There is a blurry place at the coal-face of creation which is part idea, part inspiration, part memory. A daydream sparks an idea to research, a writer digs deep into their subject, a director immerses themselves in the genre, an actor watches the performances of their heroes. And now in 2026 it feels like as an industry we are faced with a dilemma. How much do we let technology in? I certainly didn’t start filmmaking to sit behind a computer and tell it what to do. There is a joy in the creation with others. There is a purity in that very human connection, which can hold an audience in the moment, cause them to forget about life just for a minute, and revel in the story.
On the other hand, some (all?) of the most successful movie franchises of the last few years have only been possible because of technological advances in VFX and computer power. Tech moves quick. Film changed to digital, after all. The release of Toy Story 5 this weeks reminds us that crafted animation can make us cry. Lower budget films with outsized returns are knocking on the door - a trend that can be only be helped with the wizardry of these tools.
So where does that leave the film and TV industry? What with technology knocking on the door n all, #AI.
Prior to Cannes, we ran The Big Screen Hack - we gave AI creators and traditional filmmakers two days to make a short film (theme: INTO THE UNKNOWN) and we screened the winners during Cannes Film Festival. It was sponsored by some of the latest AI tools around - to give folks a chance to experiment with a deadline. You can check the winners out here: bigscreenhack.com/winners - it gave us much to ponder and muse over.
We were operating right at the bleeding edge of what can be created in a short time, and it gave us an idea.
It is an idea that we shall be soft-launching at Cannes Lions next week. Are you going to Lions? Let us know by way of reply. More on this very very soon.
TriBeca
We had an emormous amount of productive meetings and fun in New York.
A massive thanks to the production paperwork tool of the moment - Imgn - for the partnership and hanging with the crew.
Imgn is free to use for you for 6 months if you’re reading this email, schedule your script here in minutes, do your coverage in seconds, tinker with your shot-list to your hearts content, THE LIST GOES ON.
As ever I took like zero photos because, well I was busy chatting n stuff. Just FYI this bendy mirror looked way more bendy IRL - more like your classic mirror here. Mirror’s eh.
And So Hazy Lazy Days in The Summer Sun Some with Sauce Others with Sass
I love me a flick which feels like an era - and the heat does that. K so how bout a run down of some of the best hazy lazy summer day movies that every did grace our screens?
All available to add to your RecDek Watchlist - just a click of a link away.
Jazz on a Summer's Day - Bert Stern's 1958 Newport Jazz Festival doc, less a concert film than a time capsule. Monk, Armstrong, Anita O'Day, shot gorgeously - but also checkout the people-watching. Effectively invented the cinéma vérité music doc a decade before Woodstock and Gimme Shelter worked out how to do it.
Stand By Me - But of course. Reiner's 1986 King adaptation, right in the middle of his untouchable run. Four boys, one dead body, a long walk into hard truths. Wheaton, Phoenix, Feldman, O'Connell - and Reiner gets performances out of them to marvel at. The end-of-summer film to watch all summer.
Smiles of a Summer Night — Bergman doing screwball? Sounds like a typo. An amorous lawyer, a wife with her virtue intact, a mistress with rather more on the go, all colliding at a country estate on a sultry summer's eve. Literate, sensuous, faintly wicked. Woody Allen has been quietly lifting from for decades.
A Summer's Tale - Eight wordless minutes before someone orders a crepe, and then Rohmer lets a moody maths grad get tangled between three women on a French beach. Classic Rohmer: more time spent dissecting relationships than having them. Sounds unbearable but plays so well - and you'll spot its fingerprints all over the Before trilogy.
3 Women - Altman's 1977 fever dream, a story he claimed arrived in his sleep, and it shows (in the best way!). Duvall and Spacek as roommates whose identities start to run into each other under that sun-baked California haze. His finest film. One of the great American art films of the decade?
Dazed and Confused- Linklater's 1993 portrait of the last day of school in 1976 Texas, jocks and dorks and dropouts drifting toward a long hot summer and whatever comes after. An ensemble stuffed with soon-to-be stars (Affleck, Jovovich, McConaughey), but what lifts it above the teen-movie pack is the compassion - Linklater likes every one of these kids. Keg parties, hazing, endless cruising, all slowly soaked in the ache that no summer will ever feel quite like this one again.
Enjoy the sun. Enjoy the World Cup. Enjoy Cannes Lions. Enjoy life.
Enjoy RecDek - here for your viewing pleasure.
SEE YA.
Ed
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