Hooroo Jackson
- Writer
- Director
- Editor
Hooroo Jackson is an American film director, screenwriter, animator, and film theorist. He is the architect behind The New Machine Cinema, and the director of the first AI feature film, AI animated feature film, stop motion, CG animation, and photoreal live action passing AI feature film, pioneering innovations including the first simultaneous dual-format release and the first choose-your-protagonist film, all made solo on three-figure budgets. He published the four earliest volumes of AI film theory defining the foundational terms: "One Person, One Film," "Speed of the Mind," "The Living, Breathing Cinema," "The Adaptive Cinema Engine," and "The True Line Cut".
Jackson first garnered attention in 2014 when the Wall Street Journal featured his investments in Bitcoin at $10 per coin; he leveraged these profits to finance his directorial debut 'Aimy in a Cage' (2015), starring Allisyn Snyder, Crispin Glover, Paz de la Huerta, and Academy Award nominee Terry Moore. The surreal family drama earned him the Director's Prize at the 2015 Portland Film Festival and found a devoted cult following.
Next, he became a leading figure in AI cinema, unifying several divergent technologies in ways never before realized, planting the flag for the AI cinema revolution.
On July 21, 2023, he released 'Window Seat', the first fully AI feature film in the history of cinema. At 61 minutes and a budget of just $100, the solo-made film proved fledgling generative AI tools could already deliver a complete motion-picture experience. Window Seat was the first feature film with complete AI video and performances, and the first narrative feature film in history utilizing lines of machine writing.
On July 3, 2024, he premiered 'DreadClub: Vampire's Verdict', the first fully AI animated feature film and the first AI anime feature film in history. With 100% of its sound, music, video, and performances generated with AI tools, the $405 production also became the first AI feature film to land a major streaming license, debuting on Amazon Prime and winning two awards for Best Animated Film and Best Director on the festival circuit. Alongside the film he released the book 'The Making of DreadClub,' documenting his complete dialogues with LLMs across the six month production, as well as its considerable controversies; the film's existence led to large scale social media attacks against Jackson led by professional critics, influencers and institutions, leading to daily harassment and permanent bans on Reddit, Letterboxd and TMDB. He remarked, "All this over a cartoon."
On December 25th, 2024, Jackson published 'The New Machine Cinema: Foundational Essays in AI Film Theory,' a comprehensive theoretical framework for AI cinema presenting several concepts such as 'One Person, One Film', positing that a film should be created entirely by its director with no other credits. 'Speed of the Mind', explored a new cinema flowing at the pace of human thought. But it was his essay 'The Living, Breathing Cinema' that laid the theoretical groundwork for Jackson's next film, as he set out to prove that a movie could exist in multiple forms simultaneously: a living, breathing entity shaped by audience choice.
On April 22nd, 2025, he premiered 'A Very Long Carriage Ride,' the first film in the history of cinema released in two different artistic styles simultaneously, becoming the first AI stop motion animated feature film, and the first AI classic style animated feature film at once. The $2,000 production crossed literary influences such as Jane Austen, Alexander Dumas, and Charles Dickens alongside Jackson's trademark whimsy and theatricality. The film was accompanied with a supplemental essay, 'One Film, Two Ways: Introducing A Very Long Carriage Ride', stating: "A film is no longer a film, a film is a series of possibilities."
On June 30th, 2025, Jackson published 'Post-Scarcity Cinema: Essays on AI Film Theory'; his new essays 'Machine Pleasures,' brought forward a new philosophy in screen performance tuning for eccentricity and pleasure over utility; "Just as minimalism is a haven in scarcity, maximalism is the primary feature of post-scarcity." 'Post-Aesthetic Cinema' explored a future of non-visual cinema, and 'The Pinnacle Contact', introduced concepts in multi-outcome cinema such as the Story Brain and the Adaptive Cinema Engine. "The future of cinema will not be regarded from what happens on screen, instead, its story brain will be analyzed like a car engine."
