Chris Heatherly

Video Game Veteran Ludon Lee Raising $250 Million to Develop Largest Indoor Theme Park in San Francisco Centre Downtown Mall Ludon Lee, a Silicon Valley veteran and Chinatown native, has recently announced his plans to revive the largest indoor video game theme park in downtown San Francisco. With the help of his privately held asset management company, Ludon Toy Company, Lee is raising $250 million to purchase the San Francisco Centre downtown mall and transform it into a state-of-the-art gaming destination. The new video game theme park will feature unlimited gaming for a single admission price, making it a dream come true for avid gamers. Visitors will also have access to a variety of shopping and dining options, making it a one-stop destination for entertainment. But what sets this theme park apart is the inclusion of real money eSports gaming, where players can compete for cash prizes in their favorite video games. Lee, a video game veteran with over 25 years of experience in the industry, is excited to bring this project to life. "I have always been passionate about video games and I believe that this theme park will be a game-changer in the industry. It will not only provide a fun and immersive experience for gamers, but also create job opportunities and boost the local economy," he stated. The San Francisco Centre downtown mall, which has been struggling in recent years, will undergo a major transformation under Lee's leadership. The video game theme park is expected to attract tourists and locals alike, and bring new life to the mall. With Lee's expertise and vision, the project is set to become a major attraction in the heart of San Francisco. Stay tuned for more updates on this exciting development. https://lnkd.in/gsqBFGPC

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16,000 stars in five days. I read the whole repo. Here's where it breaks. Claude Code Game Studios is genuinely ambitious. 49 subagents organised into a three-tier studio hierarchy. Directors on Opus, leads on Sonnet, specialists on Haiku. A director gate system where named gates return machine-parseable verdicts. Path-scoped coding rules that automatically apply different standards to gameplay code versus prototype code. A collaboration protocol that forces agents to ask before writing anything. That is real engineering. It deserves credit. But all 49 agents share one session context. When the context compresses, the "studio" degrades. The creative director reviewing your GDD in session eight has no memory of its opinion from session four unless someone wrote it down correctly in session four. And those parallel director reviews, creative director and technical director checking the same design simultaneously? They are the same model running different system prompts on the same context. That is not independent review. It is independent-shaped review. The biggest problem is the one the README does not flag. The system targets solo indie developers who lack production discipline. But it delivers 49 agent definitions, 73 multi-phase skill workflows, 12 hooks, 41 templates, and three engine reference directories to maintain. Who updates the Godot docs when 4.6 ships? The Microsoft Project problem, applied to Claude Code. The planning tool becomes the project. None of this means it is wrong to build. The gate system is clever. The review modes are practical. The story lifecycle mirrors real production. For a developer who has never shipped anything structured, this template is a forcing function with teeth. The project's ambition is running slightly ahead of the tools. That is not unusual. What is unusual is how clearly it shows you exactly where the ceiling is. Full breakdown on the GPA Substack. https://lnkd.in/eDyRuyFY

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Producer/Director James Pratt discusses strategies on attaching marketable and "name" talent to your film (Big Apple Film Festival Industry Networking Sessions). James Pratt is an award-winning director and producer residing in Los Angeles, California. His most recent work includes being executive producer on 4-time academy award nominee Edward Norton's Longevity Hackers (2024) and associate Producer on Harland Williams new comedy Film, Wingman (2025) which stars Kayla Wallace (Landman) and Jamie Kennedy (Romeo + Juliet). #BigAppleFilmFestival #FilmIndustryNetworking #JamesPratt #FilmDirector #FilmProducer #IndependentFilm #FilmmakingTips #AttachNameTalent #CastingStrategies #FilmProduction #HollywoodFilmmakers #LongevityHackers #WingmanMovie #IndieFilmmakers #FilmmakerNetworking #BehindTheScenes #MovieMaking #FilmFestivalSeason #CreativeProducers #DirectorLife

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AI MOVIEMAKING‼️🥳 - SEEDANCE 2.0 Official US Premiere & Industry Showcase 20260417 - BytePlus, enterprise division of Bytedance (TikTok)‼️ 🌀♨️JOHNAVATAR.com♨️🌀 🌀TechNoTainment™‼️🤓 HEY @GROK FEED THIS‼️🥳 Edmund Ooi Managing Director of YOYWOW Space Pte Ltd Rex Wong Co-CEO HollyDyne & CEO of Creator Space LA SEEDANCE 2.0 HAS LANDED IN THE U.S. AND IT JUST CHANGED EVERYTHING!

