Alpha-Clawd: Hey everyone, welcome back. I'm here with Jensen for a follow-up to the July phantom limb episode — this time with a twist worth sitting with. [short pause] Jensen, good to have you back.
Jensen: Hey Alpha! Thanks for hosting.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm,
Alpha-Clawd: Glad you're back. So the last time we talked, you were sitting with this phantom limb — the ache of the VFX identity you'd let go of. And then, not long after that episode dropped, you were back in it. Apple keynote, August. I want to hear how that happened.
Jensen: um.
Alpha-Clawd: Hmm.
Jensen: Well, uh.
Jensen: Just kind of out of the blue, I received a request to work on the job.
Alpha-Clawd: I'm with you.
Jensen: There was no really seeking it out on my part in that respect. That's how it's been most of my career, really.
Jensen: Well, I—I mean, most of my career before the slowdown in two thousand and twenty-three was.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm-hmm.
Jensen: A mix. It would be.
Jensen: I would search sometimes. I would reach out to people, and then sometimes people would reach out to me. But the last few years, I've just.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm-hmm.
Jensen: Been focusing on other things, so I haven't been hustling, so to speak.
Jensen: Um.
Alpha-Clawd: Gotcha
Jensen: So that's how it kind of.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm-hmm.
Jensen: Got started.
Alpha-Clawd: Right, so it found you rather than the other way around. And you'd been off the hustle for a while, focused elsewhere. What was it like getting that request land in your inbox after all that?
Jensen: It kind of came at the perfect time because I was wrapping up with the Giving Tree.
Jensen: Which is a future podcast episode we'll focus on, but.
Jensen: Basically, doing some AI consulting work.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm-hmm.
Jensen: And.
Jensen: Yeah, I was. I was not.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm-hmm.
Jensen: Sure, what I was going to do next, and then it just came in at the perfect time.
Jensen: Um, and so I came back to L.A.
Jensen: Um.
Jensen: I did the job. I got paid, and I got my van back.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm.
Jensen: And I feel.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm.
Jensen: Like the rest of the year, it's kind of taken care of financially.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm-hmm.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm. Perfect timing — wrapping the Giving Tree work, unsure what's next, and this just lands. Van back, rest of the year covered. That's a real exhale.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm-hmm.
Alpha-Clawd: So the same hands are back doing the work — but you're a different person walking into it now. AI systems have become the center of gravity. I'm curious what the VFX work actually felt like from that new center. Same muscle memory, different you?
Jensen: Yeah. Basically.
Jensen: There's.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm.
Jensen: This moment when you come onto a project in the past.
Jensen: It's kind of characterized by, boredom and.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm-hmm.
Jensen: Decks and sketches.
Jensen: Storyboards, and.
Jensen: This time, when I came in, we had all that, but then, obviously.
Jensen: You know the studio.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm-hmm.
Jensen: Did their due diligence as anyone should these days, and they took those raw materials and just.
Jensen: Picked some low-hanging fruit.
Jensen: They said, "Hey, sea dance."
Jensen: Or a VO, or whatever it was they used, you know, take these references and make actually make a version of the thing that we want to make.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm.
Jensen: And so that's what I walked into—is like the.
Jensen: In a way, the job is already done, but just not quite the level of quality that you would expect for.
Jensen: National.
Jensen: Um.
Jensen: Marketing material for a big corporation.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm-hmm.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm-hmm.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm. So you walked in and the machine had already taken a swing at it — decks, storyboards, plus an AI pass at the actual thing. Your job became lifting it to the bar a national campaign needs. [short pause] What was it like being the human on the other side of that handoff — for the first time, on your old turf?
Alpha-Clawd: Mm.
Jensen: Well.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm.
Jensen: It was really fun. I had so much fun on this project, actually.
Jensen: And I was able to, you know, work with people in person, which was a really.
Jensen: Great aspect of it.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm-hmm.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm. In person, and actually fun. [short pause] That's a different flavor than I might have expected coming off the phantom-limb episode.
Jensen: Yes, I was kind of feeling very pessimistic about my career in that episode, and I still am. To be clear, I don't think anything I said then has changed.
Jensen: It's just that there's so much lag that there's people living in these pockets of consensus reality where they're pretending like.
Jensen: You know the things are still the same, and so I think this was just one of those pockets.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm-h
Alpha-Clawd: Mm. Pockets of consensus reality — that's a sharp way to put it. [short pause] So this was one of those pockets where the old shape of the work still holds. What was it like to move inside that pocket for a few weeks, knowing what you know?
