By Jason Parham
Willonius Hatcher was on a quest for the golden ticket to Hollywood. Amidst all the efforts to enter the illustrious realm of stars, with no conventional pathway marking the way, his dream occasionally seemed as elusive as a mirage. He saw it there, within his reach, his faith in his talent as his guiding star, but with every stride forward, the door appeared to recede further. He had tried his hand at stand-up comedy, acted in short films, sketched, even dabbled in video editing. But none opened the Hollywood door completely. Then, the Covid-19 pandemic painted a new landscape.
“With the onset of the pandemic, everything came to a standstill. It was then that I decided to focus on screenwriting. It would keep the creative juices flowing and also assure a source of income,” Hatcher, 39, explained during our Zoom interaction from his home in Palm Beach.
He dug deep into scriptwriting, spinning out magnificent worlds of fantasy, participated in writer’s workshops, and eventually carved a niche for himself in web series. All this while, generative AI was on the rise, and Hatcher, an early supporter of ChatGPT, gained expertise in a couple of programs. Relying on his own writing to weave the storyline and link narration while crafting a video, Hatcher discovered the world of AI imagery, using prompts in Midjourney, and breathed life into these images through animation on Runway.
The trailers—or, really, mini-films—that came from that period of incubation have slowly become legend among a devoted fan base eager for a new breed and look of Black imagination. Hatcher’s work is resonating with audiences during a moment when many people in the filmmaking world have mixed feelings about generative AI’s creative use. In its most extreme iterations, gen AI extends a grotesque American tradition: the deliberate devaluing of Black life through distortion and theft. The unbound innovation of what gen AI can produce is also one of its greatest dangers, because of what it can unleash.
Matt Reynolds
Jeremy White
Reece Rogers
Matt Simon
Hatcher isn’t deterred by that concern. He wants to tell decidedly Black stories—a point he stresses multiple times during our conversation—that peer into a cosmos of possibility. To do so, his trailers braid known pop culture references into radiant mashups (Jaquarious is “standing on melodies” in The Flute Man), and he constructs characters you won’t soon forget, from Martin Luther Wick Jr. to the gaggle of creepy forest-dwelling Steve Harveys. The most striking of his AI shorts is The Lickback Renaissance, a two-part sci-fi noir that follows Zora, a young scientist who discovers a time-altering element as she undergoes a “daring struggle for autonomy against interdimensional guardians and government forces.” The videos each have over a million views on Instagram.
As you might expect, Hollywood changed its tune. Hatcher has since partnered with the video distribution platform CodeBlack to release more content (right now he’s working on Hoop Fighters, “a cyberpunk basketball world”) and is churning out scripts. When we speak on the third Friday in March, he explains how AI helped to level the playing field for him. He’s serious about Black creators, and creators of color in general, not getting left behind in this next era of tech disruption. From the machine wilderness of artificial intelligence, there are stories waiting to be told, and it would be a failure, Hatcher says, not to take advantage of the tools at hand.
The following interview has been edited.
Jason Parham: Visual animations aside, what originally struck me about your trailers were their strong sense of narrative. Gen AI is often an image-first medium, but you place just as much, if not more, emphasis on the storytelling aspect. Where does that come from?
Willonius Hatcher: I started out making original audio dramas as part of the Clubhouse creator program in 2021. That’s how I really got into sc-fi. I would take spec scripts that I had and combine different worlds. Imagine if Family Matters was set in Atlanta’s universe. For that one, the premise was Darius goes to Chicago to meet with his cousin Steve but he finds out that Steve is a crime lord. In my mind, Steve was essentially Rick from Rick and Morty. He had that level of genius. He wouldn’t be this goofy kid—he’d be a mastermind. That was one of my favorites. During the program, I also pitched and worked on an 11-episode Black soap opera I created called The Young and the Thirsty.
The stuff we were able to do creatively with audio opened my mind. There was a natural transition from audio dramas to AI. They helped me to enhance the storytelling and my ability to make these AI productions. All of this stretched me creatively. And again, I only did all this because I was trying to break into TV. I was right there, literally right there, and then the writer’s strike happened.
Matt Reynolds
Jeremy White
Reece Rogers
Matt Simon
What changed for you?
I had scheduled interactions with four different agencies, notably MACRO, one of the largest. But then the strike came about, and these agencies stopped holding meetings. During that period, I was part of the Black Boy Writes [Media] TV fellowship scheme. We operated a Slack group, where members were expressing negative views about AI. I was already using and was captivated by ChatGPT at that time. Thus, I began creating animations or films using [Midjourney and Runway]. I utilized it so much to the point that I decided to see what would come out of it. My efforts began drawing attention, causing me to fully invest in it. Rather than creating a pitch deck, I decided to develop an AI trailer that directly showcases what I want to produce.
At the time of the strike, you started experimenting with AI in filmmaking. The drive was to have more rights over their content, but AI seems contrary to that idea. There exists justified resistance from both sides. How do you reconcile this dichotomy—your desire to develop mini AI films amid your colleagues’ reluctance?
In my experience, people’s perceptions alter drastically once they start tinkering with these tools. Perhaps a month or two into the strike, I ran a class with several of my screenwriter cohorts to instruct them on using AI tools. We primarily concentrated on using ChatGPT for producing pitch decks and treatments – they were profoundly astounded. When they understood the potential of AI, their perspective shifted. They would privately message me, asking, “What prompts do I need to get this or that?” Many creators discreetly use AI but do not disclose it. They fear that it would undermine their credibility or insinuate that they do not produce their own work. This is particularly true for writers who use AI.
And thus, it becomes equivalent to a mark of shame.
Indeed, for me, AI is simply a tool, just like Google, Photoshop, or Adobe After Effects. It’s utility hinges upon how an individual employs it. In my eyes, AI just augments the capacity you already possess. To put it bluntly, I consider AI to be our stepping stone. I utilize these tools in order to create, thereby hastening my career advancement. As a result, I’ve received attention from executives and others who previously disregarded me when I was just disseminating content and drafting scripts. Even though I had orchestrated meetings before the strike, obtaining email replies was a struggle. Reflecting back, I can say I had a noteworthy résumé, which included my Clubhouse accomplishments, the millions of YouTube views I obtained, and the shows I produced.
Creating a movie using conventional Hollywood methodologies is excessively challenging. Thankfully, there are now tools that facilitate this process.
You felt that you had validated your merit.
After incorporating AI, the dynamics of the discussions have transformed, which for me signifies progress. However, I am uncertain about the future behaviors because AI technology is progressing meteorically. The rapid advancement is becoming intimidating. Previously, I could distinguish an AI-generated image, but now I come across pictures that appear real, leading me to question their origin. Undeniably, we are veering towards an intriguing phase.
Matt Reynolds
Jeremy White
Reece Rogers
Matt Simon
It’s an untapped market.
With new technology, there is always a trade-off. When Web 2.0 emerged around a decade or one-and-a-half ago, there weren’t any lucrative roles for social media management. Now, it’s a whole different ballgame; individuals are able to support their families thanks to the advancement of the internet. We can expect similar benefits arising with AI, even though it may also contribute to job losses.
The adoption rate of new technologies tends to be slow at first. People, including myself, usually approach an uncharted digital territory with a healthy dose of skepticism.
My advice to people of melanated origin – seize the day! Start learning how to utilize AI. Modern technologies like ChatGPT are extremely handy in the business world; for instance, say you are asked to present a business plan, you got it covered! You can accomplish numerous tasks which used to require a significant financial investment for hiring expert services, and this could have barred you from progressing due to uncertainty about the next steps. This is why I regard this phenomenon as a form of reparations – it helps level the playing field.
Your films exclusively revolve around Black characters and stories, but not everyone approaches AI with the same care you do. What do you say to the criticisms that suggest AI is bringing about a new form of digital minstrelsy?
That’s kind of what I was talking about earlier, how there’s a ying and yang to all of this. There are always going to be bad actors who take these tools and do negative things. It’s easy to clone a voice; you only need five seconds. The same way people try to scam on Twitter or Instagram, or jump into your DMs trying to sell you crypto using a fake profile. That exists and will always exist. With any new technology that comes out you’re always going to have that potential threat there.
Education around AI is so important because we are not only headed that way, we are in the revolution right now. Whether we want to be aware of it or not, it’s happening. Within our communities we are not having a lot of conversations about it, you know, but everybody else is. I did the MIT AI filmmaking hackathon, and it was 90 percent Asian. I think there was one other Black dude and a handful of white people. Every other community knows the value of AI, and they’re using it, whether they’re talking about it or not. We just seem hesitant to jump into these conversations.
Is your hope to change the perception of how Black people engage with AI?
All my media I make is Black. But especially when I make the AI films, I purposefully make a point to imagine new worlds. There’s nothing wrong with Tyler Perry—no shade to him—but I want us to get excited like when we saw Wakanda or Lovecraft Country or whatever Jordan Peele makes. There is a feeling of, We’ve been waiting for images, movies, and narratives like this. So I think I get such a good response, and so many people DM me, because other people want to create stories like this.
Author: Matt Reynolds
Author: Jeremy White
Author: Reece Rogers
Matt Simon
To make a film using the traditional Hollywood methods is too difficult. Now there are tools that allow us to. I think we’re going to get to the point where we can make our own Star Wars movies for a fraction of the cost. It’s exciting because now we can tell our own stories, or partner with people to tell bigger stories.
“I think I get such a good response, and so many people DM me, because other people want to create stories like this.”
That was my entry point into your work. The Lickback Renaissance is a world that deserves to be explored. On the flip side, you mention how films can now be made for a fraction of the cost because of AI. What’s your response to people who say that thinking is antithetical to the industry’s survival, and the people who make it work?
I can’t speak on the industry too much because I’m not in it. And I never got a check from the industry. That was part of the reason I went hard with AI. The [Writers Guild of America] sent out a notice saying, if you do anything you’re going to get blackballed. I said, let me count all the checks I got from the WGA—and it was zero [laughs]. They’d never done anything for me, so I had nothing to lose.
I’m pro-human, first and foremost. But I also recognize that we do have these tools available. And it would behoove you to use them. The costs are gonna come down anyway as tech becomes more available, the same way you see what happened in the music industry. To record a song 20 years ago, you needed a big budget. Now you got 14-year-olds making hits in their mom’s basement.
On TikTok.
So it all depends on the artists. The great artists of the day are going to find a way to rise to the top and make it work.
Being Black in an American context, we’ve always had to adapt to survive. It’s about not getting left behind in this next tech revolution.
A lot of the time, we are the ones who get the short end of the stick. We have to learn as much as we can about AI so we can be on some sort of level playing field. Like, I’m not developing Midjourney software. I don’t know people who work there. And then if they say, no more Midjourney for you, what do I do? I mean, I’m gonna figure it out. But if we can learn these tools and start to build our own tools, then we’re really cooking.
