Over the short and long history of video generation models, each new release has been accompanied by hype that this release will, finally, be the breakthrough that will become a standard.
There’s no specific reason yet to believe that’s the case for OpenArt’s “Director,” a tool from the Redwood City company led by two former Google engineers that the company plans to launch on Tuesday. But the software offers some interesting new features that can pave a faster path to the top of the heap.
Instead of requiring five- or ten-second clips to be compiled, as most tools provide, OpenArt Manager allows users to compile a movie up to five minutes long. The program also sets up a chat system that starts with storyboard and ends with post, essentially walking the user through completing a short scene (or a five-minute scene in a feature).
Collectively, the new elements allow for what co-founder/CEO Coco Mao and other company executives call “emotion channeling” — moving the term emotion coding into the author space. OpenArt’s goal is to allow someone with no technical skill in filmmaking but an abundance of storytelling vision to create a film just as a lively programmer can create an app.
“With bioprogramming, you give feelings and forget that the code even exists,” Mao said in an interview. “You direct, you task, you give feedback, and then the machine creates,” added the executive, who founded the company with her former Google colleague Jun Chiao. “I think channeling emotions is very similar to that, where the user can forget any tools or craft and just imagine, interact and taste. And then the machine creates.”
The company mixes a range of formats, from Seedance to Runway, to produce its films; Its virtue lies in how to choose among the most appropriate model in a given situation, but also, more consequentially, in its simple user interface. Think of the old school way of putting your taxes together versus the interview mode in TurboTax and you’ll get a sense of the experience they’ll be having. (“We can handle a lot of these small decisions so people don’t have to type fast,” Mao said.)
The question remains as to whether engaging programming works in the artistic space, where the goal is not just a functional end product, but a more ambiguous and subjective piece of art. In the latter case, precision – and struggle – often has a direct impact on the final product.
Also, it remains to be seen whether this ease of use resonates with professional directors as much as it does for the average Joe looking to make a movie. (Mao and her chief production officer, Amy He, say they want to target both.) But if nothing else, it demystifies, perhaps lowers the barrier to filmmaking, and encourages people who might otherwise be intimidated by the process, thus making filmmaking a more popular activity.
“We want to help users who have great ideas but don’t know anything about camera angles or lenses,” He said in an interview.
The executive added that one of the technology shifts that is enabling a more intuitive interface is that companies haven’t been training models so much as providing guidance in the manner of agentic AI, which essentially tries to reach certain outcomes through a set of goal-based rules rather than just uploading a large set of data and waiting for results in an MBA-style manner.
To promote the director, OpenArt is advertising in movie theaters as part of its pre-screening lineup, as well as buying ads in the New York City subway and a billboard in West Hollywood. Their goal is to attract the attention of creators and film fans and point them to a director they haven’t tried yet. At its core, the company’s purpose is as much social as it is technological: There’s an exit lurking inside all of us. Wouldn’t you pay a few bucks for credits every month so a Silicon Valley company could unlock it for you?
A quick test of the tool showed that the scenario could be generated with just a few sentences and a movie stitched together from just that scenario. From there the work just begins; For example, the first generation script was very primitive and only vaguely embodied what was intended; More rewrites were needed (the system allows you to go in and edit) before something usable emerged.
However, the ability to get some script ideas with minimal effort jump-started the process in a way that simple chat software does not. At the other end of the process, OpenArt also sets up the software so users can edit the movie with the same relative ease (most models require a whole new generation if something turns out to be awry).
OpenArt says it has eight million active subscribers to its photo and video tools, and has generated $70 million in revenue, according to research firm Sacra, which had just 50 employees, per Mao.
About $30 million was raised as part of its latest funding round — not chump change but a fraction of Runway’s $800 million-plus, for example.
OpenArt has also established informal partnerships with a number of creators, including the former head writer of The Ellen DeGeneres Showand Gil Rave and AI-powered viral music creator King Willonius, best known for his Drake parody “BBL Drizzy.”
Reeve said he finds that the director doesn’t like being on set but it’s “more like giving notes to an editor,” where the model hears a question and then comes back with a new version. “I feel more creative than ever because I remove a lot of friction,” Reeve said of AI in general, echoing what many AI testers say of previous hurdles with text in a drawer now removed because it can quickly conjure up a visual version of words on a page (he said he aims to use AI mostly for pitches and internal material development, not the final product).
Wilonius noted a “higher degree of flexibility and control” with the manager. “It allows you to get from point A to point B much faster without sacrificing quality,” he said, noting that the first generations he instructed were a “vomit project,” but adding that this happened with human versions as well. Both Willonius and Rief have used the Director tool to create music videos, though the company is aiming for a variety of shorter use cases with less abstract qualities such as TV commercials, short films, and social content. They also believe they can attract studios to make it available to filmmakers via the Enterprise package as well as amateur users.
Both Mao and Qiao have worked in the Google empire for years and are best known for Tangi, a creativity-focused short video service that was part of Google’s incubator before it was acquired by Google Search; They left to start OpenArt in 2022.
Mao says she believes a new horizon is opening before our eyes.
“We really believe this is going to be a new era of storytelling,” she said. “We can create a lot of new storytellers, and give previous storytellers more freedom and creative expression than they already have.”
