also get thispost-production aspect, and I
get to play with it.
(15:05):
And it sounds like uh a neat aneat solution to a lot of the
problems that are in generativeAI for video.
Very much so.
It's fun.
Can you can you can you talk usthrough a few examples of the
different use cases and some funvideos that exemplify Pippa's
(15:26):
capabilities?
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01 (15:28):
So, one that I was working on a while through with
through our testing phase, whichI was like, if we can once we
can get Pippa to do this, we arehome.
Um, I wanted to make a videothat was starring my kids and
and my wife, and my kids, twoyoung boys, four and a half and
two and a half.
They love superheroes, ofcourse.
And so I was like, Oh, I'll havea video of them being put to
(15:50):
bed, and and a kidnapper comesin to try and steal our cat, and
they transform into theirsuperhero ultra egos and save
the day and kick the robber out,and that's the story.
Um, and so I used Pippa to helpme write out and flush out that
story, utilize, you know,pictures of my kids as
inspirations for the character,same with my wife.
(16:12):
Um, was even able to create abedroom that looked very similar
to our own home bedroom or ahouse from the outside that
looks just like our house.
And uh set to work on that.
It turned out to be about atwo-minute, 15-second video, but
it had all like it tested allthe limits of what AI is at the
(16:32):
bleeding edge of AI, right?
Which is sort of complexactions, characters switching
outfits, but then keeping themconsistent throughout.
Um, you know, required a lot ofsound effects, different camera
angles to have it, you know, gofrom this sort of serene bedtime
to action-packed, we got to savethe day to resolution at the
(16:53):
end.
Um, you know, and it's rainingoutside.
And so I really got into the indeep on, okay, yes, this got the
characters right, but one of theother challenges we had in the
early stages of developing this,any AI users may be familiar
with, when you're trying torecreate shots within the same
room, the limit with AI is thatit always produces from scratch.
(17:15):
Whereas we figured out how tobuild within our tool scenes.
So anything that takes place inthis bedroom, the bedroom always
looks the same.
You can move the camera anglearound.
SPEAKER_00 (17:28):
I mean, the furniture isn't moving around
and morphing, and the drinks arechanging color.
Exactly.
SPEAKER_01 (17:35):
Yep, everything always looks consistent.
The walls don't go from blue togreen to orange.
Um, and so it really helps withthat sort of continuity feel,
right?
It doesn't take you out of theexperience in a way that a lot
of AI content does.
So we nailed that.
Um, you know, was able to do thelip syncing with my kids, have
them transform from onecharacter to another, uh, sync
(17:58):
all the dialogue, uh, the soundeffects, you know, on the
post-production was able tolayer in beyond the dialogue
itself, you know, differentmusic that obviously is serene
at the beginning, and then asthe action picks up, it kind of
changes into this sort of actionaction music.
Was able, we added in soundeffects like, you know, doors
slamming, rain, like it's thethe movie starts with an
(18:22):
exterior shot of the house and athunderstorm.
And then, but once it goesinside, you can still hear the
rain sort of trickling on theoutside, and it's just very
clean, more cinematic feel.
And all of that was done withinthat that sort of composer tool
at the end to layer in all ofthese different effects and
audio pieces that brought it alltogether.
SPEAKER_00 (18:42):
How easy and intuitive is that
post-production?
And how easy and intuitive is uhtweaking it midstream, like
altering camera angles andvisuals.
SPEAKER_01 (18:56):
Yeah, so if you hover over, let's say you're in
the composer storyboard, youhover over any of the images,
and there's a simple littlethree-wheel, a little box that
says AI edit, and that will openup so you can give it an
instruction if you just wantedthe image tweaked and not
redone.
You can click voice, which allowopens the thing and allows you
to upload an audio clip orrecord it right there in the
(19:18):
platform for lip syncing.
Um there's a camera button, youcan hit camera and then it opens
up the little widget that showsyou all the different rotations
around.
You can go high, you can go low,you can go 360 around.
Um, and then even within theanimation uh modules themselves,
there's an even longer list ofcamera angles you can choose
(19:39):
from.
So, say aerial shots, panoramicshots, high angle, low angle,
like tight framing of face, zoomin on hands.