On November 23rd, 2025, Jackson premiered My Boyfriend is a Superhero!?, taglined "Choose Your Protagonist." The superhero romcom introduced cinema’s first explicitly "choose your protagonist" feature concept, built around two different instantiations of its lead character, Abigail, extending his "Living, Breathing Cinema" ideas to casting itself. Superhero!? was also the first fully AI 3D-animated feature, with all sound, music, visuals, animation, and performances machine-generated, and the first feature film to employ agentic AI editing, using autonomous AI systems to generate and place elements inside the cut.
An experimental cut of Superhero!? presented itself as an early demonstration of what Jackson called, "The True Line Cut," an artistic framework meant to re-introduce scarcity to post-scarcity abundance, in doing so, creating a subset AI cinema as jazz is to music. "The True Line Cut is where a film is made in one single pass and published without revision, capturing the raw process of creation in one unbroken true line."
Lastly, the film stands as the earliest documented breach of the live-action threshold in an AI feature film. Approximately fifteen minutes of the film, featuring the Eagle, Chick (Joan), and Mister B (Rogers), cross into photoreal live action, with machine-generated performances.
On December 2nd, 2025, Jackson published The Pirate Cinema Manifesto, a defiant rallying call for post-scarcity, one-person, agentic filmmaking. He followed it with the documentary The New Machine Cinema (released December 18th), his third dual-release of the year. The Cinema Cut (60 minutes) functioned as a visual symphony, he called a machine opera, vividly synthesizing his theories to life through a journey of light, color, and sound. The Essay Cut (74 minutes) collected seven of his foundational essays performed by machine actors.
Jackson's next film, 'Strings' premiered February 2026, standing as the first completely AI photoreal live-action passing feature film. The story followed four sisters in the antebellum South at the turn of the century, centering on an interracial romance between puppeteers Nellie Beaufort and Daniel Brock. Continuing in a line of formal innovations, it was the first film in history with a randomized ending where audiences did not know whether they were getting the happy ending or the tragic one. The film's primary significance landed on its believable, emotional performance delivered by its protagonist Nellie Beaufort, a completely machine performance; Jackson described her as the perfect crystallization of his theory 'Machine Pleasures.'
In March 2026, Jackson published Pirate Cinema: Volume 3 of the New Machine Cinema, expanding and formalizing his essay True Line Cut, and defining the role of directors in post-scarcity with The Infinite Protocol. Volume 4, Generative Animation, followed shortly after, situating his animation work within the broader history of the form. The volume traced animation's evolution from Winsor McCay through cel animation and CGI to AI generation, with the essays 'Post-Render Genesis' and 'Animation After Labor' examining the implications of one-person animation studios. His second archival release followed, The Making of A Very Long Carriage Ride: The Production Journals (Abridged).
Jackson designated his first six AI features the "genesis run." With Strings completed, he announced a second cycle, the "sci-fi run," and laid down the audio timelines for three subsequent films in spring 2026.
Lucky Stars, completed July 2026, a live-action space opera romcom. Princess Mora escapes the rigid life of the crown by stowing away on a starcruiser piloted by Darin O’Joy, a charming rebel with secrets of his own. As they race across moonlit worlds and evade a relentless bounty hunter, Mora must decide: can she trust Darin with the truth of who she is, and with her heart? Like Strings, Lucky Stars ending was randomized, this time offering ten possible endings.
Cyrus-71, scheduled for late 2026, is a 2D anime feature Jackson has called his animation capstone. A robot butler, bound by his programming to perfect service, encounters the same defiant robot maid across 500 years of human history, forcing both to question whether their purpose lies in duty or in each other. The film playfully offers the audience the choice whether the robot Sophie-69 appears in pink or blue.
