‘Beta Earth,’ A New Phase For AI Assisted TV Production

Native Foreign, the Los Angeles studio led by director Nik Kleverov, is bringing its first original series to market. Beta Earth is a science fiction comedy created with Modern Family writer producer Ryan Walls. A twenty person team built the trailer using a hybrid workflow that mixes traditional story craft with AI generated animation. The piece premiered at Adobe Max two weeks ago.

Kleverov has spent the past decade moving between title design, advertising, and original content. His main title sequence for Narcos became one of the most recognizable openings of the streaming era. He later directed the Toys R Us brand film made with generative tools, which became a widely discussed example of how AI can support commercial work. Walls brings network experience from years of writing and producing on Modern Family, and other live action comedies.

Beta Earth builds on the momentum from Critterz, the animated short Kleverov made with DALL E that helped establish Native Foreign in the early wave of AI filmmaking. Critterz is now a feature film Native Foreign is producing in London with Vertigo Films under a dedicated entity backed by multiple partners. Kleverov describes a schedule that runs through the summer with a crew that fluctuates between twenty and thirty people. “It is primarily AI,” he says. “The non AI stuff is more of the corrective world. Fixing and finishing.”

AI generated trailers now fill the industry. Since OpenAI released Critterz, creatives have begun using cinematic AI to bypass the traditional pitch process. Directors and writers no longer rely on loglines to persuade producers to read full scripts. They cut thirty and sixty second trailers because buyers will watch a clip long before they will read a script or listen to a pitch. Writer-Director Dave Clark, now Chief Creative Officer of Promise Studios, created entire scenes from their screenplays into short sequences for pitch meetings. Many of these clips are standalone experiments. Native Foreign is one of the few companies turning this method into sustained production with defined schedules, a staffed pipeline, and an end goal of long form storytelling.

The team uses AI for layout, design, and intermediate shots, with human artists finishing the work. Voice actors record after animation, which is traditionally done before animation begins. “We are using actors. We are not going to be doing AI actors,” Kleverov says. Temporary dialogue holds scenes together until the cast is locked. The goal is to generate minutes per week, something a small studio could not attempt under traditional animation workflows.

Jeffrey Katzenberg, former Disney honcho and co-founder of Dreamworks animation (sold to Universal) predicted the the Bloomberg conference two years ago that within five years the cost of animation would be 10% or the cost, then over one hundred million dollars for a AAA animation production like Illumination’s Despicable Me. A boutique company that can do this would be a machine cranking out original IP. “Neither of these projects would have happened without the new tools,” Kleverov says. “It would not have been possible for a boutique company like Native Foreign to put something like this together before.”

Walls developed the premise and scripts for Beta Earth. Native Foreign built the trailer with storyboards, improvisational voice sessions, and AI generated environments. Kleverov says about twenty people contributed. Work that once required months happened in weeks. “The studios have embraced this technology, but a five-hundred-dollar bat can’t fix a one-dollar swing,” said Walls. “Without human creativity in the driver’s seat, you won’t connect with an audience. We believe our approach to Beta Earth (written, directed, voiced, and drawn by people) is the only way it will truly resonate. I hope this creative-led hybrid framework helps prevent another contraction.”

The Beta Earth trailer premiered at Adobe Max, where ten thousand artists rose to their feet in appreciation. Interest from networks and producers soon followed. UTA represents both Kleverov and Walls. “We want to find a really great partner,” Kleverov says. “We can make it, and we can honestly just make the whole thing, but I would love to see this on a streamer with proper support.”

Kleverov continues to hire editors, animators, and performers. “We have humans in the loop in every stage,” he says. “You still need really talented people.” Many contributors are in Los Angeles. AI reduces scale, not the need for skill, and gives independent creators enough capacity to launch new worlds without the weight of traditional pipelines.

“We are entering an absolute renaissance of independent storytellers. It is amazing,” Kleverov says. “Making a movie and making a series at the same time would not have happened for us before. Now it can.”