The Fifth Wall launches as AI floods the industry with volume and starves it of craft. Founded by veteran producers, storytellers, and VFX artists, the studio was built from day one on one conviction: speed and economics should never come at the expense of the humanity that drives great filmmaking.
The Fifth Wall is a new creative studio formed by a triple threat of creative minds who came together with a mission to bring quality and personal touches to AI-assisted visual storytelling. "The Fifth Wall represents how we can make ideas come to life in ways never imagined before," says founder Ben Howdeshell.
"For decades, the budget decided how ambitious the idea could be. That's the wall we built this studio to break," says co-founder J.P. McMahon. "Clients have always been told 'good, fast, cheap – pick two.' The Fifth Wall delivers all three – and we don't do 'good.' We do great."
J.P. and Ben are longtime friends and collaborators at A Common Thread, J.P.’s 20-year-old content creation company, where Ben has been on the directorial roster for many years. Ben has directed spots for brands such as Bacardi, Anheuser-Busch, HP, and Shock Top Beer as well as branded content for 20th Century Fox.
The third co-founder is the wildly imaginative visual effects artist and director, Mark Renton. Ben met Mark while working on "Prey" and "Predator Badlands." Mark's work in advertising includes VFX supervision and flame work for Skittles, Jeep, Google, and Halo 3. At The Fifth Wall, Mark brings an intuitive approach to post-production and is fully hands-on at every stage of the process.
This self-proclaimed trio of film nerds believes that "storytelling has always been human-driven, and that human touch is the most important part of everything we do," says Ben. “While we love traditional filmmaking, we see the potential for using AI to approach storytelling in new ways – but using the same process we are all familiar with - storyboards, casting, filming, editing, and post - just in a more accelerated and more efficient way.”
"The tech may be new, but the process isn't."
"The tech may be new, but the process isn't," adds Mark, reflecting on the evolution of his job as a Flame artist. "For example, when Ben and J.P. send me a cut, and I provide feedback and start touching up the footage, that’s still traditional post-production and VFX work, through and through."
"This is the biggest shift I've seen in twenty years of production. We didn't build The Fifth Wall to experiment with AI - we built it to master it," says J.P. "And mastery starts with the right people. Having Ben and Mark to partner with is fantastic; they’re both exceptional talents. Ben thinks in narrative, emotion, lighting, lens, and camera angles. Mark comes from the post side and knows instinctively what a frame needs before anyone says it. Between an extremely creative filmmaker's eye and an award-winning VFX artist's precision, nothing gets lost between the first conversation and final delivery. We can do everything ourselves. We own the whole arc - and we're better at it than almost anyone.”
There are many elements that carry over from traditional filmmaking, the partners add, more than just the importance of story. “We create characters, place them in environments, deck them out with wardrobe and set design, and then place them in dramatic or compelling locations – it’s all the elements that make up great filmmaking, just different.”
As in traditional production, powerful performances are still a key component of 'watchability.' The Fifth Wall will film live actors in person, then augment the scene with AI to help shave time and costs. “For example, you can skip the huge lighting packages, going out to remote locations, or filming on an LED volume stage,” Ben notes. “We can add the actors in a less expensive way, and still retain that human factor, as well as a sense of authenticity.”
"This is the next level of content production."
Recently, The Fifth Wall partnered with The Howler's parent company, Simian, to rapidly concept, produce and finish a series of social films promoting the platform's new "AI Tagging" feature. The four spots, titled "UFO," "Pizza," "Burnout" and "Mars," were delivered in a span of four days, with each one presenting a familiar advertising scenario before dynamically revealing AI-generated tags that identify key visual elements, culminating with the Simian logo.
The goal was to demonstrate the power of intelligent media discovery for Simian’s users and prospects. “Essentially, AI tagging of video content can be a tremendously effective tool for quickly putting together pitches and showreels, and we wanted to show offbeat yet real-world examples of the technology at work,” says J.P.
“When Simian approached us, the challenge wasn’t just to launch a feature - it was to make audiences immediately understand and remember its value. This campaign transforms a complex technology into a simple, memorable idea that could be delivered in days instead of weeks, helping Simian bring its innovation to market with speed, creativity, and confidence.”
“This is the next level of content production,” says Ben. “We want to harness the power of AI in a measured approach, using it to enhance how we build worlds and deliver projects on crazy fast timelines. This really is the future.”
Mark adds, “And there’s no reason to be scared of AI. We are visual effects artists, creative storytellers, and producers that won’t be replaced by machines. Instead, it’s up to us to use this new technology to our advantage and enhance the way we design and create. The sky is no longer the limit - we’re now in outer space.”
You can view The Fifth Wall's highlight reel below. For more information on The Fifth Wall, visit https://www.thefifthwall.ai/ or get in touch via jpm@thefifthwall.ai