The lane
The industry is arguing about AI in the worst possible way.
One side says adapt or die. The other says it is all theft, do not touch it. Both are loud, both are exhausting, and neither one helps you when you sit down to work tomorrow morning.
Santor Media Ventures does the practical version instead. Which tools are actually worth your time, how to get your hours back from the busywork, and how to protect the part of the work that is irreplaceably yours. Craft is the constant. Everything else is just tools.
Discovery Log
I'm testing whether AI can hit the bar I hold as an animator.
Sometimes you just got to play.
Every build day will go here. What I tried, what broke, and what I learned. Innovation tests, not products, and none of it for sale.
The first entries are written and waiting.
Reel Review
My eye on your actual frames.
No calls to schedule. No time zones to solve. You send the reel on your time, I review it on mine, and you get something you can rewatch instead of a call you half remember.
Reel Review
Send a link to whatever reel you want looked at. You get back a recorded video with my honest take. What is landing, what is missing, where you are reading against the bar, and the one thing I would sharpen first.
Book a review →He is willing to tell the harsher truths without losing any of that kindness and patience. People who are your friends and co-workers will probably never tell you "no, none of these shots will work." Positive comments feel good to hear, but they tell me nothing about how I might improve.
Salina, TV animator
- A recorded video review, roughly ten minutes, yours to keep
- A one-page written summary you can re-read every time you re-cut
- Back within five business days of a completed booking
- Reviewed by an animator who still animates every day
Send your reel link
Fill out a short form with a link to your reel and what you are aiming at.
Sign the release
A short permission form so I can review your work. Required before anything starts.
Pay at booking
One flat fee, charged when you book. No tiers, no add-ons, no upsell maze.
Get your reel review
A private video link plus your one-page summary, inside five business days.
- Turnaround
- Within five business days of a completed booking.
- Privacy
- Your reel and your review stay private. The video link is unlisted and yours alone.
- Capacity
- Reviews open in small batches so every one gets real attention.
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Helping animators navigate the future of AI and animation.
Calm, practical, anti-hype and anti-doom. Every essay starts with something I did or got wrong.
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Who is behind it
A feature animator, learning AI in public.
I'm David Torres. I've animated feature films for 27 years, and I still animate every day. I'm an animator at Pixar Animation Studios, currently animating on Gatto.
Before Pixar, I was Head of Character Animation on Penguins of Madagascar at DreamWorks Animation, and a Supervising Animator on How to Train Your Dragon 1 and 2, Madagascar 3 and Megamind. I started my career at Blue Sky Studios.
I've also spent years teaching, as an instructor at the Animation Collaborative and as a speaker at CTN Animation Expo.
I'm not an AI evangelist who picked up animation. I'm an animator figuring these tools out honestly, in real time, and sharing what works with the people doing the work.
Demo reel
My current reel. A new one is in the works.
Films
Pixar Animation Studios
Gatto (upcoming) Toy Story 5 Elio Inside Out 2 Elemental Lightyear Luca Soul Onward Toy Story 4 Incredibles 2 Coco Cars 3 Finding Dory The Good Dinosaur
DreamWorks Animation
Penguins of Madagascar How to Train Your Dragon 2 Madagascar 3 Megamind How to Train Your Dragon
Blue Sky Studios
Horton Hears a Who! Robots Ice Age
Santor Media Ventures is my own business, separate from my work at Pixar.
How this gets made
AI helps me make this. It does not make it.
That's the test I hold my own work to, so here's how the work here actually gets made.
Every essay here starts with me, written from things I actually did or got wrong. An issue of The Animation Frontier can't go out while my section is still an empty placeholder.
Around that, AI does real work. It researches, it checks the links, it drafts the sections that are summaries rather than opinions, it catches me repeating myself, and it takes on a lot of the admin. I read all of it and I cut a lot of it.
The pictures follow the same rule. The diagrams and tip graphics are built from real text rather than painted by an image model, so the words in them are the words I wrote. I put a “Created with AI” stamp on them either way, so you never have to guess which is which.
If something I make ever stops passing that test, tell me.
Let's talk.
Questions, press, partnerships, or just want to compare notes on AI and the craft?
hello@santormediaventures.com