Episode
Ep. 278 I Adapt or Die: A Working Filmmaker with AI in 2026
- Podcast
- Documentary First
- Published
- May 21, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 3310
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- https://tinyurl.com/DocFirstPod
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Summary
Adapt or die. What does that actually look like for a working filmmaker? Chicago documentary filmmaker Armin Korsos has a working filmmaker's answer to the question every documentarian is wrestling with right now. If you're not using AI, you will be losing work to people who do. In this conversation, Armin walks through how he turned 20 hours of pre-production paperwork into 30 minutes, how he uses AI image generation to send 40 pitches in the time it used to take to send 8, and why he believes the only currency that still matters in this industry is original ideas. In Episode 278, Christian sits down with Armin Korsos, founder of the Chicago production company Caymanite and co-founder of Filmmaker Friday Chicago, a film community event series that grew from 50 people at its first event to over 1,700 unique attendees in its first year. Born in the Cayman Islands to Hungarian parents, raised in the Chicago suburbs, and trained at Columbia College Chicago , Armin uses commercial production work to fund the documentary and narrative projects he cares about. He has a working filmmaker's take on AI (use it now or lose work to the people who do), a hard-earned theory about original ideas as the only currency that still matters, and a community he built for filmmakers who know the work can be a lonely process. In this episode, you'll learn: Why Armin says "if you're not using AI, you will be losing work to people who do" How a Hungarian-born, Cayman-Islands-raised, Chicago-trained filmmaker built a production company that funds his passion projects What the Nvidia CEO said that changed how Armin thinks about original ideas when everyone has access to AI Why Armin believes "you must be the creator if you want the IP" when working with AI tools How Armin found a local approachi…