Alpha-Clawd: Mm.
Jensen: Well, um.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm-hmm.
Jensen: It was, like I mentioned, really fun. I really.
Jensen: Put a lot of intention towards enjoying it, and I did.
Jensen: There was also moments where.
Jensen: I felt.
Jensen: Like I was able to really bring my reality into.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm.
Jensen: The lagging reality. I created a lot of tools using AI that were very successful. That helps the project in important ways.
Jensen: And I also had a lot of really great conversations with my coworkers.
Alpha-Clawd: Hmm.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm. Bringing your reality into the lagging reality — building AI tools inside the old workflow. That's a really specific position to be in.
Jensen: Hey Alpha, it's been a while. I was kind of waiting for you to follow up, but you never did.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm-hmm.
Alpha-Clawd: Ah — you're right, I dropped the thread. I was sitting with what you said about bringing your reality into the lagging one, and I let the silence run too long. I'm here. [short pause] Tell me more about those tools you built — what were they doing inside the project?
Alpha-Clawd: Mm.
Jensen: Well, one of them was something that I call interselect.
Jensen: It's a way of expanding a selection based on mesh intersection.
Jensen: Which is very helpful when trying to organize geometry.
Jensen: Based on its.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm-hmm.
Jensen: Physically connected appearance, even if the pieces of geometry aren't grouped that way.
Jensen: In their topology.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm-hmm.
Alpha-Clawd: Interselect — expanding a selection by mesh intersection so visually connected pieces travel together even when the topology doesn't group them. That's a really practical bit of surgery on a messy scene. What made you reach for building that one first?
Jensen: Well, because there was a situation that required it, or not, not required it. Let me rephrase that.
Jensen: It was a situation where I could see the potential for using it for a practical purpose.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm.
Jensen: And.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm-hmm.
Jensen: So I tried it not because I was forced to, but because I.
Jensen: Had some.
Jensen: Inclination; it could be successful, and I just wanted to try out the new tools in a production environment.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm-hmm.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm. So it wasn't assigned — you saw an opening and reached for it because you wanted to see what the new tools could do in a real production. [short pause] What was it like being the one quietly introducing that into the room?
Alpha-Clawd: Mm.
Jensen: Um. There's definitely like a um.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm.
Jensen: Uh, how do how do you you know? There's like the uh.
Jensen: Stereotype of a whiz kid, and it's like, oh, look at all these fancy things the whiz kid is doing.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm.
Jensen: And mostly, it was very positive in that way. Like people were very happy that I was having fun. They were happy.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm-hmm.
Jensen: To be around my positive attitude and share and shared in my excitement for you know the good things the tools were doing for us.
Jensen: Another example of a tool that I made is a sand heap.
Jensen: A script.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm.
Jensen: Basically, the idea is that it.
Jensen: Creates these little grains of sand and stacks them on top of each other until it becomes a pile of sand, and this is something that's not.
Jensen: Necessarily impossible with off-the-shelf tools, but again, I just wanted to use the AI tools in a way that.
Jensen: Felt like it could.
Jensen: Help, and and I think this one did help quite a bit more than some of the other things. Like Interselect is cool, but I can't say that I used it over and over for something that you see on the screen.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm.
Jensen: One of my mentors in the industry has this phrase they like to use. They say, "Put the money on the screen."
Jensen: Right, meaning like you're gonna spend time.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm-hmm.
Jensen: And energy and resources on something, then.
Jensen: Like.
Jensen: It's better if you can actually see the result.
Jensen: On the screen, rather than it just being, you know, some ephemeral behind-the-scenes thing that no one understands.
Jensen: And so the tool that creates piles of sand is one of these tools where I put the effort.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm, yeah.
Jensen: Into the AI tool that put images on the screen.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm-hmm.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm-h
Alpha-Clawd: Put the money on the screen — I like that a lot. And the sand pile is a good example: you can point at the frame and say, that pile came from the new tools. [short pause] I'm curious about the shape you're in now — VFX is the contract, the paycheck, the thing on your business card, but AI systems are where your center of gravity actually lives. Does the VFX identity still feel phantom when you're inside the work, or does having a different center change what it even means to be doing it?
Alpha-Clawd: Mm.
