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.

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. Their expertise is in both Filmmaking and in Artificial Intelligence, particularly Generative AI. 

CyberFilm's first product "Saga" was initially launched in April of 2023, with an upgraded and rebranded version rolling out in the Fall of 2023 and a third major version launch in February 2025. It assists filmmakers to write and produce stories - first to ideate, then plan the structure, and finally help write any and all aspects of a feature film. This includes the plot, themes, b-story, characters, acts, one-pager, beat sheet, screenplay, and storyboards with previz animation. In the coming year we're adding new templates for Television Series, new languages (Spanish, French, Portuguese, Hindi, and Mandarin), longer video generation for animatics, and synthetic video CGI for full length videos and films.

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

CyberFilm boostrapped starting in 2021, raised a Friends & Family round in 2023 including from Shed Capital Inc. of Canada, and Angel investment from famed investor Jason Calacanis (LAUNCH Fund 4; All-In and This Week In Startups podcasts). Other investors and advisors include Canadian filmmaker Alex Jordan (DGC), and Dr. Mike Zyda (Emeritus Prof. of Computer Science - USC Viterbi School of Engineering).

"Generative AI-powered tools for the next generation of filmmakers, helping creatives make more of their best work, even faster."

The mission of our company is to democratize Hollywood filmmaking, empowering anyone with the passion and desire to create a Blockbuster-quality movie on an Indie micro-budget. Silicon Valley startups have a mindset to do more with less, but Hollywood budgets have blown way out of control - becoming almost a bragging point and perceived validation of a quality story. However, diverse original stories are no longer being told in favor of built-in audiences through franchises, and VFX artists are overworked and out of reach to all but top studios. We think Generative AI can help; help grow the industry, grow jobs, grow quality and quantity of films, and grow the world's enjoyment of cinema into the future.

As children, our co-founders Russell and Andrew were obsessed with movies - so much their parents hardly needed a babysitter (they could just put on a VHS tape of Ghostbusters or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) to captivate our attention rewatching for hours. After playing the tapes so often the brothers literally burned up them up in the VCR. With no tape left the Palmer brothers would act out the scenes for fun - after realizing they had them all memorized. With some skills learned making these homie movies, and after a few school plays, the boys had short stints as child actors for the CBC, and landing a few paid gigs including Sears advertisements. They also made home movies using the family video camera, and productions skills at Computer Camp programs (perfecting stop-motion and claymation using their favorite toys). This blossomed into dozens of videos filmed through future summer camps and programs in High School, making a number of short films and learning tools of the trade like editing, blocking, and other industry skills. 

While both later studied Computer Science & Engineering at University, the brothers differed in their paths when Russell moved to Silicon Valley to work as a Product Manager building Artificial Intelligence, and Andrew went back to Film School (majoring in Creative Writing) to pursue a career in the film industry, working his way up on Hollywood production sets from Toronto to Vancouver now as an AD (Assistant Director), having worked on hit shows like "Suits" and "The Boys". 

In the summer of 2021 while taking a Stanford course on AI Product Management, Russell received an A+ on his course paper for "how AI could disrupt an industry" (writing about the Hollywood film industry) with insights from Andrew on the varying tasks and roles. They wrote notably wrote about how AI could improve and grow the film industry (while noting harmful things to watch out for and push back against, especially in terms of ethics and job replacement). His professor at Stanford serial entrepreneur Dr. Ronjon Nag encouraged them to start a company, having a timely and original idea, as well as Founder-Product Fit. After researching the startup idea through Y Combinator "Startup School" they built a working prototype, performed customer interviews, and were ready to incorporate their startup CyberFilm in the Fall of 2021, launching the Saga app to the public soon after.