AI short The Gifted wins the first Future Vision XPRIZE
Jeff Synthesized's film about a boy who rebuilds his late mother from her texts took the top prize from more than 2,500 entries.
Key takeaways
- The Gifted by Jeff Synthesized won the inaugural Future Vision XPRIZE, announced live at Moonshots LIVE in Los Angeles on September 25.
- The prize is $2.5 million as an equity investment in a feature production plus $100,000 in cash for screenplay development.
- The four runners-up each received $100,000, and Snap's audience vote paid The Gifted another $50,000.
- The competition drew more than 2,500 trailers and treatments and named Neil deGrasse Tyson, Neal Stephenson and Rod Roddenberry as judges.
The Gifted, an AI-produced short by Jeff Synthesized, has won the inaugural Future Vision XPRIZE, the foundation announced. The winner was named on stage at Moonshots LIVE in downtown Los Angeles on September 25, and Deadline reported the result on September 29.
The prize is a $2.5 million equity investment toward a feature-length production with Range Media Partners and Google, plus $100,000 in cash for screenplay development. Republic Film will run a public investment campaign so fans can buy into the feature.
The film, described by the organisers as the story of a boy who rebuilds his late mother from her texts, voice and diary, beat more than 2,500 trailers and treatments from around the world. Four runners-up took $100,000 each: Nobody Dies on Mars by Verena Puhm, Thorne Protocol by J. Ryan Williams, Senti by Isen Robbins and Slingshot by Hal Watmough.
The Gifted also won the Snap-sponsored SPECS Audience Choice Award, which paid $50,000 for first place out of a $100,000 pool decided by public vote. Voters saw two films at a time and picked the future they would rather live in, with an Elo system ranking all 65 official selections. SandboxAQ put $20,000 behind each of the top ten films.
The judging panel was Neil deGrasse Tyson, novelist Neal Stephenson, Google's vice president of technology and society Mira Lane, Salesforce chief brand and creative officer John Zissimos and Roddenberry Entertainment chief executive Rod Roddenberry.
Future Vision XPRIZE is a $3.5 million-plus competition, presented by XPRIZE and founded by Peter Diamandis, that asked for a three-minute trailer depicting a hopeful, technology-enabled future. Salesforce is the presenting sponsor, with support from ARK Invest, SandboxAQ and Xsolla. The campaign is unusual in a second way: the winning film is financed before it is shot, and the money comes partly from the audience that voted for it.
It is the second large AI film prize pool to settle in a week on this beat. SLOP TV ranked the eight biggest AI film prize pools in September, with this competition's $3.5 million pool at the top.
The Gifted goes into production with Range Media Partners; investment through Republic Film is open now.
Sources
- xprize.org - the winner, the prize breakdown, the runners-up, the judges and sponsors
- blog.google - Google's account of the 100 ZEROS partnership and the 2,500 entries
- deadline.com - Deadline's report, the logline and the September 29 write-up
- fvxp.moonshots.com - the competition's own page: the September 25 screening and the Republic Film campaign
- futurevisionxprize.com - the prize structure as published by the organisers