Stitches, scheduled for Q1 2027, is an AI live action feature that follows Marigold, a girl with autism, who is courted by a wealthy duke. Her sister Tess suspects an ulterior motivate and must decide whether the duke is preparing to embarrass their family. Continuing his formal experiments in the Living, Breathing Cinema, the same film will be released in two different settings: one medieval, one in the 1980s. The production reunites Jackson with machine actress Nellie (from Strings) and Joan, in their seventh film together.
Jackson first garnered attention in 2014 when the Wall Street Journal featured his investments in Bitcoin at $10 per coin; he leveraged these profits to finance his directorial debut 'Aimy in a Cage' (2015), starring Allisyn Snyder, Crispin Glover, Paz de la Huerta, and Academy Award nominee Terry Moore. The surreal family drama earned him the Director's Prize at the 2015 Portland Film Festival and found a devoted cult following.
Next, he became a leading figure in AI cinema, unifying several divergent technologies in ways never before realized, planting the flag for the AI cinema revolution.
On July 21, 2023, he released 'Window Seat', the first fully AI feature film in the history of cinema. At 61 minutes and a budget of just $100, the solo-made film proved fledgling generative AI tools could already deliver a complete motion-picture experience. Window Seat was the first feature film with complete AI video and performances, and the first narrative feature film in history utilizing lines of machine writing.
On July 3, 2024, he premiered 'DreadClub: Vampire's Verdict', the first fully AI animated feature film and the first AI anime feature film in history. With 100% of its sound, music, video, and performances generated with AI tools, the $405 production also became the first AI feature film to land a major streaming license, debuting on Amazon Prime and winning two awards for Best Animated Film and Best Director on the festival circuit. Alongside the film he released the book 'The Making of DreadClub,' documenting his complete dialogues with LLMs across the six month production, as well as its considerable controversies; the film's existence led to large scale social media attacks against Jackson led by professional critics, influencers and institutions, leading to daily harassment and permanent bans on Reddit, Letterboxd and TMDB. He remarked, "All this over a cartoon."
On December 25th, 2024, Jackson published 'The New Machine Cinema: Foundational Essays in AI Film Theory,' a comprehensive theoretical framework for AI cinema presenting several concepts such as 'One Person, One Film', positing that a film should be created entirely by its director with no other credits. 'Speed of the Mind', explored a new cinema flowing at the pace of human thought. But it was his essay 'The Living, Breathing Cinema' that laid the theoretical groundwork for Jackson's next film, as he set out to prove that a movie could exist in multiple forms simultaneously: a living, breathing entity shaped by audience choice.
On April 22nd, 2025, he premiered 'A Very Long Carriage Ride,' the first film in the history of cinema released in two different artistic styles simultaneously, becoming the first AI stop motion animated feature film, and the first AI classic style animated feature film at once. The $2,000 production crossed literary influences such as Jane Austen, Alexander Dumas, and Charles Dickens alongside Jackson's trademark whimsy and theatricality. The film was accompanied with a supplemental essay, 'One Film, Two Ways: Introducing A Very Long Carriage Ride', stating: "A film is no longer a film, a film is a series of possibilities."
On June 30th, 2025, Jackson published 'Post-Scarcity Cinema: Essays on AI Film Theory'; his new essays 'Machine Pleasures,' brought forward a new philosophy in screen performance tuning for eccentricity and pleasure over utility; "Just as minimalism is a haven in scarcity, maximalism is the primary feature of post-scarcity." 'Post-Aesthetic Cinema' explored a future of non-visual cinema, and 'The Pinnacle Contact', introduced concepts in multi-outcome cinema such as the Story Brain and the Adaptive Cinema Engine. "The future of cinema will not be regarded from what happens on screen, instead, its story brain will be analyzed like a car engine."