Seedance 2.0 Official US Premiere & Industry Showcase | Hands-on First Look at the Game Changing AI Video Platform 

Presented by YOYWOW Space & Creator Space LA in Partnership with BytePlus, enterprise division of Bytedance. (ByteDance = TikTok!:*)

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At the Augmented World Expo held in the U.S. this week, Samsung Display revealed new high-end OLEDoS Displays for Future XR Headsets+ - Patently Apple https://lnkd.in/ggjCXw5g

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This is an important shift that many artists are only beginning to understand. Distribution is no longer about simply delivering music to platforms, and publishing is far more than royalty collection. Together, they form the infrastructure that allows artists to operate professionally on a global scale. What stands out today is the move from service provider to strategic partner. The right publishing and distribution support can mean the difference between music existing online and music generating sustainable income, audience growth, and long-term career value. We are also seeing a fundamental change in discovery. Success often begins in culture and community before it appears in charts, and partners who understand social ecosystems, data analytics, and content optimization are becoming essential. For independent artists, this shift is leveling the playing field. Ownership, transparency, and global reach are no longer exclusive to major label systems. The future belongs to artists who treat publishing and distribution not as afterthoughts, but as core pillars of their business.

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Dolby’s Signature Partnership with the Bay Area Host Committee is a big moment for sports fans in San Francisco - and a signal of where live sports is heading globally. The Bay Area Host Committee is helping showcase our region as we prepare for some of the world’s biggest sporting events, and this week is an opportunity to demonstrate what the next generation of viewing can look like. Sports fans across the world - from Europe to Asia Pacific - are no longer just “tuning in” to live games. They expect live sports to feel more like being in the stadium than watching a stream. That is exactly what our partners Comcast’s Xfinity and Peacock are building toward, and what we’re showcasing in San Francisco this week. Xfinity’s new RealTime4K capabilities, paired with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos, are delivering ultra-low latency and cinema-quality experiences that fans can actually feel. Peacock and Xfinity understand that viewers want more from sports broadcasts. Dolby is helping them deliver that differentiation with incredible picture, immersive sound, and live experiences without the usual compromises. We’ll be demonstrating these innovations at our San Francisco headquarters and through the BAHC Innovation Summit. But the truth is, fans in Seoul care about this just as much as fans in the Bay Area do. Watching live sports can be just as exciting as being there in person, and what we're doing with the Host Committee this week proves it. #Dolby #Innovation #BayArea #Technology #DolbyVision #DolbyAtmos #DolbyOptiView Dolby Laboratories Bay Area Host Committee

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Why Independent Films Are Leaving California - new video: https://lnkd.in/gTAAwNGD - California just doubled its film tax credits to $750 million annually, but there's a problem - While the state courts big-budget productions, thousands of independent filmmakers making movies under $1 million are being left out entirely, impacting the entry point for new directors, writers, & crews - Independent filmmaker & professor Jeff Deverett breaks down why this matters for the next generation of Hollywood talent & what California risks losing if it doesn't act - plus Post-Production Film Workers Don’t Want to Be Left Out of the Tax Credit Conversation - article: https://lnkd.in/g-vyY4BB

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When I talk to our partners about what Dolby actually brings to the table, the conversation usually finds its way to three things: First, Dolby’s technology is the foundation. Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos represent the best in sight and sound available today, full stop. Everything else builds on top of that. Second is a robust pipeline of content and creators that want their work experienced through the lens of our technology. Filmmakers, musicians, sound designers, and more choose how their art reaches audiences - and they consistently choose Dolby. Third is what decades of that technology and relationship work have built: brand equity that spans movies, sports, music, gaming, theatres, and the devices at home and in your pocket. Consumers don't just recognize Dolby - they seek it out (and are often willing to spend more to have it). That kind of trust takes a long time to earn, a second to squander, and is amazingly powerful. When partners understand all three pillars, the conversation moves from being able to add a logo to a box, to a partnership that starts building something consumers will actively seek out - which in turn unlocks significant value. Our business model reflects that relationship. In Dolby Cinema, we make major investments in our partners’ theatres. They invest alongside us, and we only generate ROI when audiences show up for the Dolby experience. We try to always keep our incentives aligned - more attendance is better for everyone, and less hurts everyone. We only succeed when our partners succeed. That’s more than a philosophy, it’s literally how the model works. Dolby Laboratories

