Company facts

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The startup CYBERFILM.AI CORPORATION (known as CyberFilm®) was founded in 2021 by brothers Russell and Andrew Palmer of Toronto, Canada.

Russell Palmer (President & CEO) was inspired a few years ago when he saw his first GPT-3 demo and got access to the playground, to see what stories AI could write and what it would tell us about it and humanity. He has worked for the last 15+ years as a Product Manager from Seattle to Silicon Valley, at Microsoft, Samsung, JPMorgan Chase's AI Lab at Stanford Research Park (Palo Alto), and the pioneering AI start-up Viv Labs with the founders of Siri in San Jose, CA.

Andrew Palmer (Chief Story Officer) is an Author, Screenwriter, and award-winning Director/Producer. He founded Synapz Productions Entertainment Company to create, develop and produce Canadian entertainment content. Andrew has worked as an Assistant Director (AD) for the last 15 years on movie and television sets in Toronto and Vancouver (including hit shows "Suits" and "The Boys"), and is a member of the CMPA, DGC, and WGC.

CyberFilm® makes software products for content creators and filmmakers, like the app Saga (WriteOnSaga.com). Their expertise is in both Filmmaking and in Artificial Intelligence, particularly Generative AI products. 

Saga empowers filmmakers to bring stories to life with a structured, end-to-end AI-powered workflow. Start by ideating your concept—logline, themes, characters or archetypes—then develop the structure using customizable templates (40‑beat film, 25‑beat TV, or your own). Once the outline is solid, Saga helps you draft a screenplay with industry-standard formatting, smart suggestions, and contextual scene generation. From there, you can automatically convert your script into visual storyboards and AI-driven previz animations powered by models like OpenAI's GPT‑4o, Google's Imagen  4 and Veo 3, Black Forest Labs FLUX 1.1, Luma Ray-2, and soon KlingAI 2.1—helping creators visualize up to hundreds of shots per month. Upcoming additions include longer animatics and synthetic video generation, and new languages (Spanish, French, Portuguese, Hindi, and Mandarin).

The CyberFilm® headquarters is in San Francisco, with a satellite office in Toronto, and remote employees in Montreal.

CyberFilm® was bootstrapped from 2021-22 and later secured a Friends & Family round, which included participation from Shed Capital Inc. (of Canada). The company also received an angel investment from Jason Calacanis, the founder of LAUNCH and host This Week in Startups and the famous All‑In Podcast, and lead investor behind LAUNCH Fund 4.

Other notable CyberFilm® investors and advisors include Canadian filmmaker Alex Jordan (DGC) and Dr. Mike Zyda, Emeritus Professor of Computer Science at USC’s Viterbi School.

"Generative AI-powered tools for the next generation of filmmakers - to creative more of their best work, faster."

Our mission is to democratize big-budget Hollywood filmmaking by empowering passionate creators to deliver blockbuster-quality stories on affordable budgets. Hollywood spending has surged, sidelining original voices in favor of franchise-driven content and placing traditional roles out of reach. We believe generative AI can bridge this gap—expanding access to tools, fostering creative diversity, creating new roles in the industry, and increasing both the quality and quantity of films made.

Saga was born from a lifelong passion for filmmaking and a unique blend of creative and technical expertise. Co-founders Russell and Andrew Palmer grew up making claymation shorts and stop-motion animations on VHS, later evolving their hobby into dozens of short films produced through acting and tech camps. Their early experiments with video, storytelling, and editing laid the groundwork for what would become Saga.

As children, the Palmer brothers were so captivated by movies like Ghostbusters and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that they wore out VHS tapes from constant rewatching—eventually memorizing entire scenes and performing them live recorded on tapes for future viewing with the family. They soon began creating their own home movies with a family camcorder, eventually leading to auditions and appearances in commercials and a CBC production. Through high school, they honed filmmaking skills such as blocking, editing, and scriptwriting.

Both pursued degrees in Computer Science & Engineering, but their careers diverged: Russell became a Silicon Valley product manager building AI products, while Andrew attended film school and built a career in TV and film production, working on hit shows like Suits and The Boys.

In the summer of 2021, while enrolled in a Stanford course on AI Product Management, Russell authored a paper on how AI could reshape Hollywood. With Andrew’s industry insights, they explored ethical implications, creative opportunities, and practical use cases for AI in film. The paper earned top marks and praise from Dr. Ronjon Nag, a Stanford professor and serial entrepreneur, who encouraged them to start a company based on their concept.

After completing Y Combinator’s Startup School and building an early prototype, the brothers co-founded CyberFilm AI Corporation in California. They launched Saga in 2021—a platform that brings together screenwriting, storyboarding, and video generation to help creators tell stories with the power of AI.