Filmustage, which uses AI to analyze scripts and do other pre-production tasks, raised $1.5 million in seed funding led by Raw Ventures, a London-based venture capital firm. It’s the startup’s second fundraise after a $550,000 raise in 2023.
Started in 2020, Filmustage analyzes scripts in various categories including characters, locations, and props. It also performs other tasks like creating shooting schedules and analyzing scenes for risk elements like sex and weapons. In this way, it says it saves filmmakers time and money.
Users pay $49 a month for a Basic plan that allows them to upload three projects a month or $149 a month for a Studio plan that allows them to upload five projects per month. There’s also a free plan with limited features.
Filmustage said it has 15,000 users and 1,200 paying clients, from independent filmmakers to large studios. They include Roger Christian, an Oscar-winning set decorator known for his work on “Star Wars”; Byron Saltysiak, a former VP at WarnerMedia; and Callan Green, who used Filmustage in the TV series “Masters of the Air” and “Gangs of London.”
The 15-person company also said it recently was used in the pre-production of Guy Ritchie’s Netflix series “The Gentlemen” and is now being used during the shooting of Universal Pictures’ film “Nobody 2.”
AI tools have found applications in Hollywood, which is known for its lengthy and costly process of making TV shows and movies. Other well-known companies using tech to read scripts are Jumpcut’s ScriptSense, Scriptbook, and Avail. Investors have jumped on board, seeing AI tech’s potential to streamline how entertainment is made.
Egor Dubrovsky, one of Filmustage’s founders, has said he came up with the idea for the company while shooting pilots for Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. He plans to use the funding to build out AI-powered features, including a tool that provides different budgets based on location, AI-based storyboards, and an AI voice assistant.
Dubrovsky said clients’ biggest need that he’s trying to solve for is time, as studios are pushing to fill their slates after production shut down for much of 2023 during the Hollywood labor strikes.
“People need more time to shoot new productions; people need more content,” he said.
Generative AI has an uneasy relationship with Hollywood, where it’s gained use alongside fears that it’ll take people’s jobs and steal creators’ work and likeness. Filmustage’s founders said their tech does eliminate some routine tasks, although it doesn’t eliminate the need for human judgment in things like script analysis. They said the company doesn’t train on clients’ scripts but on scripts that are in the public domain, helped by synthetic data and seeing how people are using the tool.
Here’s the pitch deck Filmustage used to raise its newest funding round:
