Nanda Mohan on Human Judgment in AI Animation

Nanda Mohan traces animation’s evolution from hand-drawn keyframes to 3D software and today’s generative AI, showing that each leap removed repetitive work without removing the need for storytelling judgement. He explains how composition, colour, character design and audience psychology still determine whether a scene works, even when AI can generate the script, images, animation, voice and music. Drawing on his early experiments with film restoration, colourisation, upscaling and game backgrounds, Nanda describes how disconnected models developed into simpler, agent-like tools.

He then maps a practical AI filmmaking workflow: define the audience and idea, validate the script, break it into shots, build the voiceover timeline, create consistent reference images, animate selected frames, upscale the footage and add original music. The conversation also tackles jobs and skills. AI can reduce production cost and team size, but experienced people are still needed to judge quality, preserve consistency and connect scenes into a coherent film.

His central message is optimistic but demanding: use AI as leverage, keep learning the craft and automate only what you can properly supervise.