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Friday, September 11, 2026
Inside Camelback Productions' Plans for an AI-Powered Production Space
variety.com: Anita Verma-Lallian, founder of Camelback Productions, doesn’t see the future of film production in Los Angeles. Instead, in her vision, it is on a complex one hour’s drive west of Phoenix, complete with backlots, a Universal Studios-inspired theme park — and a data center.
The film/data center /theme park complex described in this article doesn't quite sit right with me. At first glance, the project doesn’t seem that bad; creating high-tech film production space in Arizona- what could go wrong with that? However, as the details come into focus, this project gets more and more unsettling. Setting aside the AI/datacenter controversies for a minute, the reasoning for the Arizona location is absolutely insane. Claiming that production would be cheaper because Arizona is a right-to-work state and there aren’t unions is unbelievable. The film and entertainment industries are built on union labor, and in the past few years, massive pushes have been made for better hours and working conditions on film sets. Building a production complex in a right-to-work state specifically for cheaper production costs is diabolical and shows how little Verma-Lallian cares about the people who actually produce films and TV shows. This proposed complex is also supposed to be eco-friendly and solar-powered. I find it hard to believe that the words data center and eco-friendly can be in the same sentence, let alone be descriptors of the same complex. Verma-Lallian’s blasé attitude towards data centers is worrying and shows just how out of touch she is with the world and the people she is trying to work with. While I am interested to see if and how the construction of this complex pans out, I am wary of many of these ideas and worry that some of the less ethical points of this complex will spread.
I read about Camelback Productions’ proposed 1,400-acre entertainment complex in Arizona, and it raises some serious concerns for film industry workers, environmental sustainability, and public resources under the guise of technological advancement. By explicitly choosing Arizona to take advantage of lower costs, reduced taxes, and "right-to-work" laws, the venture undermines the strong collective bargaining power and fair wage protections established by California’s entertainment unions, essentially accelerating a corporate race to the bottom that deprives public infrastructure of crucial tax revenues. Furthermore, embedding an AI and tech center focused on automated script parsing and rough drafting risks cheapening creative labor. It’s absurd to think artistic vision can thrive when human artists and writers are displaced while profits are funneled directly to tech executives and private equity investors. Even after that, constructing massive, energy-hungry data center facilities in the Arizona desert poses severe environmental threats. In my opinion, protecting true creative integrity is standing up against corporate choices before greed and deregulation ruin everything.
After reading this article, I can say I strongly disagree with Camelback Productions' proposed idea. I already disagree with the use of AI in the industry but creating a whole resort idea around it in Arizona seems to be reaching a new height of AI incorporation. Verma-Lallian purposefully wants to move out of California to sidestep unions and get everything she would need at a cheaper cost. She also highlights how this area in Arizona is roughly 4 hours from Burbank, which to me seems she doesn’t believe she can get this area off the ground fast enough to make it sustainable. Another thing that I flagged was how Verma-Lallian compared this lot to Walt Disney deciding on Anaheim. I truly don’t believe the creation of an AI Universal will be comparable to Disneyland. Incorporating AI on an even bigger scale in the film industry is not something or many others, I believe will get behind.
I believe that this is part of a larger industry shift. The shift out of LA was never about a lack of talent — it was about money. Georgia, New Mexico, Vancouver and Budapest balance the budget, and California's incentive expansion arrived late to a pipeline that had already moved. It is important to remember that, at the highest level, TV and Movies are meant to be profitable. If it is easier to be profitable outside of LA, they are going to do that. Additionally, AI-assisted editing and virtual production have been things that have existed for a couple years now, and localizing the compute power for them on site is more efficient. These tools would actually lower the barrier to entry for up-and-coming projects, allowing lower budget films to have access to industry-leading tools. More projects getting greenlit means more people working, giving jobs to more people and giving more experience to everyone. That is a net positive for the industry as a whole, even if it ends up happening somewhere other than Los Angeles.
AI has no place in any form of art in my opinion. I can agree that more films should happen in Arizona because it is a beautiful place and the temperature can be similar to LA with lots more open space to take up. Even though Verma-Lallian said there’s “no world in which that goes away or gets replaced” in regards to the human creative process, I do not think that she truly understands what one is doing when they add AI to any kind of creative project. AI takes away the critical thinking and problem solving that is part of human nature and that is one of the parts of art that is the most human. Yes AI will save “time and money” but at what other cost? At the cost of taking jobs away from actual humans and taking the creativity/fun out of the art. AI data centers should not be used for film.
5 comments:
The film/data center /theme park complex described in this article doesn't quite sit right with me. At first glance, the project doesn’t seem that bad; creating high-tech film production space in Arizona- what could go wrong with that? However, as the details come into focus, this project gets more and more unsettling. Setting aside the AI/datacenter controversies for a minute, the reasoning for the Arizona location is absolutely insane. Claiming that production would be cheaper because Arizona is a right-to-work state and there aren’t unions is unbelievable. The film and entertainment industries are built on union labor, and in the past few years, massive pushes have been made for better hours and working conditions on film sets. Building a production complex in a right-to-work state specifically for cheaper production costs is diabolical and shows how little Verma-Lallian cares about the people who actually produce films and TV shows. This proposed complex is also supposed to be eco-friendly and solar-powered. I find it hard to believe that the words data center and eco-friendly can be in the same sentence, let alone be descriptors of the same complex. Verma-Lallian’s blasé attitude towards data centers is worrying and shows just how out of touch she is with the world and the people she is trying to work with. While I am interested to see if and how the construction of this complex pans out, I am wary of many of these ideas and worry that some of the less ethical points of this complex will spread.
I read about Camelback Productions’ proposed 1,400-acre entertainment complex in Arizona, and it raises some serious concerns for film industry workers, environmental sustainability, and public resources under the guise of technological advancement. By explicitly choosing Arizona to take advantage of lower costs, reduced taxes, and "right-to-work" laws, the venture undermines the strong collective bargaining power and fair wage protections established by California’s entertainment unions, essentially accelerating a corporate race to the bottom that deprives public infrastructure of crucial tax revenues. Furthermore, embedding an AI and tech center focused on automated script parsing and rough drafting risks cheapening creative labor. It’s absurd to think artistic vision can thrive when human artists and writers are displaced while profits are funneled directly to tech executives and private equity investors. Even after that, constructing massive, energy-hungry data center facilities in the Arizona desert poses severe environmental threats. In my opinion, protecting true creative integrity is standing up against corporate choices before greed and deregulation ruin everything.
After reading this article, I can say I strongly disagree with Camelback Productions' proposed idea. I already disagree with the use of AI in the industry but creating a whole resort idea around it in Arizona seems to be reaching a new height of AI incorporation. Verma-Lallian purposefully wants to move out of California to sidestep unions and get everything she would need at a cheaper cost. She also highlights how this area in Arizona is roughly 4 hours from Burbank, which to me seems she doesn’t believe she can get this area off the ground fast enough to make it sustainable. Another thing that I flagged was how Verma-Lallian compared this lot to Walt Disney deciding on Anaheim. I truly don’t believe the creation of an AI Universal will be comparable to Disneyland. Incorporating AI on an even bigger scale in the film industry is not something or many others, I believe will get behind.
I believe that this is part of a larger industry shift. The shift out of LA was never about a lack of talent — it was about money. Georgia, New Mexico, Vancouver and Budapest balance the budget, and California's incentive expansion arrived late to a pipeline that had already moved. It is important to remember that, at the highest level, TV and Movies are meant to be profitable. If it is easier to be profitable outside of LA, they are going to do that.
Additionally, AI-assisted editing and virtual production have been things that have existed for a couple years now, and localizing the compute power for them on site is more efficient. These tools would actually lower the barrier to entry for up-and-coming projects, allowing lower budget films to have access to industry-leading tools. More projects getting greenlit means more people working, giving jobs to more people and giving more experience to everyone. That is a net positive for the industry as a whole, even if it ends up happening somewhere other than Los Angeles.
AI has no place in any form of art in my opinion. I can agree that more films should happen in Arizona because it is a beautiful place and the temperature can be similar to LA with lots more open space to take up. Even though Verma-Lallian said there’s “no world in which that goes away or gets replaced” in regards to the human creative process, I do not think that she truly understands what one is doing when they add AI to any kind of creative project. AI takes away the critical thinking and problem solving that is part of human nature and that is one of the parts of art that is the most human. Yes AI will save “time and money” but at what other cost? At the cost of taking jobs away from actual humans and taking the creativity/fun out of the art. AI data centers should not be used for film.
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