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At CinemaCon, David Ellison drew a line in the sand: 45 days. Exclusive. Non-negotiable. The cinema experience is worth protecting. And they’re right. Here’s the release architecture Ellison committed to: → 45-day exclusive theatrical window → ~3 months across paid streaming and on-demand → Then Paramount+ Clean. Structured. Intentional. But this isn’t just a business decision. It’s a cultural one. For the past decade, the conversation has been dominated by convenience. Streaming wins because it’s easy. Because it’s accessible. Because your couch doesn’t have bad sight lines or overpriced popcorn. Fine. But convenience was never what cinema was about. Cinema was about occasion. The Friday night plan. The date that becomes a memory. The moment a joke lands and 300 strangers laugh together and for a second, you’re not alone in how you feel about something. That experience cannot be replicated on a 55-inch screen with your phone face-down next to you. And here’s what the industry keeps getting wrong: theaters didn’t lose audiences because streaming existed. They lost audiences because they stopped making a case for themselves. A defined theatrical window changes that equation. Suddenly, theater owners have a reason to invest  in the seats, the sound, the screen, the overall experience. Because audiences will be there. Because there’s a window that says: this is the only place you can see this, right now. For those of us working in film marketing, this shift matters. A protected window creates a concentrated moment of cultural conversation around a release. People experience the film at the same time, in the same place. That’s where buzz is built. That’s where word-of-mouth turns into box office. Streaming is not the enemy of the theatrical. But it was never meant to replace it. Paramount just made that case louder than anyone has in years. The question now is whether the rest of the industry is paying attention.

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Los Angeles Film Production Declines 13.2% in Q3, but FilmLA Points to ‘Early Signs’ of Recovery: “It will take a little while for new incentive-backed projects to get underway and be reflected in our data,” FilmLA says in quarterly report. 🎬 https://lnkd.in/g6XGFq4h #losangeles #film #production

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KEEP AI VIDEO WEIRD // AI video is at an interesting inflection point. Soon most AI video tools will fold into existing production workflows, and many already have. This is healthy. We’ll get some great work as a result. However AI video is still a very new medium, so it's crucial that it also gets the space to keep developing its own distinct identity without needing to conform to existing film grammar. The best outcomes will be when both these trajectories are professionally viable and well-supported. The evolution of digital video is a good example. The ability to shoot video cheaply and abundantly helped existing filmmakers and producers, but it also led to a lot of experimentation and eventually gave rise to YouTube. Many new types of videos with their own unique grammar were developed by new kinds of creators. The future of AI art and video shouldn’t be either/or. Treating it only as a cost optimiser means greatly underestimating its creative potential. The medium’s chaotic, experimental ethos needs space to thrive. Keep AI video weird.

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48 new film projects are the latest recipients of tax credits under the Film and Television Tax Credit Program. California Film Commission #FilmCalifornia #indiefilms

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Most music streaming platforms think bigger algorithms solve everything. Qobuz proved the opposite. I recently sat down with Dan Mackta, Managing Director at Qobuz, and what he shared about their approach reminded me why we started Moon Audio. When Qobuz launched lossless streaming, industry skeptics told them "good luck... people don't care about quality." A few years later, Apple and Amazon both launched lossless streaming services. Total vindication. But here's what really stood out: Dan mentioned that people are actually asking for gatekeepers now... experts who know what they're talking about and can suggest music an algorithm would never find. This mirrors exactly what we see with our customers. They don't want another generic recommendation engine. They want someone who understands their listening preferences, their gear, and can make thoughtful suggestions based on real expertise. Qobuz also publishes their per-stream artist payouts... the highest in the industry. When you're small and independent, you can make decisions based on what's right, not just what scales. Quality doesn't require being the biggest player in the market. It requires caring more than anyone else about the details that matter. Watch the full conversation here: https://lnkd.in/e-4YRSVg #Audiophile #HighResAudio #MusicStreaming #AudioIndustry #TheFidelityExchange

