Click here to download assets
Today, Netflix, Inc. announced the acquisition of Interpositive, a film production technology company founded by Ben Affleck that develops AI-powered tools built by filmmakers, for filmmakers. InterPositive’s mission to leverage emerging technologies in ways that protect and expand creative options is deeply aligned with Netflix’s long-standing belief that innovation should serve storytellers and the creative process.
For more than 20 years, Netflix has combined technology and artistry to help great movies and shows find viewers. With this acquisition, the entire InterPositive team will join Netflix, and with Affleck joining as a senior advisor, we will continue to invest in creator-led innovation that continues to put filmmakers at the center of the process.
Below, Affleck shares the story behind Interpositive and his vision for creative-first technology, with additional comments from Elizabeth Stone, Netflix’s Chief Product and Technology Officer, and Bela Bajaria, Netflix’s Chief Content Officer.
ben affleck
Academy Award®-winning producer, Academy Award-winning writer, director, actor, founder and CEO of Interpositive
In 2022, I spent a lot of time observing the early rise of AI in production. As a filmmaker, I see how inadequate these models are. For artists to apply these tools to tell the stories we dedicate our lives to, they must be purpose-built to express and protect all the qualities that make great stories: the nuances of filmmaking, the predictable and unpredictable challenges of a production environment, the distortion of a lens, or the way light changes shape across a scene.
We also need to maintain what makes storytelling human: judgment. It takes decades to build and hone experience, something that only humans can possess. I knew I had a responsibility to my colleagues and the industry to protect human creativity and the people behind it. In creating InterPositive, I sought to do just that.
Together with a small team of engineers, researchers, and creatives, we began filming our own dataset in a controlled soundstage, with all the familiarity of a full production. I wanted to build a workflow that captured what was happening on set, using a vocabulary that matched the language that cinematographers and directors already spoke, and included the kind of consistency and control they expected.
Intensive research and development has resulted in the first model trained to understand visual logic and editing consistency while maintaining cinematic rules even under real-world production challenges such as missing shots, background substitutions, and bad lighting. It also includes built-in limits to protect creative intent, so the tool is designed to enable responsible exploration while keeping creative decisions in the hands of artists, ensuring the benefits of this technology are directly reflected in the stories artists are trying to tell.
The result of this foundational work has been the creation of intentionally small datasets and models that focus on filmmaking techniques rather than performance, and tools that artists can use, control, and benefit from.
From the invention of video to the transition to digital, from motion capture to virtual production, technology has evolved along with the artists who use it. Our shared commitment to continuing this tradition, coupled with Netflix’s decades of experience responsibly applying and extending technology, makes working together a natural next step. Our combined values and complementary strengths ensure that these tools are used with the same care and responsibility with which they were built.
I couldn’t be more excited to continue this work with the team at Netflix. We’re also looking forward to providing the broader creative community with access to what we’re building and the future we’re working on together.
said Elizabeth Stone, Netflix Chief Product and Technology Officer. “Our approach to AI has always been focused on meaningfully serving the needs of our creative community and our members. The InterPositive team joins Netflix because of our shared belief that innovation should empower storytellers, not replace them. InterPositive ‘s great technology is purpose-built to help filmmakers and showrunners work with tools that naturally support their creative vision and how they want to achieve it. We’re excited to welcome the InterPositive team to Netflix and continue building for the storytellers of the future. While technology plays a role in how stories are made, people and their ideas, skill, and judgment remain at the core of great storytelling.”
Bela Bajaria, Netflix Chief Content Officer, said: “Our relationship with our artists has always been based on trust. We support their creativity to the fullest and ensure that they have the power to decide how their films and shows are produced. We believe that new tools should expand creative freedom, not limit it or replace the work of the writers, directors, actors, and crew. Ben and Interpository The Bu team is part of a long tradition in the artist industry of leading the way in the use of innovation in storytelling. Their work is about giving filmmakers more choice, more control, and more protection. We’re excited to build on that tradition together, putting creators and their artistic intentions at the center of everything we do.”
