Henry Daubrez

His current slate includes Junkyard King, a growing animated series, and The Light Within, an animated feature currently in development. Through ODD KID, Henry is exploring new models for independent production, including AI-driven and hybrid approaches that combine emerging tools with traditional filmmaking and animation.

Henry recently spent a year as Resident Filmmaker at Google Labs, where he explored and developed new approaches to AI-assisted filmmaking and creative production. His background spans animation, filmmaking, design and creative technology, including leadership roles at Dogstudio and DEPT®.

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When everyone can make anything, what makes something worth making?

Generative AI is removing barriers to creation at an extraordinary speed. Images, films, animation and entire worlds that once required large teams and budgets can increasingly be made by an individual or a very small group.

But easier creation doesn’t automatically mean better creation.

Drawing from a year spent inside Google Labs experimenting at the edge of generative filmmaking, and from building original films and series through his independent studio ODD KID, filmmaker Henry Daubrez explores what happens when making things is no longer the hardest part.

Through experiments, failures, production stories and projects including Junkyard King and The Light Within, Henry looks beyond the latest models to a much bigger question: in a world of infinite content, what makes work actually matter?

This isn’t a talk about replacing filmmakers with AI. It’s about what becomes more valuable when technology removes many of the technical barriers: taste, ideas, storytelling, craft, obsession and a point of view.

Because the future of creativity may not be defined by what AI allows us to make, but by what we choose to do with it.