Technically Creative

In this episode of Technically Creative, we sit down with Kevin Swanepoel — CEO of The One Club for Creativity and steward of The One Show — to talk about how creative standards are defined in an industry that is constantly reinventing itself.

Advertising produces an enormous amount of work every year. Campaigns, films, brand activations, social content, AI experiments. In a world where more creative work is being made than ever before, the question becomes: how do you decide what actually matters?

For decades, The One Show has been one of the places where those decisions get made. Known for its emphasis on craft and creative excellence, it has helped define the standards of American advertising while supporting the global creative community through education, mentorship, and initiatives like Creative Week in New York.

Kevin shares how The One Club balances celebrating great work with nurturing the next generation of creatives, why awards still play a crucial role in creative culture, and how the organization has expanded its global reach while staying rooted in craft.

Orlando and Kevin explore:

• How creative awards shape the culture of an industry

• Why craft still matters in a world of infinite content

• The role of education and mentorship in creative careers

• How Creative Week brings the industry together

• The challenge of curating great work in the age of AI

• Why celebrating creativity is still essential for the future of advertising

It’s a thoughtful and often funny conversation about taste, standards, and the responsibility of celebrating great work — at a moment when the creative industries are evolving faster than ever.

In this episode of Technically Creative, we sit down with director Marco Gentile of Magna Studios to explore a powerful idea about creativity in the age of AI: what he calls “The Invisible Contract.”

For nearly two decades, Marco has worked as a director in advertising, crafting visually meticulous films for brands around the world. But as generative AI rapidly transforms how images, stories, and media can be produced, Marco has begun asking a deeper question — not about technology, but about the relationship between creators and audiences.

His thesis is simple: storytelling has always been relational. When an audience watches a film, a commercial, or any piece of communication, they assume a human being stands behind it — someone who made choices, faced constraints, and took responsibility for the meaning being created.

The challenge posed by AI isn’t just about automation. It’s about what happens to imagination, authorship, and accountability when creation itself can be delegated to machines.

Orlando and Marco explore:

Why storytelling relies on an “invisible contract” between creator and audience

How friction and constraint shape meaningful creativity

The difference between speed and meaning in the creative process

Why imagination is a human faculty that must be exercised

How generative AI could change the way society produces symbolic meaning

What guardrails creative industries might need as AI tools evolve

It’s a philosophical and wide-ranging conversation about art, authorship, and the future of creativity — and why preserving human intention may be the most important challenge facing storytellers today.

In this episode of Technically Creative, we sit down with Jagger Waters — AI filmmaker, creator, and educator — to talk about what authorship looks like in the age of AI.

While much of the conversation around AI filmmaking centers on hype or fear, Jagger is focused on something far more practical: craft. From producing nearly solo short films to blending AI with live action and traditional editing workflows, she represents a new kind of creative — one who understands cinematic language and uses AI as leverage, not replacement.

As the lines blur between filmmaker and creator, Jagger is navigating both worlds. She’s building work independently, experimenting publicly, and actively helping higher education institutions understand the realities of the creator economy.

Jagger shares lessons from producing AI-driven narrative work, the discipline required to move from “prompting” to directing, and why removing the pressure to monetize every idea might be the key to protecting creative voice.

Orlando and Jagger explore:

Why AI doesn’t replace craft — it exposes it

The difference between generating and directing

How filmmakers are being pushed into the creator economy

What creators can learn from cinematic storytelling

Why building publicly accelerates growth

How to balance financial survival with creative independence

It’s a grounded, forward-looking conversation about control, identity, and the future of storytelling — in a world where anyone can generate, but not everyone can direct.

In this episode of Technically Creative, we sit down with Ross Richie, founder of BOOM! Studios, to talk about why comics remain one of the most powerful IP engines in modern entertainment.

Long before Hollywood fully embraced the franchise era, Ross was building story worlds from the ground up — proving that independent comics could become global film and television properties. Under his leadership, BOOM! Studios became a launchpad for creator-led storytelling and was ultimately acquired by Penguin Random House, marking a major moment for independent publishing.

Ross shares lessons from building a creator-first company in a system obsessed with scale, the discipline required to nurture long-term intellectual property, and why comics function as one of the most efficient R&D labs in the entertainment industry.

Orlando and Ross explore:

Why comics are Hollywood’s most efficient IP incubator

How creator ownership changes the quality of story worlds

The economics behind adapting comics into film and television

What studios look for in adaptable properties

How technology is reshaping publishing and IP development

Why story always comes before franchise

It’s a sharp, strategic conversation about ownership, adaptation, and the future of storytelling in an era where IP is everything — and where the smartest companies know it starts on the page.

Get tickets to the next Artist and the Machine event in NYC on May 14th, you can access Early Bird applications on their site: https://artistandthemachine.com/

2025 Grimes Keynote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4LZfOaPifQ

In this episode of Technically Creative, Orlando Wood sits down with Dani Van De Sande, founder of Artist and the Machine — one of the most important gatherings anywhere in the world for artists, technologists, and creative leaders working with AI.

Artist and the Machine is the leading Summit at the forefront of AI & Creativity. The bi-yearly gathering in LA & NY is known for its elevated, strong curation that fosters inspiration and partnerships across brand innovation leaders, creators, and founders pioneering the future of Human-Machine collaboration. The AI & Creativity Summit returns to NYC on May 14, 2026 to gather 400 handpicked leaders in the space, featuring a Main Stage, bespoke breakout sessions & workshops, and interactive demos. If you’re exploring how AI is transforming creative work - you’ll want to be in this room.

