Take That Step Into AI

Say “AI” in a TV production office and watch the room shift. It’s treated almost like a dirty word – a threat to craft, to jobs, to the whole idea of what makes television good. Mention it in a commission meeting and you’ll get a wary look, like you’ve suggested something slightly indecent. We understand the instinct. We just think it’s aimed at the wrong target.

Doing more with less isn’t going away

Every indie is being asked to do more with less right now. Budgets are tighter, turnarounds are faster, and the pressure to deliver hasn’t gone anywhere – if anything, it’s grown sharper. Commissioners want the same ambition for a smaller fee. Broadcasters want faster delivery with the same crew. In that market, AI isn’t the enemy of good television – it’s one of the few genuine advantages an indie has left. Not because it replaces the craft, but because it clears everything standing in the way of it.

That’s the distinction that gets lost in the fear. Nobody serious is suggesting AI writes your treatment, casts your contributor, or makes the editorial call on what stays in the cut. What it can do is take on the parts of the job that were never creative to begin with – the tasks that take time and are administrative.

What AI actually replaces

Not the story. Not the judgement. Not the instinct that makes a producer good at their job. What AI replaces is the time sink underneath all of that – the hours lost logging rushes clip by clip so an assistant producer can find one usable quote, the afternoons spent reconciling a budget spreadsheet against a stack of purchase orders, the admin that pulls you away from being creative and back into being a data-entry clerk.

Think about how much of a production week actually goes on that: rushes logs nobody enjoys writing, contributor paperwork, a budget spreadsheet three versions out of date by the time anyone opens it. None of that makes better television. It just has to get done, by someone, usually the person who should be in the edit or on the phone to a contributor instead. Free that time up, and the actual job – the one you got into TV to do – gets more room to breathe.

We built it because we needed it

We didn’t set out to build software. We set out to solve our own problem. Running Chalk Productions meant living with exactly the admin described above – development and production running at once, rushes piling up, budgets to keep straight, and no platform on the market that actually fitted how a working TV indie operates. So MotionHub started as a tool for our own company, built because we were losing exactly the hours above and nothing existing fixed it.

It’s since grown into something used by hundreds of people across TV – production companies who had the same problem we did, and wanted the same time back. That’s the part that tells you this isn’t theoretical. It’s been tested against real delivery deadlines, by people who don’t have the patience for a tool that doesn’t earn its place.

Take the step

If AI still feels like a dirty word in your production office, that’s worth challenging. Not blind faith in the technology – just an honest look at where it can take the admin off your plate so you can spend more of your day being creative. Tighter budgets aren’t going away. The indies who make peace with AI now, on their own terms, are the ones who’ll have the time and the margin to keep making the programmes they actually want to make.

See how much more efficient your indie could be, and how much you could save. 👉 Give us a go with a free trial.

Victoria Holden is co-founder of MotionHub and founder of Chalk Productions.