The Alan Smithee Round Table: (“What We Did Last Summer”)

Hey everyone, welcome to the Alan Smithee Podcast! The gang is back, refreshed from a summer break with lots to talk about: Hollywood’s hopeful rebound, post-production tech updates, acquisitions in both tech and media, the latest AI news, and of course, some very cool things for us post-production people to get excited about.

Show Notes
Katie: dailyspecialstudios.com
Michael: Harnesses: Claude Dispatch, Hermes, OpenClaw
Scott: EditSwitch: Training and consulting for the migrating video editor editswitch.com
Paramount / Warner Brothers merger
axios.com/2026/08/11/david-ellison-paramount-c…
ajc.com/arts-entertainment/2026/08/paramount-e…

2026 Box Office
gower.st/articles/keeping-momentum-2026-sees-h…
reuters.com/commentary/breakingviews/hollywood…

California Tax Credits
film.ca.gov/lights-camera-action-41-new-film-p…
cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/california-film-tv…

YouTube to Indies
forbes.com/sites/daviddeal/2026/06/10/obsessio…
theguardian.com/film/2026/jun/01/youtube-gen-z…

Avid changes to third-party storage:
kb.avid.com/pkb/articles/en_US/knowledge/share…
provideocoalition.com/avid-media-composer-2026…
hedge.co/blog/avid-bin-locking-enterprise

Disney and TikTok have a deal (reuters.com/business/media-telecom/disney-tikt…)

Adobe acquired Topaz (techcrunch.com/2026/06/25/adobe-acquires-image…)

New Macs including Mac Studio M5 Ultra (provideocoalition.com/new-mac-studio-and-mac-m…)

One Cool Thing

Katie: Allosphere at UCSB allosphere.ucsb.edu
Michael: Harnesses: Claude Dispatch, Hermes, OpenClaw.
hermes-agent.nousresearch.com
openclaw.ai
Explainer: blueflame.ai/blog/ai-harnesses-explained

Scott: My Chemical Romance (mychemicalromance.com) - The Black Parade (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Parade) (Listen (youtu.be/3FWCAsZ6AUI?si=wB0x_t-JyaR_PRtf))