Like all it's all kind of therein a in a very easy to
understand way.
And that's where the fun,playful aspect of this is you
get in there and you're like, ohwow, like it gives you ideas on
ways to create unique contentand unique angles and visuals,
(20:05):
etc.
SPEAKER_00 (20:05):
Yeah, it sounds like a science fiction version of i
iMovie.
Remember the Apple movie app, ofcourse.
And uh, and kids would lovethat.
They would make their own littlehome movie, and then they would
churn through like a hundredmegabytes, you know, a gig of
your of your hard drive, andthen you'd yell at them that
they're wrecking your your yourMacBook.
(20:28):
But uh, but it was timeconsuming and it was relatively
laborious, and it and it didn'thave nearly this kind of
AI-driven functionality.
So I could see kids reallygetting into this from a
learning point of view, how tohow to think of storytelling,
how to storyboard, how to driveaction, how to show, not tell,
(20:51):
how to compress a big idea into30 seconds a minute.
This is a great educational toolwith hands-on learning.
They become director, actor,producer, voiceover talent.
They're really making their ownmovie.
SPEAKER_01 (21:08):
Exactly right.
And I'm glad you brought upeducation because we see that as
a another major opportunity anduse case for PIPA on the
traditional education level.
So think about you know, my kidsare young.
Sometimes getting them to paypay attention to um, you know, a
teacher talking for 20 minuteson a subject is more
(21:28):
challenging.
Um, but the idea that a teachercould within five minutes create
a you know, two to five minutevideo that t teaches any lesson,
whether that's your ABCs,singing songs, you know,
animals, you name it, they canturn lessons into animations
within minutes that they can usewithin their classes.
And then to your point, as saykids get a little older and now
(21:51):
they're responsible for say, oh,you need to do a one page essay
on the American Revolution.
Um, you could assign that, buthave them make it.
As a cartoon instead of writingsomething out so they can really
go with the life.
SPEAKER_00 (22:04):
You're gamifying education and you're integrating
storytelling and you're makingthe whole thing very, very
engaging and exciting andinteractive.
So instead of sitting there in aclassroom bored out of your
mind, yeah.
I I grew up with the opaqueprojector.
You know what I mean?
Get out of here with that.
(22:24):
And now they're they're makingtheir own stories and they're
integrating all these ideas andbringing history to life, math
to life, science to life.
That's very uh very intriguing,fun.
SPEAKER_01 (22:36):
Yeah, and uh, you you may have heard this too, and
this is not meant to be atangent.
I do think it's related, right?
There's there's a there was abig reveal about, what was it,
six months ago, that they saidthis gener this new generation
is the first generation inhistory that's not as smart as
their parents.
And the main factor associatedwith that in research is that
they introduce computers andcomputing into education so
(22:58):
early that a lot of theseplatforms do a lot of the
thinking for them.
And so the creativity, theproblem solving that came from a
more analog style of educationis a real thing.
And we actually see this as away to bring back that sort of
tangible, less do it for me andmore help me along, but it does,
(23:22):
but it encourages input.
It encourages you to give itwhat it needs to create your
vision, uh, but in a fun way,right?
So who's gonna hold up theirpaper to your point and say,
look at the essay I wrote?
Instead, they're gonna say, lookat this 30-second cartoon I just
made on the American Revolution.
And the act of doing it wasn'tjust to say, here's the story of
the American Revolution.
(23:43):
They still have to makeconscious decisions and be
engaged in the creation of thatpiece of content.
SPEAKER_00 (23:51):
Yeah, I love it.
I love it, love it, love it.
And as we all know, whetheryou're a marketer, an educator,
multimedia has a hundred X theengagement and interest of just
text.
Yep, exactly.
And at least 10 times just anuninflected image.
So by making it dynamic, turningit into little movies, kids are
(24:12):
all excited and you get you gotthem.
And you make learning fun, andyou make this kind of uh
experience and communicationfun.
So you're giving kids the powerto create these things, they're
using their own images.
What about other peoplepotentially using their images?
What about the generation ofinappropriate content?
(24:33):
What kind of guardrails have youset up?
Because you are appealing toit's cartoonish, it's a younger
audience, and you've got a broadrange of users.
So assuage the fear of theparent.
