Eric Oldrin: A Window Into The Future of Storytelling
From AI Films to XR Worlds
Award-winning filmmaker and founder of Nirdlo Studio, Eric Oldrin doesn't only deliver stories, he reimagines the fundamental ways stories can be told and experienced.
Throughout his career, which has earned him Emmy and Berlin Film Festival nominations, and where his work has been featured at both the Gernika Peace Museum and the prestigious Criterion Collection, Oldrin has consistently explored how emerging technologies can transform narrative itself.
Oldrin’s journey began as a child exploring immersive story worlds like Space Quest and Zork, which sparked his lifelong fascination with participatory narratives. Ever since, he has shaped innovative formats that invite people not just to watch but to feel and connect through content. His creative portfolio spans animated documentaries, geo-located narratives, alternate reality games, and virtual reality worlds, each pushing the boundaries of what storytelling can become.
He has collaborated with visionaries like Tim Burton and David Lynch, partnered with major studios including Paramount and National Geographic, and helped shape creative strategy at technology platforms from Macromedia to Meta. This breadth of experience gives him a uniquely informed perspective on the evolution of the media landscape and the future of storytelling.
“The speed of creative transformation right now is truly incredible,” notes Oldrin, whose latest film The Means was selected for the Seattle AI Film Festival. Before diving deep into the world of AI filmmaking, he led creative innovation across Meta’s ecosystem of products including Meta AI, Ray-Ban Stories, and Quest VR.
What distinguishes Oldrin’s approach is his vision for audience participation and the untapped potential at the intersection of AI, XR, and wearable technology. He offers a view into how storytelling itself will transform in the coming years.
In this Spotlight, Oldrin draws on his expansive experience to share insights into the future of media, where the boundaries between creator and audience blur, and storytelling can become a truly collaborative experience.
Let’s dive in!
Q: With your breadth of experience across emergent technologies, how do you envision the convergence of generative AI, XR, and immersive tech shaping the future of storytelling? What excites you most about what’s becoming possible?
A: The speed of creative transformation right now is truly incredible. Runway Gen 3 was released less than a year ago and since then, we’ve seen an acceleration of new storytelling tools for filmmaking. That’s really when I started to experiment and created my first films.
When it comes to immersive technology, I think we’ve only just begun. There are some amazing new tools that allow you to generate 3D worlds like krea.ai but there’s a beautiful uncharted frontier ahead when it comes to the creative potential at the intersection of AI and XR.
Immersive media is interactive by design. So, I imagine one new creative space will be found in the dynamic generation of content as a result of these audience interactions. I’m curious how the ‘prompts’ will be generated based on the audience and how the creator of the world will maintain a level of authorship. I’m less excited about open-world simulations and more interested in curated experiences that find a balance between game and film.
On that note, I imagine we’ll also see a variety of new forms of interaction. I’m looking forward to experiments with character and agency. Maybe the ‘user’ isn’t always the protagonist. Maybe they are more of a Sleep No More observer within a generative ‘happening’ or maybe they aren’t a character at all. As with immersive media, we may unlock new forms of gameplay based on dynamic generation.
For example, does the audience always have to make a choice? I’m more interested in gathering other signals that might be translated into the elements of a story. I think this will require rethinking the way stories are told and the way games are played.
Finally, I get most excited about moving these immersive experiences outside of the boxes that have defined them for a generation. Wearables like AR / AI Glasses are going to reshape storytelling by bringing the audience out into the world. This unlocks new context, new connection and new signals that can be used by generative AI to build content in new ways.
So, really it’s the intersection of AI, XR and Wearable Technology that inspires me the most and gets me excited about being a storyteller.
Q: Your recent film The Means is an emotionally resonant story that explores love, mundanity, and the infinite universe. What was the inspiration behind the film, and why did generative AI feel like the right creative medium to bring that story to life?
A: With The Means, I really wanted to focus on character development and storytelling. I think those are the most important elements of any great film, no matter the path to creation. Flow was beautifully animated but it won an Oscar because it was an amazing story. It showed us how the tools are simply a means to a narrative end.
So, I started with something personal. I’m the child of a typical 80’s divorced family and I tapped into those feelings through the main character. There were times that I honestly felt like Midjourney was my therapist, as I watched memories play out over and over again.