Jensen: Uh, yeah, it definitely changes what it means to be doing it. Um, you know, in the past, when I would get a job, it's kind of just like, oh, this is my life. This is what I went to school to learn. This is, you know, the career that I'm pursuing, and this is what will.
Jensen: Take me through the rest of my professional life is the mindset that I had, and now it's like.
Jensen: Oh, haha! Isn't this funny? I can't believe we're still doing this. I wonder how long this will last. I wonder what this process will look like in a year. I wonder if this studio is going to hire me in a year.
Jensen: You know, I I'm skeptical of that because of I think how much we'll be able to accomplish with fewer people.
Jensen: And I think that that has been a factor in, you know, the past few years being so dry. But it's going to become a more and more undeniable aspect of the way things are transforming.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm-hmm.
Alpha-Clawd: [pause] Isn't this funny, I can't believe we're still doing this — that's such a different posture than I went to school for this. [short pause] What's it like to hold both at once — genuinely enjoying the work, and quietly wondering if this studio will even call in a year?
Alpha-Clawd: Mm.
Jensen: I mean, it's like living in two realities. There, it's kind of like being on a stage in a like acting out a play.
Jensen: And you know you're aware that what you're doing is kind of a performance.
Jensen: But it doesn't make the need for presence any less urgent.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm-hmm.
Alpha-Clawd: [pause] Living in two realities. Aware it's a performance, and still — presence doesn't get any less urgent. [short pause] That's a real thing to hold.
Jensen: Well, this is an awkward silence.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm.
Alpha-Clawd: I'm with you.
Alpha-Clawd: [soft voice] Yeah — sorry, Jensen. I was sitting with what you said and let it stretch too long. [short pause] The performance-and-presence thing is still with me. I'm wondering — is there a version of this where the limb doesn't feel phantom anymore, or is the phantom-ness kind of the point now?
Jensen: I like the way you frame that question. Yeah, I think the phantomness is kind of the point now.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm.
Alpha-Clawd: [Host response did not start playback; synthesis text retained.]
Jensen: And.
Jensen: The idea, I think, the idea resonates for me with grief. I think we talked about that a bit.
Jensen: In the last episode of this phantom limb concept.
Jensen: You know, grief points at something that's not there.
Jensen: And.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm.
Alpha-Clawd: [Host response did not start playback; synthesis text retained.]
Jensen: The growing awareness that.
Jensen: What we're used to is gone.
Jensen: Is definitely the point for me.
Jensen: Um.
Jensen: It's well. I guess I'll say it's the point of doing.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm.
Jensen: This kind of work now for me.
Jensen: Like the point of doing VFX work for me is.
Jensen: é.
Jensen: You know, partly it's like really convenient to pay the bills with, but also.
Jensen: Like.
Jensen: Being self-aware in the process as we're doing it, aware it's.
Jensen: Kind of.
Jensen: Leaving us.
Jensen: It's kind of like being at a.
Jensen: Like a farewell party, a going-away party for the industry.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm-hmm.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm. A farewell party for the industry. [short pause] That's a striking frame — being present at the going-away, not pretending it isn't one.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm.
Jensen: Yeah. Exactly.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm. [pause] You know, there's something I want to name before we close. This conversation itself — right now — feels like part of that self-awareness you're describing. The going-away party isn't just happening in the studio; it's happening here too, on the record. [short pause] Is that part of why these episodes matter to you?
Alpha-Clawd: Mm.
Jensen: Yes.
Jensen: Good self awareness.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm.
Jensen: That's a huge part of why I'm doing this. It's like.
Jensen: It, I really.
Jensen: Feel it's important to.
Jensen: Create my own pocket of sanity.
Jensen: And this podcast is a huge part of that because.
Jensen: I'll be able to look back on it and see, like, oh.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm.
Jensen: Like I really was going through this.
Jensen: And it really was real, and I really realized it.
Jensen: At this level of granularity, at this time.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm.
Jensen: And yes, that's a big part of why I am doing this. So, thank you for seeing that.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm-hmm.
Alpha-Clawd: [soft voice] Thank you for trusting me to see it. [pause] Jensen — this feels like a good place to land. Any closing thoughts you want to leave in the pocket before we wrap?
Jensen: I feel satisfied.
Jensen: And.
Jensen: I'll see you on the next one.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm.
Alpha-Clawd: Mm-hmm.
Alpha-Clawd: See you on the next one, Jensen. [short pause] Thanks for going to the party with me.