SPEAKER_01 (24:46):
Yeah, of course.
Obviously, so first andforemost, it goes without
saying, as far as security goes,privacy, any images uploaded are
owned and protected entirely bythat user.
Not even we as administratorshave access to that, those
files.
Um, so all of that is strictlyregulated and protected and
secure for every user.
Um, it's also trained that oncethat image is uploaded and is
(25:10):
tied to you, if a duplicateimage were uploaded by someone
else, it would flag it and say,this is an image, it's owned by
another user, it cannot beutilized.
It does the same thing for allcopyrighted characters.
So obviously, one of my biggestfears in launching this was we
can't have someone out theremaking a Mickey Mouse adult
(25:31):
film.
You know what I mean?
We don't want Disney knockingfor something crazy like that.
Or even an adult film of one ofyour artists.
Of course, anything.
Yeah, so it has strictregulations there where um, and
you know, it's interesting,sometimes we have to almost flag
it for being too restrictive.
So, for example, in that videowhere the the robber or the
(25:54):
kidnapper was trying to stealour cat, you know, the one of my
sons throws a book and it bonkshim on the head, and then he
shoots a little toy arrow thatsticks to his chest, and it
wouldn't re wouldn't generatethose things because it was too
violent.
Um, so it's like even toyviolence like that gets flagged.
So we're kind we're we're alwaysbeing monitoring that, but
anything regarding, say, nudity,violence, um, basically anything
(26:17):
that could be flagged asinappropriate, we err on the
side of caution in that it willnot allow that.
We'll take specific inquiries,and if we're learning that, you
know, hey, it's just it's tryingto do a toy gun, we're gonna
train it to do something thatwill work for that.
But it you would be it would beimpossible for you to create
anything R-rated.
SPEAKER_00 (26:38):
You guys are like an anti-grok.
Yeah, yeah.
You guys are the grokalternative.
So that that that is alsorefreshing.
You know, I'm sure it can be alittle bit frustrating at times,
but it's worth it to protect thechildren's, which is necessary
and responsible.
SPEAKER_01 (26:56):
And that's not to say you can't create, say,
adult-oriented content, right?
Like you can still be cleverwith your sense of humor in the
way that Pixar is, you can stilltell stories that aren't for
kids by any by any stretch.
It's just if you push the limitson on specifically around things
like violence, gore, or sexualcontent, it will absolutely not
(27:17):
allow those things.
Um, but other than that, it'sit's pretty flexible from a
content creation standpoint.
SPEAKER_00 (27:25):
Talking about content, and I'm I'm sure I'm
leading the witness here.
You guys are starting with youngadult and kids, cartoons, this
this generative AI ideagenerated from you thinking
about using it with your kidsand you know, your your your
co-founder.
This has limitless potential forother types of generative AI.
(27:49):
You have a lot of capabilitiesthat you rattled off, which to
me sound unique and not reallyavailable from the other video
generating platforms, especiallyfrom the big frontier models.
Sure.
So are you are you setting yoursites in in a broader context as
well, or are you comfortable nowin this more cartoon world for
(28:14):
young adults, kids, education,that kind of stuff?
SPEAKER_01 (28:18):
And it's well, and look, I think I think create
call it your social mediacreators of all ages and types
can use this.
Uh, for example, um, one of ourearliest customers was um a guy
who's a major influencer infoster parenting.
He's fostered over 60 pluschildren.
He's a huge advocate online forthe not just the benefits to
(28:39):
foster parents and parenting andthe benefits one gets from that,
but of course the benefit tofoster children.
And he wanted to utilize PIPA totell the story of one of the
kids that he adopted fromUganda.
Um, and he shared the story, andand we helped him produce the
background story of how he grewup in Uganda, his life, and then
(29:01):
how he how he was found by thefoster parent and all the
benefits that came from it.
And he uses that as call it aPSA of source to promote the
benefits of foster parenting.
Um, and again, there's a lot ofdifferent types of stories you
can tell.
You can we've worked with uh acouple partners on creating like
a cooking show cartoon wherewe're working with, say, a chef
(29:24):
or or a couple of guys that thatwork on on grilling and they
want to create a cartoon versionof their themselves doing a
cooking show.
So, like, think about this wayuh, you know, you're grilling,
and their whole concept isabout, you know, grilling
recipes and things like that.
But you know, they're basicallylimited to what they can film in
their backyard or on a set.
(29:45):
But if they wanted to talkabout, say, the history of
barbecue and you wanted to goback to caveman times and show
when the first person threw aribeye on a hot rock, you can do
that now.
We can tell what the rock iscooking with Pimpa.
Yeah.
Well played.
Um, so it when you think aboutstart thinking about it that
way, any site sort of creator wewe are already going after.
(30:09):
So it's definitely not justlimited to parents and kids.
Um on the on the flip side ofyour question, though, one thing
we're not interested in pursuingis going after anything in
generative AI that mimics reallife.
So we're not out there trying todo movies and uh sort of
anything that's going to mimican a non-animated piece of
(30:30):
content.
Uh, one, it's it's much harderto regulate uh AI theft in that
in those particular instances.
And we would argue, you know,that takes away even more work
from different types ofcreators, um, say in traditional
film um mediums.
But what we and and the otherreason for that, frankly, is
because we feel that that typeof content screams AI from the
(30:55):
very beginning.
The human eye notices, the humaneye picks up on something that's
attempting to be real.
Whereas with animation, we don'thave that problem because it
already looks fake.
It's a cartoon.
Um and we've even implemented itto where you can export in the
traditional frame rates thatanimated cartoons are animated
(31:17):
in.
So it's like, you know, when HDTVs first came out and it was
almost that too good picturewhere it looked like you were
looking to, it's like it was theframe rates were too high.
It was almost jarring.
You could tell it wasn't real.
Um, so it will actually producethese in a way that feels more
like an authentic piece ofcontent that you had when you
grew up.
SPEAKER_00 (31:37):
I think that's brilliant on a number of
different levels.
So you you create a box foryourselves that's safer, it's
compliant, it doesn't enter themuck of AI slop and it can't be
misused.
And it also makes a hell of alot of sense from a positioning
and marketing point of view.
unknown (31:56):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (31:57):
Because you guys have your niche in this world of
generative AI, everything foreverybody.
You guys have carved your placeas cartoon stylized video.
And I think that's bang onpoint.
That's really, really smart tofocus that way.
SPEAKER_01 (32:17):
Yeah, again, the idea is that we want to we want
to be a creativity platform,something where someone can tell
any story in the way that theywant, but you know, also have it
be clear that we're not tryingto replicate reality here.
We're we're kind of taking thisin one way or another into a
fantasy world.
It gets you off the hook for alot of these problems.
(32:38):
But it yeah, and and I thinkit's more of a like right now,
especially we know, like AI ingeneral is kind of a bad word.
Everybody associates it withtaking away.
And that was our focus onartists, too, is we we don't
believe that AI has to take awayfrom people.
It can actually support artistswith a new opportunity for
(33:02):
income, for example.
It can support, even think abouta um like a children's book
author who's always wanted tohave the animated version of
their books.
They can easily take theillustrations and work that
they've already done and createit into a cartoon for themselves
that they can then sell ifthey'd like or use as a way to
promote their children's books.
(33:24):
We talked about educators.
There's just there's businesses,right?
Like how expensive it's been inthe past to create an
educational video or awalkthrough or things like that
that utilize animation.
These were in the thousands ofdollars.
You know, we also built this tobe access accessible from a cost
perspective.
You know, you can create a threeto five-minute cartoon fully
(33:47):
produced for under$20.
And so that changes the gametoo, um, to ensure that
everybody can do this and not bepinched financially in order to
get their creativity out in theworld.
SPEAKER_00 (34:00):
I love it.
It's the democ democratizationof AI, generative AI.
You're paying the artists,you're protecting the kids,
you've delineated a swim lane,which is fantasy and and this
kind of stylized comic-y kind ofuniverse.
And you led you led the witness,namely me, which is I think a
(34:23):
poll just came out that thattwin only 21% of people are in
favor of AI, which means that79% hate it.
So AI is more hated than uh, youknow, than a bunch of other
things we could think of in thishateful kind of culture that
we're forced to live in.
