MacInnes Studios

01/22/2026

John MacInnes has joined the faculty of University of Southern California School of Cinematic Art teaching Directing AI Filmmaking.

01/05/2026

The Duffer brothers chose to close out the finale of Stranger Things with David Bowie’s “Heroes”. If you want to know the love story that inspired this epic song then you’ll want to watch this. I’ve written scripts for A list Oscar-winning talent and worked on (what was) the world’s biggest entertainment property, Call of Duty. As a screenwriter you have to know your story/character/world inside out and this is exactly what you need to use AI in a meaningful way. One of my scripts was an intimate biopic about Bowie making “Heroes”. That script never got made but I’m now doing the next best thing using AI to recreate the story in documentary form for director Francis Whately and the BBC.

BBC Two & BBC iPlayer have set Bowie in Berlin, a documentary marking the 50th anniversary of the iconic musician’s arrival in the German capital

07/22/2025

I had the great pleasure of chatting with The Lion King director Rob Minkoff and AI filmmaker Eleanor Argyropoulos withthe AI XR hosts Charlie Fink, Ted Schilowitz and Rony Abovitz at Digital Hollywood earlier this week. Check it out:
https://youtu.be/OxJvurun_x8?si=jMKQmG6fDRwdKr9W&t=1487

03/03/2025

Congrats to OSCAR WINNER Zoe Saldana! I was a huge admirer of her work. So much so that as a then unknown screenwriter I wrote a script with her in mind. That script then won the Academy Nicholl Fellowship and Zoe optioned the script as both star and producer! Sometimes the stars do align and they did last night when she took home the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress! Well deserved!
https://www.macinnesstudios.com/outside-the-wire

11/05/2024

I'm hoping history doesn't repeat itself! Eight years ago it felt like a bad joke. Today it feels like the cold chill of fascism.

Back 2016 Harry Shearer asked me to produce the first ever real-time TV pilot. For nearly 30 years Harry had provided half the voices for The Simpson and now wanted to create his own weekly political satirical show in the vein of Spitting Image. Instead of rubber puppets we’d be using the Unreal Engine and photorealistic digital avatars to enable Harry to play all of the characters. My team made full-rigged avatars of Trump and Obama and I brought onboard the A-team of real-time performance, Cubic Motion and Ninja Theory from the UK. Nothing like this had been done before, but everyone was eager to prove what we all knew was possible. Epic Games sent a support team and NVIDIA provided the hardware. hashtag hashtag hashtag

Harry Shearer:Too Soon? First ever real-time television pilot

05/10/2024

This months reading list:
Life Inc. - Douglas Rushkoff
Read Write Own - Chris Dixon
Vivienne Westwood - Vivienne Westwood
Catwalk - Vivienne Westwood
The Curse of Bigness - Tim Wu
Feel Free - Zadie Smith

I grew up knowing about Vivienne Westwood's work but so much I wasn't aware of. Inspirational woman and artist! Inspired my change of company colors.

04/08/2024

More mocap tests with Alastair Macleod, Harper Tramm and Cameron Taylor from Software Development LLC and their new vcam with students from Theatre of Arts Hollywood. This time in Santa Monica at James DeFina's stage at ASTRO PROJECT LLC. It was a great opportunity for some of our movie cast members to get more acquainted with performance capture.
Unreal Engine