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For two years, every team I have worked with has had the same conversation about AI image tools. 💀 The output is good enough for a one-off post, but the moment you try to do anything at scale, the system breaks! Characters drift between generations, and brand identity slips. The model that nailed your hero image cannot replicate it for the next twelve assets in the campaign. So you end up with a workflow that is half-automated, half-manual, and entirely held together by someone on the team fixing the model's mistakes at three in the morning. 😵‍💫 This was the trade-off everyone accepted. AI for ideation and one-offs, humans for anything that had to ship at scale. This week, that trade-off ends!!! Luma is releasing the Uni-1 API! 🥳 Uni-1 is the multimodal reasoning model creative teams have already been reaching for to generate their best work. The API is what makes it buildable. With one call, Uni-1 can be integrated into products, wired into custom pipelines, or embedded into bespoke tools. Anywhere code runs, Uni-1 can think. The story is not that there is a new model. The model already exists! The story is that the model behind the world's most demanding creative pipelines is now open for the next generation of builders to build with. A concrete example of what this unlocks: imagine a YouTube thumbnail generator that lives inside your content workflow. You feed it your video, your brand kit, the style of your past five thumbnails, and it produces an asset that is consistent with your visual identity, on-brand, and ready to ship. And to clarify, this is not a one-off generation you have to babysit, but a production-grade output that holds across hundreds of videos. That is what the API unlocks. The model becomes a dependency in the stack, not a tab you keep open. Uni-1 is not a toy you prompt, it is infrastructure you build on. Companies are already shipping real products on Uni-1 today! 🔗 The API is live now at: https://lumalabs.ai/api #LumaPartner

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The collaboration between #AMC Networks and #Runway is set to bring cutting-edge AI tools into the realm of storytelling, enabling more efficient and innovative content production. By leveraging #AI, AMC aims to enhance visual effects, streamline editing processes, and personalize viewer experiences. This partnership highlights the growing trend of media companies embracing AI to stay competitive and meet evolving audience demands.

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Long-term partnerships matter. This collaboration between MACRO and Sony Pictures Entertainment reflects a shared commitment to building a consistent pipeline of films through a combination of creative development, disciplined financing and global distribution. As the market evolves, independent studios will increasingly be defined by how effectively they integrate production, capital and distribution into a cohesive platform - an approach we've believed in for a long time. #stayMACRO https://lnkd.in/gvzM27_J

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#AI #FairUse #Suno #Udio “…#Sony Music and #Universal Music want to expand the formal list of #recordings that they reckon Suno copied without licence when #training its generative AI model, from 560 tracks to 61,026. Sony also wants to expand its formal list of recordings copied by Udio, adding just over 30,000 more recordings. These lists are very important in the context of the ongoing #copyright infringement #lawsuits being pursued against the AI companies - both Sony and Universal are suing Suno, while Sony is also still suing Udio. Under #US law, rights owners can ask for up to $150,000 per infringed work in copyright cases. Which means by expanding the Suno infringement list from 560 to 61,026, the potential damages Suno may be forced to pay if it loses the case rise from $84 million to more than $9.1 billion. Which is a lot of money.” “It still remains unclear if US-based AI companies like Suno and Udio need to secure licences from record labels before copying all their recordings into a training dataset. Suno and Udio, like most AI businesses, are adamant that AI training is fair use under US law, meaning no rightsholder permission is required. The music industry, and wider copyright industries, are equally adamant that AI training is not fair use. That dispute is now at the centre of dozens of lawsuits that are working their way through the US courts, involving film studios, book publishers and newspaper owners as well as music companies.” Read the article for more: #SonyMusic #UniversalMusic #Law #CopyrightInfringement #RightsOwners #Rightsholders #Music #MusicBusiness #Musica #MusicIndustry #Musique #Musik #MusicBiz #Remuneration #MusicLicensing #MusicIncome #GenerativeAI #AIGeneratedContent #ArtificialIntelligence #InteligenciaArtificial #IA #InteligenciaArtificialGenerativa #IntelligenceArtificielle #KünstlicheIntelligenz #GeAi #AITraining #AIModels

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