Recursive Superintelligence

Richard Socher had two hours. Everything else in the shoot had to bend around that window.

The film introduced Recursive Superintelligence through a technical idea: recursive self-improvement. Richard gave the audience a person to follow. Animation would carry the explanation beyond what one interview could show.

I produced the live-action part remotely for Skale in San Francisco. Marcos Rocha led the shoot as DP. Jennifer Gonzalez covered camera and lighting. Morgan Ellis captured BTS. Three crew, one founder and a day built around the interview.

Start with the time you cannot move

The call sheet put Richard first. His interview block came before the office and room coverage, with two hours reserved for him.

That decision set the order for the whole day. Founder time was the part we could not get back. B-roll could follow. The office could wait. Richard should not be sitting in the chair while the crew figured out what came next.

The interview used two cameras, with lav and shotgun audio recorded to camera. Morgan had a separate camera and lav for BTS. That kept the behind-the-scenes work from competing with the interview recording.

My work was the crew coordination, call sheet, access and media handoff. Marcos made the calls on set and could reach me when a production question needed an answer.

Don’t make the camera explain everything

The finished film moves between Richard and animated technical material. His interview makes the case. The graphics take over when the idea becomes bigger than a talking head can carry.

That changed what live action needed to do. We weren’t trying to photograph every part of the company’s idea. We needed a strong founder interview, two useful angles and enough supporting coverage to give the edit room.

The B-roll and BTS sat around that central conversation. They added scale without pulling the film away from Richard.

The handoff

Skale handled the edit and motion, with Aleksandr Grishin owning overall delivery. I produced the live action feeding that work.

The handoff belonged in the shoot plan. Where the footage went and who moved it mattered as much as the crew call and interview schedule.

We gave the team a clean founder interview, useful B-roll and footage ready for the launch edit.