I’m also fascinated by deeply philosophical questions like causality and freewill. I’ve been thinking about the eventual outcome of powerful algorithms, especially with the advent of quantum computing. I wonder how far we are from some of the themes the film explores.
AI was the right medium because it was the most practical pathway. There was no way for me to personally produce the kind of imagery that was inside my head. I think that was the most rewarding part of the experience – simply being able to tell the story that was in my head.
Q: Given your extensive experience at Meta leading go-to-market strategies across dozens of products and platforms, where do you see the most promising commercial applications for AI-generated content in entertainment and advertising?
A: A lot of the conversations I’m hearing about the commercial application of AI for marketing and advertising are similar to the ones we used to have around social media and algorithmic feeds. There are dozens of start-ups forming to build personalized ads, dynamic ads, and agentic ads. I’m not sure if people still have an appetite for all that but I guess, it makes sense to try. The hope is the message will be valuable to everyone because it is more relevant. That may work for direct response ads but we learned building a brand takes creativity.
I’m also seeing a lot of people trying to solve the workflow problem. Right now there are dozens of Generative AI tools and it’s pretty messy to move across all of them while managing assets and/or collaborating. Someone is going to figure it out, if not Adobe. I’m not sure Comfy UI is the right direction but technical people seem to love it.
Finally, there are some interesting opportunities in the creative collaboration space. Right now, ChatGPT enables this when people are brainstorming and planning a project but I wonder if there could be more focused, nuanced applications like custom GPTs for projects or reverse promoting pathways like PJ Pereira recently suggested.
Q: You’ve worked at the platform level, bringing emerging technologies to market at scale and now you’re hands-on with generative AI as an artist and filmmaker. From that dual vantage point, what kind of ecosystem do you think we need to build to ensure creators thrive in this new era of AI-powered creativity?
A: This new chapter of creativity reminds me of when Flash unlocked a wave of new animation studios like Flinch, Jib Jab and Joe Cartoon. While there were platforms like shockwave.com, Atom Films and ultimately, YouTube to help creators thrive, it was always more about the audience than the ecosystem and the best ecosystems were designed to help creators engage with their audience. So if we’re talking about monetization, that’s the model we have.
I’m just not sure that’s where we should be headed. I’m excited about new ecosystems that invite the audience to be part of the creative process, like a story world and platforms that elevate quality beyond social interactions through curation. It would be great to see some new models evolve that elevate storytelling and creativity.
Q: Your work often involves interdisciplinary collaboration. How do you foster effective partnerships between technologists, artists, and storytellers in AI-driven projects? And where do you see the role of community participation given this new medium?
A: I’ve always collaborated with other creatives. In part, it’s been out of necessity but really, it’s because collaboration makes ideas better. Generative AI has the potential to make the creative process more personal, self-contained and that’s okay for some projects. It also has the potential to make things much bigger. I don’t think we’ve figured out the ways of working with Generative AI, yet but I do think there will be enormous opportunities to collaborate because creativity is social.
My next project is a collaboration with several of the world’s most talented AI filmmakers. We’re working with the Human Rights Watch to tell a story about compassion and empathy. Through the eyes of some pretty heroic activists around the world, we hope to remind people why human kindness still matters. We’ll translate their perspectives into a visual style from each artist using generative AI.
I think what makes partnerships like this work is mutual respect, trust, generosity, integrity but most importantly, creative connection. Often, that flow of ideas is as rewarding as what we create. It’s like jamming in a band, finding a flow and surfacing a shared vision. I like that a lot.
Q: What advice would you offer to aspiring creatives eager to explore the intersection of AI and storytelling?
A: My advice would be to learn by doing. There are some great tutorials from filmmakers sharing their process and there’s a really supportive community. You can find discussions online, meetups in your city and festivals nearby. Of course, like any creative space it’s important to soak up as much as possible. Watch films and follow artists.
But my other advice is just about storytelling, no matter the medium. Take a walk. Listen to an album. Call your mom. Bake some cookies. Find something you need people to hear or you need to understand. The right story will inspire you to tell it.
Q: Which AI art or artists have inspired you recently?
A: I’m working with some pretty inspiring artists on a project right now like Verena Phum, Nik Kleverov, Giovanni Abitante, Edmond Yang, Omar Karim, Diego Maclean and Jeremy Clark.