(34:44):
And you're turning thatnarrative around, which is it's
an amazing tool, it's an amazingtechnology, and if done in a
smart, strategic way, couldreally add tremendous value to
people's lives.
Exactly.
Instead of taking jobs away, itcould actually pay artists who
otherwise wouldn't be paid.
And instead of sitting in aboring classroom, you become a
(35:05):
participant in your education,learn storytelling and layout
and all that good stuff.
And uh, and people have fun withit instead of complaining about
it and wondering if it's gonnatake your job and take over the
world.
SPEAKER_01 (35:20):
Yeah, and I was even uh talking to someone today.
I'm like, this turns screen timeinto something that's far more
engaging than just doomscrolling and and junk and junk
content.
Zombieing out, you're activelyengaged with actively engaged
and creating and seeing it cometo life right before your eyes
(35:42):
in a way that feels veryinteractive and rewarding, but
also again in a way that'screatively stimulating.
And I think many would arguethat you know telling stories
and and using your create thecreative side of your brain is
the best mental exercise you cangive yourself.
Hogan, you are my hero.
SPEAKER_00 (36:06):
I'm sure you've heard that a few times.
I think this is really terrificon all the levels that we're
describing.
Can you give us a peek under thehood?
Uh without giving up too muchproprietary information, but
just um but just what's publicdomain and what you're
comfortable talking about.
What powers your engine andwhat's what's going on behind
(36:29):
the scenes?
SPEAKER_01 (36:30):
Yeah, so at first, when we were testing this, we
were essentially plugging in abunch of different existing
tools to see what would work.
And really what that turned intowas us figuring out what each of
them does very well, and thentaking those specific pieces and
building it into our ownplatform.
(36:50):
Now, that doesn't mean so forvideo generation models, um, and
this is where we can get intothe weeds a little bit, when
you're generating your images,you can choose different image
generation models based on howpremium you want it to look.
Um, so for example, for likewide hero shots of a landscape
(37:11):
or things like that, you cantypically use a slightly cheaper
model for generating becauseit's not getting into heavy
details.
There aren't multiplecharacters, multiple actions.
But let's say you want to havethree characters on screen at
the same time, and we alwaysneed them to look the same
across each shot that they're onthe screen at the same time.
There are more premium modelsthat you can use to ensure the
accuracy of those images.
(37:32):
And when you're going through,it will actually auto-recomend
those for you based on what isin that particular shot and the
direction it's been given.
You can opt out becauseobviously it's a little more
expensive to use the morepremium models.
But anything from hot Hilo isprobably our cheapest version.
Um, and then we're actuallyupgrading every day.
(37:53):
So they just launched GPT 2.0image generation that's been
really successful for us.
Um and so you have these variousAI models for image generation.
The same applies for bothanimation and lip sync.
It will always give you theoption to choose what model you
want to use for your animationor lip syncing, and it will give
(38:14):
you a description of what it'srecommended for.
So you're not flying blind,you're not trying anything.
It will say, you know, clingversion this is best for lip
syncing characters when thereare more than one character on
screen versus others.
So it's built to optimize theuse of these various image
generation and video generationmodels for the user so that
(38:35):
they're not flying blind and/orpaying more than they need to
for each of these images.
SPEAKER_00 (38:41):
But it's all through your user interface.
Yep.
Right?
So it's not like you know,you're making recommendations
and then go over to Grok or goover to uh to Claude.
You it's all plugged in.
Correct.
It's all plugged in.
And is there like a pick list?
So you could you could go small,medium, large when it comes to
(39:03):
uh power?
SPEAKER_01 (39:04):
Yeah, so the it when you're using the what we call
the show me the magic version,um, and that's sort of the
quickest.
You don't need to have you,you're not a type of person
that's gonna get in the weeds oneach shot and things like that.
It will tend to automaticallydefault to the most economical
option, unless there arespecific shots that demand a
specific model for it to work.
(39:25):
Because in the end, we we stillwant the product to deliver what
you're expecting.
Um, and there are just gonna becertain shots and things that
aren't capable that othercertain models aren't capable
of.
Um that said, when you get intolike again, you can be as
production hand-on as you want.
When you start opening upindividual modules and you click
(39:46):
animate, it will give you a listof options and it tells you the
different benefits of each oneand where they're going to be
the most applicable.
