Alexander Bafer is best known as the founder and former CEO of FuboTV, the U.S.-based video streaming service offering a premium, over-the-top bundle of sports TV channels.
Then in April 2020, after the COVID-19 crisis left TV viewers hunkered down in their homes, Bafer completed the merger of FuboTV with Facebank Group, a developer of technology IP he co-founded with John Textor. Now Bafer has teamed up with actor, producer and director Donovan Leitch to launch his next major digital venture, Paracosm Studios, an AI-driven content studio being unveiled at MIPCOM next week.
The tech-driven venture will have Douglas Scott, co-founder of UNXNOWN, the marketing and media studio, as an advisor, Patrick Tsang of the Tsangs Group as chair and director Jake Scott as a creative partner.
“Our mission is not to replace the incredible talent, writers and creatives who define this industry. Rather, our focus is on advancing innovation responsibly and developing technology that amplifies human creativity, not automates it,” Bafer, CEO of Parascom, said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter on Friday. “We believe the future of filmmaking lies in collaboration between artistry and AI, where technology serves the storyteller, not the other way around.”
A still from the AI-driven, true-crime hybrid microdrama The Odyssey.
Will Tulier
Leitch, who will serve as chief creative officer, told THR that Paracosm as an AI-driven storyteller will look to streamline development and production for film and TV content, in part by using Google’s AI video generation model Veo 3 and the AI video tool Flow. “Our AI editors and creators love the Google tools and I think they are far and away the leaders in the AI filmmaking space. Also the Google ecosystem, YouTube and all the other Google platforms hold endless possibilities for AI,” he said.
Parascom is following the lead of director Darren Aronofsky after he launched his own AI-driven studio, Primordial Soup, in partnership with Google and its AI video generation tools. Other AI-driven filmmakers include veteran director Doug Liman as he works with Google on an immersive short film produced as part of the tech giant’s Google x Range: AI On Screen initiative.
Parascom is rolling out an AI-enabled proprietary Creator Operating System to allow directors, producers, writers and actors to expedite content production. The tech-driven studio will also develop, finance and produce its own projects across film and scripted and nonscripted TV, streaming, audio, gaming and immersive media, based on original IP or reimagining public domain media.
That’s as the entertainment industry in the wake of COVID and the 2023 Hollywood strikes faces a budget crunch to make content in disrupted times. “It’s a very, very difficult market out there right now in which to sell content. So cost-effectiveness is key,” Leitch explained.
Parascom’s first project to be unveiled at MIPCOM is The Odyssey, a true-crime hybrid microdrama that Leitch and Pat McGee are directing. The film will have AI re-creations alongside sit-down interviews and archival footage as it tells the story of Doug White, who as a 14-year-old boy was groomed and sexually assaulted at a West Hollywood teen nightclub by a manager in the 1980s.
After killing his abuser, White served eight years in prison and later graduated from the USC film school. Parascom on the horizon is eyeing the eventual production on an AI-driven feature film.
But for now, the studio is leaning into AI-enabled microdramas that combine the emotion and appeal of traditional TV dramas with a TikTok or YouTube shorts sensibility. That shortform content is aimed in particular at viewers with mobile phones and brands looking to engage with them.
Paracosm’s AI-driven production tools are primed for young creators looking to simple text prompts to generate digital content on the fly. In the wake of the AI “actress” Tilly Norwood, a Dutch creation, raising criticism from actors’ unions and artists over seeking Hollywood representation, Leitch insisted Paracosm isn’t chasing shortcuts or gimmicks, but instead looking to introduce data-driven creative tools to drive a proprietary production pipeline.
And the newly launched studio wants to avoid any legal tangle around AI use by supporting human creativity, rather than replacing it, Leitch said. “For The Odyssey, we’re using AI in a way that mirrors traditional filmmaking within an ethically guided workflow. Everything we generate is based on licensed likeness and representation,” he insisted.