When the Hollywood writer’s strike brought much of the industry to a standstill in 2023, Los Angeles–based filmmaker Sarah Kim found herself searching for ways to keep her own creative work alive. With studio productions on pause, her independent short film risked languishing indefinitely. To keep momentum and continue her internal development process, Kim turned to a new tool: LTX Studio, an artificial intelligence video platform from Israeli company Lightricks.
“Initially I thought it would just be a gimmick,” Kim says. “But when I saw how it could translate my script into storyboards with camera directions and blocking, it gave me a way to visualize things before we ever touched a camera.”
Kim wasn’t looking to release AI-generated clips or bypass traditional production. Instead, she saw LTX Studio as a private sandbox where she could test ideas and share visualizations with collaborators without crossing picket lines or undermining professional work.
She’s part of a growing group of California creatives, including students, independent filmmakers, and agencies, who are experimenting with AI video tools not as substitutes, but as supplements to the long process of developing stories.
Among these new entrants, LTX Studio stands out for its storyboard-driven workflow and its open-source underpinnings.
Storyboarding 2.0
AI-generated video is not new. Platforms like Runway had already popularized text-to-video clips by the early 2020s. But most tools were limited to short bursts of imagery, often without much continuity.
LTX Studio took a different approach. Instead of treating every prompt as a one-off, it built a workflow around storyboards. Writers could paste an entire script, and the system would automatically divide it into scenes, generate boards, and give users controls for camera angles, framing, and blocking.
“It’s the difference between generating a clip and authoring a sequence,” shared one instructor at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts who has introduced LTX Studio in previsualization courses where students often struggle to bridge the gap between words on a page and shots on a screen.
“For years, students sketched stick figures or used software like FrameForge,” they explained. “This adds motion, perspective, and editing language into the mix. It’s not a finished product, but it forces them to think about how a cut changes rhythm, or how a shot choice changes meaning.”
Experimentation on Indie Sets
Independent filmmakers, working outside of union-driven productions, are testing AI tools as part of their creative prep.
In Oakland, one social media influencer we spoke with described using LTX Studio during the planning phase of his self-funded web series. “We weren’t generating content to release, we were just mapping out action beats,” he says. “Normally I’d need a storyboard artist, or we’d guess on set. With LTX, I could visualize the chase scene and decide which shots mattered most. It saved us hours of indecision later.”
“It’s not threatening if you see it as a layer you can trace over, remix, or discard,” he added.
Why Open Source Matters
Perhaps the most distinctive aspect of LTX Studio is its open-source foundation. In late 2024, Lightricks released LTXV, followed by LTXV-13B, opening access to researchers and developers.
By 2025, the company had integrated both its own models and Google DeepMind’s Veo 3, which added audio and lip-sync capabilities. This hybrid approach, mixing open-source transparency with proprietary performance, caught the attention of California’s academic community.
Recognizing Limits and Risks
Despite its promise, AI video faces scrutiny in California’s creative industries.
The Animation Guild, IATSE Local 839, released a statement in 2025 warning studios not to view AI as a substitute for professional labor. “While AI may assist in previsualization, it cannot replicate the artistry and training of human creators,” the union noted.
Filmmakers also worry about intellectual property. Lightricks has said its models rely on licensed and public data, but skepticism remains around AI training practices industry-wide.
For creators like Kim, the takeaway is clear: “It’s not footage you’d put in a final cut. It’s something you play with when you can’t yet afford the real thing.”
California as a Test Bed
Kim predicts that AI-assisted pre-production will become standard within five years. “You’ll still need human crews, but directors will plan more with AI, just as they once adopted digital editing and previs software. The workflow will change.”
For her, AI tools like LTX Studio aren’t about breaking rules or bypassing labor, they’re about keeping creativity alive when resources are limited.
“Movies still take people, budgets, and collaboration,” she says. “But when everything is on pause, tools like this let us keep dreaming. They’re not the film. They’re the sketch before the film.”
As California’s creatives continue to experiment, the narrative is shifting: AI video is emerging not as a replacement for human artistry, but as a provisional canvas, something that helps storytellers imagine, plan, and prepare for the moment when real cameras roll again.
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