The Vision, The Studio
An open studio. A whole universe of films.
The great film studios of the last century were closed worlds: locked gates, secret processes, and a short list of people allowed in. We are building the opposite. An open studio where anyone on earth can learn filmmaking free, earn their first dollar, make their first film, and help build a universe of hundreds of films, all in public.
Get your first dollar Make your first film ›
The Studio world: one universe, growing one film at a time.
The vision
One universe, loved for a lifetime.
A single good film is a weekend. A universe is a lifetime. Our characters do not retire when the credits roll: Sally sings, writes and teaches piano. Marty causes joyful chaos. Plume flies in from Paris. Old Ray sweeps up and tells the truth. They live across films, songs, books, shorts and a playable world, and every new story makes every old one worth more.
That is the bet. Build characters people genuinely love, tell their stories for years, and let the audience watch, and join, the whole thing being made. No locked gate. No secret recipe. The making is part of the show.
A universe, not a film
Six layers, one world.
Characters first
An original cast with real character sheets, voices, songs and flaws: Sally, Marty, Chadwick, Dlaney, Gloria, Plume, Doodle, Old Ray and a growing company behind them.
Shorts every week
Short films are our training ground and our heartbeat: fast to make, honest to judge, and the fastest way for a new creator to go from idea to finished film.
Features and musicals
Short Bus, our original musical, is the first big canvas. Features grow out of the shorts and the characters the audience already loves, never the other way around.
Music everywhere
Original songs are the emotional engine of this studio, written and recorded in the open as Dlaney, and woven through every film we ship.
A world you can enter
E2 is the playable home of this universe: the same characters, the same kindness, in a world people can walk around in, not just watch.
Teaching built in
Starvard, our free university, teaches the craft itself: Your First Film, screenwriting, storytelling and more, free forever, so the next filmmaker starts ahead of us.
Why open wins
The closed studio vs the open studio.
We are not trying to outspend the closed studios. We are playing a different game, one they cannot copy without stopping being themselves.
| The closed studio | The open studio, us | |
|---|---|---|
| Who gets in | A short list, chosen in private | Anyone on earth, today, free |
| How you learn | Expensive schools, lucky breaks | Free courses at Starvard, and learning by shipping real films |
| Your first pay | After years of unpaid proving | Your first dollar on day one, then bounties and paid tasks as you grow |
| The process | Secret until opening weekend | Public: scripts, character sheets, tools, numbers and mistakes, all in the open |
| The audience | Watchers | Builders in training: watch a film, learn how it was made, make your own |
| Failure | Hidden, careers end quietly | Posted, studied, and turned into the next experiment |
Money from day one
Your first dollar comes before your first film.
Most studios ask new creators to work for exposure. We pay you to walk in. Join our Discord, set up your free Grok Bot, and say hello in the bounty channel. Tippy, our tip bot, sends you $1 right there in the chat: about a dollar from the community starter bounty, shown here in your own currency. Then the ladder keeps going: bounties, challenges and paid tasks on the E2 bounty board, for people who keep shipping.
Your first film
The ladder, in five steps.
Join and get paid
Come into the Discord, say hello in the bounty channel, and collect your first dollar. You are a paid creator from day one, in the smallest and most honest way we know.
Learn free
Take Your First Film at Starvard: a real short film, planned in five scenes, taught in plain English. Add screenwriting and storytelling when you are ready.
Make five scenes
Bring your five scenes to the Discord and the writers room. Get notes from people who ship every week, borrow our characters or bring your own.
Ship it in public
Finish it, post it, watch real people react. A finished one minute film beats a perfect idea every single time, and it goes on your record here.
Climb
Second film, bigger role, paid bounties, a series of your own. The people running this studio started exactly where you are standing now.
Teach the next one
When you have shipped, you teach. Every filmmaker here becomes a rung on the ladder for the person behind them. That is how a universe gets hundreds of films.
The climb
From six films to hundreds.
These are goals, stated as goals. We publish the scoreboard either way.
Shorts and a cast
Six completed films, a cast of original characters, an original musical in the works, and new shorts shipping in public. Small, real, and already alive.
100 shorts
A steady weekly rhythm of shorts, a returning series for the most loved characters, and the first class of outside creators shipping their first films with us.
Features and musicals
Short Bus finished and released, longer stories for the characters the audience chose, and a slate where every feature grows out of shorts people already love.
Hundreds of films, one universe
A living library of hundreds of films in one connected world, made by a global, open crew, with new creators earning and learning inside it every week.
Honest scoreboard
Where we really are, said plainly.
We are early, and this page will not pretend otherwise. Our finished films today are shorts, measured in seconds and minutes, not features. Quality is uneven while we learn, some experiments miss, and there is no giant machine behind us: The Studio is founder funded, built by a small crew and a community on Discord. We have no theatrical releases, no catalogue of classics yet, and no guarantee any of this works.
What we do have is a cast people are starting to love, a working way to make films fast and in public, a free university teaching the craft, and a door that pays you a dollar to walk through it. The closed studios started with a gate and a fortune. We are starting with an open door and a promise to publish the scoreboard as we climb.
Six promises
How we will build it.
Open by default
Scripts, character sheets, songs, tools and lessons are shared in public, so anyone can learn from them and anyone can check our work.
Free to learn
The craft is taught free at Starvard, forever. Nobody should need permission, tuition or connections to learn how films are made.
Creators get paid
It starts with a first dollar on day one and continues with bounties and paid tasks. Money flows toward the people making things.
Characters over content
We would rather make one character the world loves for decades than a thousand forgettable uploads. Interesting and kind beats bulk, every time.
Kind by rule
This universe is built on kindness: in the stories, in the Discord, and in how we treat every new creator who walks in nervous with a first idea.
Honest in public
Goals are labeled goals, misses are posted, and the scoreboard on this page stays true as the numbers change, in both directions.
Start today
Your first film is closer than you think.
One dollar, one free course, five scenes. That is the whole distance between watching this universe and helping build it.
Join the Discord Take Your First FilmCome build the universe with us.
Tell us hi in the Discord. You will get a warm welcome, your first dollar, and a front row seat to hundreds of films being born, one short at a time.
Join the Discord Get your first dollar