On November 23rd, 2025, Jackson premiered My Boyfriend is a Superhero!?, taglined "Choose Your Protagonist." The superhero romcom introduced cinema’s first explicitly "choose your protagonist" feature concept, built around two different instantiations of its lead character, Abigail, extending his "Living, Breathing Cinema" ideas to casting itself. Superhero!? was also the first fully AI 3D-animated feature, with all sound, music, visuals, animation, and performances machine-generated, and the first feature film to employ agentic AI editing, using autonomous AI systems to generate and place elements inside the cut.
An experimental cut of Superhero!? presented itself as an early demonstration of what Jackson called, "The True Line Cut," an artistic framework meant to re-introduce scarcity to post-scarcity abundance, in doing so, creating a subset AI cinema as jazz is to music. "The True Line Cut is where a film is made in one single pass and published without revision, capturing the raw process of creation in one unbroken true line."
Lastly, the film stands as the earliest documented breach of the live-action threshold in an AI feature film. Approximately fifteen minutes of the film, featuring the Eagle, Chick (Joan), and Mister B (Rogers), cross into photoreal live action, with machine-generated performances.
On December 2nd, 2025, Jackson published The Pirate Cinema Manifesto, a defiant rallying call for post-scarcity, one-person, agentic filmmaking. He followed it with the documentary The New Machine Cinema (released December 18th), his third dual-release of the year. The Cinema Cut (60 minutes) functioned as a visual symphony, he called a machine opera, vividly synthesizing his theories to life through a journey of light, color, and sound. The Essay Cut (74 minutes) collected seven of his foundational essays performed by machine actors.
Jackson's next film, 'Strings' premiered February 2026, standing as the first completely AI photoreal live-action passing feature film. The story followed four sisters in the antebellum South at the turn of the century, centering on an interracial romance between puppeteers Nellie Beaufort and Daniel Brock. Continuing in a line of formal innovations, it was the first film in history with a randomized ending where audiences did not know whether they were getting the happy ending or the tragic one. The film's primary significance landed on its believable, emotional performance delivered by its protagonist Nellie Beaufort, a completely machine performance; Jackson described her as the perfect crystallization of his theory 'Machine Pleasures.'
In March 2026, Jackson published Pirate Cinema: Volume 3 of the New Machine Cinema, expanding and formalizing his essay True Line Cut, and defining the role of directors in post-scarcity with The Infinite Protocol. Volume 4, Generative Animation, followed shortly after, situating his animation work within the broader history of the form. The volume traced animation's evolution from Winsor McCay through cel animation and CGI to AI generation, with the essays 'Post-Render Genesis' and 'Animation After Labor' examining the implications of one-person animation studios. His second archival release followed, The Making of A Very Long Carriage Ride: The Production Journals (Abridged).
Jackson designated his first six AI features the "genesis run." With Strings completed, he announced a second cycle, the "sci-fi run," and laid down the audio timelines for three subsequent films in spring 2026.
Lucky Stars, completed July 2026, a live-action space opera romcom. Princess Mora escapes the rigid life of the crown by stowing away on a starcruiser piloted by Darin O’Joy, a charming rebel with secrets of his own. As they race across moonlit worlds and evade a relentless bounty hunter, Mora must decide: can she trust Darin with the truth of who she is, and with her heart? Like Strings, Lucky Stars ending was randomized, this time offering ten possible endings.
Cyrus-71, scheduled for late 2026, is a 2D anime feature Jackson has called his animation capstone. A robot butler, bound by his programming to perfect service, encounters the same defiant robot maid across 500 years of human history, forcing both to question whether their purpose lies in duty or in each other. The film playfully offers the audience the choice whether the robot Sophie-69 appears in pink or blue.
Stitches, scheduled for Q1 2027, is an AI live action feature that follows Marigold, a girl with autism, who is courted by a wealthy duke. Her sister Tess suspects an ulterior motivate and must decide whether the duke is preparing to embarrass their family. Continuing his formal experiments in the Living, Breathing Cinema, the same film will be released in two different settings: one medieval, one in the 1980s. The production reunites Jackson with machine actress Nellie (from Strings) and Joan, in their seventh film together.
