Hooroo Jackson

Hooroo Jackson describes himself as an American film director, screenwriter, editor and film theorist, and as the architect of what he calls the New Machine Cinema. By his account, the Wall Street Journal featured his early Bitcoin buying in 2014, and the profits paid for his debut feature, Aimy in a Cage (2015), which won the Director's Prize at that year's Portland Film Festival.

He released Window Seat on 21 July 2023, billing it as the first fully AI-generated feature; SHOOT reported it on Gumroad as pay-what-you-want. Working alone, he built the 61-minute black-and-white film from roughly 4,000 Runway clips laid over ElevenLabs dialogue, recorded first as a kind of radio play. He puts the cost at $100 for a month of Runway; a release carried by SHOOT gave $190 and 23 days. He says festivals rejected it, and acknowledges the first-feature claim has been disputed.

DreadClub: Vampire's Verdict, an 87-minute animated feature he made largely alone between February and July 2024 for a reported $405, premiered on 3 July 2024 and came to Prime Video on 26 July. AI supplied the imagery, animation, voices and music and served as a writing partner. Wikipedia notes three professional reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, two positive; Film Threat called it "an intriguing first step", while Book & Film Globe objected to its constant talk.

Later features, each billed by Jackson as a first, include A Very Long Carriage Ride (2025), released in stop-motion and classic animation versions; My Boyfriend is a Superhero!? (2025), which lets viewers choose the protagonist; and Strings (2026), which he calls the first photoreal live-action AI feature, with a randomised ending. He has also self-published several books of AI film theory, including The New Machine Cinema (December 2024).