THE CURATED LOG VII
By MITO Universe - @mitofilms
Welcome back to MITO Universe.
Each week, we highlight creators, tools, and cultural signals that are shaping the future of visual production.
AI-first aesthetics, curated for the future. From refined CGI work to major updates in generative tools, here’s what caught our eye this week.
SELECTED CREATORS
Floriane / @floow.ai
Freelance art director Floriane brings poetic restraint to her AI-generated visuals. Working primarily in Midjourney, she crafts scenes where solitude takes center stage—often through a single human figure set against stark, minimalist landscapes.
Her sense of composition is deliberate, with carefully chosen colors that elevate the subject and guide the eye without distraction.
Initially drawn to AI as a tool for brainstorming creative ideas, Floriane has since embraced it as a core part of her artistic practice. With a background in photography, she approaches each image like a frame—seeking not just visual balance, but emotional depth.
Each of her visuals becomes an open space for projection—inviting us to confront what language cannot capture.
Vanessa Kiss / @kindofvanes
Based in Paris, Vanessa Kiss is an art director working within the luxury industry at the intersection of 3D and AI-generated imagery.
Her work dissects the language of branding, borrowing visual codes or iconic elements from heritage houses and subtly twisting them to propose alternate, imagined campaigns. These AI-generated pieces carry such innate coherence with brand DNA that their artifice becomes indistinguishable from artistry.
Vanessa’s work isn’t just technically refined—it’s conceptually sharp. She plays with brand codes like a language, subtly subverting them to propose new narratives, opening a clear path toward a novel creative territory within luxury marketing.
WHAT’S NEW
Runway Introduces Act-Two
Runway, a pioneer in AI-driven creative tools, has unveiled Act-Two, its next-generation motion capture model designed to transform the animation and VFX industries. The new system offers significant upgrades in generation quality, with enhanced tracking capabilities for head, face, body, and hand movements.
Unlike traditional mocap setups that require extensive hardware, Act-Two can animate diverse characters using just a single performance input, adapting it seamlessly across different art styles and environments.
The technology could disrupt the high-cost motion capture industry, particularly in film, gaming, and advertising, where studios often invest heavily in specialized equipment. While AI mocap is not entirely new, Runway’s improvements in fidelity and versatility position Act-Two as a potential game-changer—though some industry professionals remain cautious about AI’s long-term impact on traditional workflows.
Adobe and Moonvalley Partner to Deliver Commercial-Safe AI Video Generation
Adobe has announced a strategic partnership with Moonvalley, an AI research firm specializing in generative video, to integrate its Marey model into Adobe’s Firefly and Premiere Pro ecosystems. The collaboration aims to provide creators with legally secure AI-generated video tools, addressing growing concerns over copyright risks in AI content.
Marey, trained exclusively on licensed data, will soon be available in Firefly Boards for pre-production planning and directly within Premiere Pro for post-production workflows. Moonvalley will also incorporate Adobe’s commercially safe Firefly text-to-image tool into its platform, creating a two-way integration.
Both companies emphasize ethical AI development, ensuring models are trained without unauthorized data—a key selling point for risk-averse studios and agencies. The move reinforces Adobe’s push to dominate the legal AI space, following its 2023 launch of Firefly Video Model, the industry’s first commercially licensed AI video tool.
Netflix Embraces Generative AI in Production, Sparking Industry Debate
Netflix has revealed its first use of generative AI in an original production, deploying the technology to create a building collapse sequence in the Argentine sci-fi series The Eternaut. According to co-CEO Ted Sarandos, the AI-generated VFX reduced production time by 90% compared to traditional methods, offering cost savings for mid-budget projects.
The milestone comes as streaming platforms face pressure to optimize spending while maintaining visual quality. However, the move has reignited debates over AI’s role in entertainment.
While proponents argue it democratizes high-end effects, critics—including some Hollywood unions—warn of job displacement and ethical concerns, particularly around training data. The discussion mirrors broader industry tensions, exemplified by Tyler Perry’s decision to halt an $800M studio expansion over AI-related labor fears.
Despite controversy, Netflix’s adoption signals a growing trend, with experts predicting AI will become a standard tool—complementing, rather than replacing, human artists.
KEY VISUAL
"The Space Between Us" - A Gen-AI Short Film by Pierre Zandrowicz.
A lone astronaut becomes lost in a solar storm, millions of miles from Earth. All communication is severed. All hope appears lost.
Yet on Earth, his son—a solitary farmer and photographer—begins experiencing inexplicable visions. As fragments of the spacecraft mysteriously manifest in his world, he faces a haunting question: Is he losing his sanity, or has he become his father’s last remaining tether to survival?
The Space Between Us forms part of an expanding narrative universe that examines the fragile, surreal nature of human connection—transcending both time and space.
That’s all for now — we’ll be back in your inbox next Monday.