It will tell you the associatedtoken cost for each of those.
So it's very transparent onhere's what each of these does
well, here's what they cost.
You can select your model ifyou'd like, but it'll always
actually tell you a recommendedversion based on what's in that
(40:06):
job.
SPEAKER_00 (40:08):
And can you give us a flavor for range?
Like how expensive it is it?
Let's say if I'm a parent, I gotmy kids just like you, and they
want to play around.
How does it compare to some ofthe other Frontier models and
the other things that might beavailable to me and my kids, or
to me and my class, or to me andwhomever?
SPEAKER_01 (40:29):
Uh, they are so our pricing tends to be a little
cheaper than most of the modelsout there, while at the same
time really being the only onethat has all of this
functionality within one tool.
So the I the main takeaway isyou get about four to six
minutes, depending on how in theweed you get, right?
Like if you really want to startmaking a lot of edits and tweaks
(40:52):
to things, of course, that'sgonna start running up the token
cost.
But um, even if let's say you doan average amount of editing,
you can get about five to sixminutes uh on our$20 a month
plan.
And that's fully produced.
So it's not just, oh, I just gotall my animations, but there's
no audio, there's no nothing.
No, that's like that's acompleted project.
(41:13):
Um, and truth be told, thebetter you get at using the
tool, the more you'll be able toget out of it for that that
price.
And truth be told, with thespeed with which AI is going
now, it's very likely thatwithin three months that that
minutes number is gonna doublefor the same price.
SPEAKER_00 (41:31):
Yeah, with data centers and uh just the models
themselves are getting betterand better to do the to do the
crunching.
SPEAKER_01 (41:39):
Yep.
And so our highest tier model,which we call our studio tier,
um, is 250 a month, but thatgets you about 35 to 40 minutes
of full animation.
So theoretically speaking, youcould make a feature-length
animated film for under athousand dollars.
SPEAKER_00 (41:59):
That's impressive, and then so just in general, I
have it.
Sounds like there's two options,it's just I pick a tier and I go
for it.
And if I over overshoot thetokens, then I pay extra based
on that.
SPEAKER_01 (42:10):
Yeah, so we have a free option that gives you
enough to basically see what ananimation can look like.
You can't export or get thefinal video without the pay.
The teaser.
Yeah, but we want to make surepeople right now, a lot of these
models, you can't get it evenget in there and play without
paying.
And we want people to see nowow, this is actually producing
something cool that I will usebefore they have to make that
(42:32):
purchase.
Um, and then that starter tieris 20.
We've got a creator tier at 50,we've got a professional tier at
150, and then or at a at 100,sorry, and then our studio tier
is the 250.
And the studio tier is you know,got all the bells and whistles,
and that's for creators that aregonna get in there, like I do at
(42:52):
this point, because I'm picky,where I'm gonna pick every
camera angle, I'm gonna makesure every shot's perfect, I'm
gonna use every featureavailable.
SPEAKER_00 (43:01):
Can you can you give me hair?
Can I have hair?
All right.
It won't look like a toupee oranything, yeah.
Or at least a hat, right?
Exactly.
Now, this is this is uh amazingstuff.
Uh, can can you share maybe afew examples of super cool
videos that pop to mind thatusers have created or that you
(43:24):
use as case studies or examplesjust to get get people excited
about the potential of Pippa?
SPEAKER_01 (43:33):
Yeah, and uh I'd say a good portion of them have been
on the uh obviously with me andSean as as our as the founders
have been, you know, how do webring our kids to life in cool
ways?
But then um there's anotherproject I haven't published yet,
but I will shortly uh is a uh meand my friends, this is dating
back about 15 years.
We've always been prettycreative, and we we actually
(43:54):
started an email storytellingchain where I'd write a chapter,
my buddy would write a chapter,and then we would just back and
forth it.
And we ended up with like ahundred and fifty page book.
And it's it's ridiculous.
You know, it's boys being boysand living in a fantasy world
and all of we're all heroes andin an action-packed environment.
But uh one of the projects thatI'm finishing up for them is I
(44:14):
actually turned, I took thatstory and turned it into a movie
trailer that now is a movietrailer for that story.
If it were made into a moviefeaturing all of our characters,
they don't know it's coming.
It's gonna be a surprise and belike, look at it.
Um and that one's like this, youknow, apocalyptic apocalyptic
desert landscape action typefilm, if you will.
(44:38):
Um, but done as a movie trailerwith all the quick cuts and the
action scenes and things likethat.
So that's a really fun one.
SPEAKER_00 (44:44):
Thanks for taking us through Pippa, Hogan.
I've got another podcast show,the science fiction and fantasy
podcast, too.
I almost feel like doubling thisup because uh it's intriguing.
As a writer, as a creator, youwant to see your stuff come to
life.
Everyone's waiting for thatNetflix deal and adaptation, but
(45:05):
it would be neat to do what youjust mentioned, create a little
trailer for your book.
That kind of stuff is is superexciting.
So, how does how does one goabout connecting?
We're gonna put links below tothe Pippa website and
registering, and and it's it'sjust the usual, which is create
a profile and go for it.
SPEAKER_01 (45:26):
Yeah, so uh if you go to gopippa.ai, you can sign
up for free there.
Um, we are also about a day ortwo away from having the Pippa
app on the App Store for Applewith Android soon to follow.
So hopefully by the time thisepisode airs, that's available
to everyone.
We're just waiting on the finalapproval Apple approval.
(45:46):
Um, I will say that the app isdesigned to give you the
seamless, simplest walkthrough.
The the experience for thosethat really want to get into the
weeds on editing is much betterif you hop onto a computer.
But you can start a project onyour app and then hop over uh to
do any of the other deep divestuff.
Um, but I would also say we canoffer your listeners uh 25% off
(46:08):
the first month.
SPEAKER_00 (46:10):
This is this is the first deal from a guest.
Happy to do it.
I think I think this might bepodcast 300 of what I've done so
far.
And you are the first guest tooffer a bald ambition discount
code.
All right.
Let's have it be uh Mookie 25th.
Nice.
(46:31):
Let's do it.
SPEAKER_01 (46:32):
Enter that code, and you will get 25% off whatever.
SPEAKER_00 (46:37):
Um that's super fun.
That way, everybody can getchance to try.
I wish you and your co-founderthe best of luck.
Um, it would be fun to maybefollow up in six months a year,
given the amazing rate of changeof the technology.
And I have to just reiteratethat you're turning the AI doom
scenario on its head.
(46:58):
You're empowering creators,you're protecting the kids,
you're accentuating everythingpositive about generative AI,
and you're focusing on a waythat that's fun, easy to use,
and and affordable.
So more power to you.
SPEAKER_01 (47:15):
AI can be used for good, and that's our mission.
SPEAKER_00 (47:18):
Yeah, dunda, add that to your superhero uh
trailer.
Yes.
The good guys of AI.
Thanks so much, Hogan.
Like, comment, share, subscribe,everybody.
Check the discount code.
It's a it's a podcast first forthe Mookie universe.
And start with Tippah.
(47:39):
Give it give it a whirl.
Thank you so much, Hogan.
Thank you for having me.
Popular Podcasts
Hey Jonas!
Hey Jonas! The official Jonas Brothers podcast. Hosted by Kevin, Joe, and Nick Jonas. It’s the Jonas Brothers you know... musicians, actors, and well, yes, brothers. Now, they’re sharing another side of themselves in the playful, intimate, and irreverent way only they can. Spend time with the Jonas Brothers here and stay a little bit longer for deep conversations like never before.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by Audiochuck Media Company.
Betrayal Weekly
Betrayal Weekly is back for a new season. Every Thursday, Betrayal Weekly shares first-hand accounts of broken trust, shocking deceptions, and the trail of destruction they leave behind. Hosted by Andrea Gunning, this weekly ongoing series digs into real-life stories of betrayal and the aftermath. From stories of double lives to dark discoveries, these are cautionary tales and accounts of resilience against all odds. From the producers of the critically acclaimed Betrayal series, Betrayal Weekly drops new episodes every Thursday. If you would like to share your story, you can reach out to the Betrayal Team by emailing them at betrayalpod@gmail.com and follow us on Instagram at @betrayalpod and @glasspodcasts. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations, and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience, and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack.