Kristina Budelis - Sundance Collab

Kristina Budelis is a filmmaker, entrepreneur, and product leader working at the intersection of media, AI, and storytelling. She teaches film and AI at universities and beyond, and writes the Film Robots newsletter on how emerging tools are reshaping the way stories get made. She has served as a Mozilla AI Fellowship mentor and an OpenAI alpha artist.

Previously, Kristina helped build The New Yorker’s Oscar-winning video department, founded and ran the venture-backed startup KitSplit, and led product development for NYT Kids (New Ventures) at The New York Times. Her documentary films have premiered at Tribeca and reached millions of viewers; she also produces and executive produces for partners ranging from PBS to Delta. Named to Forbes 30 Under 30 (Media), she specializes in bridging creative storytelling with responsible, real-world uses of new technology.

Collab items I'm associated with:

Video

AI for Documentary Filmmakers: Research, Transcripts, and Trust

With: Kristina Budelis and Erica Elson

FREE

AI for Documentary Filmmakers: Research, Transcripts, and Trust

With: Kristina Budelis and Erica Elson

In this session, led by director, producer, and entrepreneur Kristina Budelis, you’ll learn some of the new ways documentary teams are using AI, with a focus on behind-the-scenes use. Budelis, who writes the newsletter Film Robots on AI & Film, will explain how these tools helped her save time in prep and post on a viral episode of PBS x Atlas Obscura’s Untold Earth, “It Looks Like a Desert. But It Has Thousands of Lakes,” which she’ll use as a case study in this presentation. She’ll break down how she used tools like Granola, ElevenLabs, Chat GPT, and Claude for things like research, transcription, translation and temp narration. She’ll also go over the importance of guardrails in regards to things like consent, disclosure, privacy and data considerations. You’ll leave the session with practical takeaways for how to improve your own documentary workflow, save time, and facilitate collaboration.

FREE

Story Forum Collection

Story Forum: Exploring Art and Innovation - ON DEMAND

Together with creators, educators, industry leaders, and technologists, we explored the creative technologies that are impacting storytelling and how today’s artists are evolving. Now you can experience it all on-demand for free.