My Annual Slamdance Poem 2025

"Artificial Intelligence Movies"

I’ve written and recited an original poem for most of the Slamdance Film Festival’s 31 years. (yes, this is the privilege of co-founding a film festival). Many of these poems have also been reprinted as part of my book, The Cheerful Subversive’s Guide to Independent Filmmaking. Though Slamdance is in LA this year, I’m happy to report the vibe is largely the same as the prior 30 years in Park City. And in some ways, it actually feels like a return to many years’ prior LA events at the DGA and Egyptian Theaters. We had so many people at the DGA opening day filmmaker lineup, I didn’t get a chance to formally recite the poem (though I’ve been doing so “on demand” at the festival, now settled in nicely at Quixote Studios in West Hollywood). And if you’re wondering how this fits into my newly mandated Hollytics/Pollywood Substack, well, everything about Slamdance has at least been small “p” political, and so, I suppose is this poem. So here it is:

“Artifical Movie Intelligence”
Slamdance Poem 2025
by Dan Mirvish

After 30 years in Utah
We’re now in LA I
Declare times are changing
In this year of AI

May I say I today I pray I
Wonder if maybe
it’s not beneficial
To have intelligence that is artificial?

We have a hard enough time
With human intellects
From agents, and managers
and studio execs,

Do we need to get notes
That we must save the cat
Spit out in a second from
GPT Chat?

Or worse, maybe still
instead of shooting
We just turn on our laptop
And just start rebooting

Instead of locations
with fauna and flora
You imagine it all
On a program called Sora

Of course in this time
of rising inflation
Save more money if you
Don’t shoot on location

No point in traveling
From Paris to Madrid
If you do all your backgrounds
On the journey that’s Mid

You won’t see the Thames
and you won’t see the Rhine
You won’t eat paella
Drink fancy French wine

Use Unreal Engine
And film in a box
Barely get out of bed
Don’t even wear socks

But I’m a simple Nebraskan
I grew up Cornhusking
I’m no high teck “genius”
I ain’t Elon Musking

I’ll write my own script
On a typewriter manual!
Yes it may take a year
The process is annual

Then give me a camera
And give me a mic
A wonderful crew
that won’t go on strike

A boom op, a grip
and even an actor
Strumming a banjo
Riding a tractor

I’ll be dogmatic
And a little didactical
No CGI!
All stunts are practical

And we’ll edit the old way
With reels and razors
No quantum computing
with photonic lasers!

But when the film’s done
Where’d the audience went to?
Glued to their phones
I don’t think they meant to.

Replaced with robots
The critics were fired
Newspaper websites
Algorythms hard-wired

Instead of thumbs up
Or a thumb that dissents
All we get are tomatoes
Rounded out to percents

So if computers are really the only
Ones who are watching
We may as well pack it in
And go back to debauching

It doesn’t seem so intelligent
I guess ‘artificial’ suffices
Machines only make movies to be seen
By other devices.

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©2025, Dan Mirvish