Dani has built a rare kind of event: a place where engineers, filmmakers, researchers, and creative directors share a stage and show what they’re actually making right now. Not predictions. Not hype. Real tools, real experiments, and real creative breakthroughs.

In this conversation, Dani and Orlando explore the rise of the creative technologist, why artists and engineers need to be in the same room, and how the most interesting work today often couldn’t have existed even a year ago.

It’s a thoughtful, optimistic conversation about the people building the future of creativity — and the communities forming around them.

🔍 Highlights include:

• Why the creative technologist is the defining role of the AI era
• How Artist and the Machine brings artists and engineers together
• The difference between AI hype and real creative practice
• Why the most interesting work today is happening at the edges of disciplines

🎙️ Meet the People Designing the Biggest Moment in Advertising

In this special post–Super Bowl episode of Technically Creative, Orlando Wood sits down with Mark Gross, Co-Founder and Co-Chief Creative Officer of Highdive, and Chris Bellinger, Chief Creative Officer of PepsiCo Foods USA - two of the creative leaders behind some of the most talked-about Super Bowl advertising of the last decade.

The Super Bowl has long been the most concentrated moment of attention in media. But what it means to advertise there has fundamentally changed. What was once a single 30-second TV event has become a multi-week, multi-screen cultural launch shaped as much by social feeds, memes, and war rooms as by what airs during the game itself.

Mark and Chris unpack how Super Bowl advertising has evolved in the second-screen era, from the rise of 60-second storytelling to the limits of celebrity-driven ideas, and the strategic decisions brands now face around timing, secrecy, and amplification. They go deep on the creative risks of emotion on the loudest stage in advertising, and how Lay’s “Little Farmer” became an unexpected, last-minute pivot that reshaped the brand’s tone and expectations moving forward.

The conversation also pulls back the curtain on game-day realities: war rooms, real-time decision-making, competitor overlap, and the uncomfortable truth that even the biggest ads can’t be fully controlled once culture takes over.

What emerges is a rare, honest look at how modern Super Bowl advertising is actually made not as a single moment, but as a system of craft, strategy, intuition, and risk.

🎧 Highlights include:

● How Super Bowl advertising shifted from a one-night event to a multi-screen cultural launch

● Why 60-second spots now outperform 30s on the biggest stage

● The celebrity arms race and when “no celebrity” becomes the real surprise

● The creative risk of emotion in the middle of a football game

● How Lay’s “Little Farmer” came together through late pivots and leadership conviction

● Why sequels are harder than originals in advertising

● What really happens inside Super Bowl war rooms

● Measuring success beyond views: shares, comments, and cultural impact

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

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

📍 Chapters:

[00:00] Meet Mark Gross and Chris Bellinger

[01:13] How Super Bowl advertising has changed over the last 20 years

[02:56] Is the Super Bowl still the most valuable media buy?

[04:48] Teasers, timing, and pre-game release strategy

[06:40] Celebrity saturation and creative risk

[10:07] Making emotion work on the biggest stage

[12:07] Inside the making of “Little Farmer”

[15:15] Media buying and late-stage creative decisions

[19:09] Does Super Bowl pressure change the work?

[22:26] When an idea only works on game day

[24:01] TV winners vs internet winners

[25:29] Designing for memes and long-tail culture

[26:45] Where agency and brand priorities collide

[30:45] Sequels, expectations, and creative pressure

[33:37] Holding spots vs releasing early

[35:32] Extending campaigns beyond the game

[38:50] War rooms and real-time decision-making

[42:49] Defining success after the final whistle

[44:18] Competitor overlap and creative collisions

[48:40] Final reflections and what comes next

#TechnicallyCreative #SuperBowlAdvertising #MarkGross #ChrisBellinger #Highdive #PepsiCo #CreativeStrategy #BrandStorytelling #Advertising #CulturalMarketing #KoobrikLabs #OrlandoWood

🎙️ How Brands Win Advertising’s Biggest Day

With Mark Gross (Highdive) and Chris Bellinger (PepsiCo Foods U.S.)

In this episode of Technically Creative, Orlando Wood sits down with Mark Gross, Co-Founder and Co-Chief Creative Officer of Highdive, and Chris Bellinger, Chief Creative Officer of PepsiCo Foods U.S. — two of the most experienced creators in modern Super Bowl advertising.

Together, they were behind last year’s breakout Lay’s spot The Little Farmer, and this year’s follow-up, The Last Harvest — a beautiful, generational story about a father passing his potato farm down to his daughter. In a sea of celebrity spectacle, their work stands out for its sincerity and emotional craft.

But the Super Bowl has changed. What used to be a single broadcast launch is now a multi-week cultural campaign. Spots are teased to press, released on social feeds days before kickoff, and supported by full-scale war rooms tracking the game in real time. With ads now costing around $8 million for 30 seconds, the stakes have never been higher.

In this conversation, Mark and Chris break down how Super Bowl advertising really works today — from emotional storytelling and celebrity strategy to PR runways, social media scorecards, and what success actually looks like the morning after the game.

🎙️ Meet the Woman Helping Film Culture Make Sense of Itself

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

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

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

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

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

🎧 Highlights include:

● Why film festivals remain the path to legitimacy for filmmakers

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

● The evolving role of curation as the film industry fractures

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

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

● How festivals balance indie discovery with major cultural moments

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

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

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

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

📍 Chapters:

[00:00] Introducing Cara Cusumano and Tribeca

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

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

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

[23:00] Discovery, innovation, and community

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We explore:

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

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

• The origin story of the Guber-Peters partnership

• How two unlikely partners built a string of hits together

• The road from producing movies to running Sony Pictures

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

• How Jon looks back on all of it now

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

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

More to come.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stay tuned — the next chapters go even deeper.