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Strategy  ·  Execution  ·  Impact
Ulbrich
Advisory

Closing the gap between what AI can do and what actually ships.

Ed Ulbrich, Founder. Thirty years between Hollywood and the frontier of technology, trusted by both.

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Featured in
Bloomberg The New York Times The Wall Street Journal Reuters Forbes BBC CBS News Variety The Hollywood Reporter Rolling Stone Fast Company Ad Age
On stage
TED NVIDIA GTC CES SIGGRAPH FMX VES Summit HPA Tech Retreat

Keynotes and panels on creativity, technology, and the future of filmmaking, on stages worldwide.

I sit across from the world's directors, producers, actors, and artists, and the studios, labels, and brands behind them. I promise them the impossible, then deliver it. On time, on budget, at the highest quality and the highest stakes.

I trade in trust, accountability, and results.

Track Record

A selection, across three decades. The visual effects behind dozens of the biggest films, the studios that scaled the craft, and the generative AI remaking it now. On screen, in the chair, and in the room.

On screen
Teams and productions I led
TitanicVFX executive producer, Digital Domain
What Dreams May ComeSenior VP, Digital Domain
The Curious Case of Benjamin ButtonVFX executive producer, Digital Domain
Fight Club  ·  Tron: Legacy  ·  OblivionDigital Domain
Top Gun: Maverick  ·  Black Panther  ·  Avengers: Infinity WarGlobal VFX
Tupac Hologram at CoachellaLive digital human · Cannes Lions Titanium
Here  ·  Alien: Romulus  ·  Furiosa: A Mad Max SagaGenerative AI & neural performance · Metaphysic
Sinatra & Sammy Davis Jr.Generative AI · Metaphysic, 2024
In the chair
Digital DomainFounding exec, later CEO
Method StudiosGlobal President · full P&L across nine studios in four countries · acquired by Framestore
MetaphysicChief Content Officer, President of Production · acquired by DNEG's Brahma
MoonvalleyLed Media & Entertainment · now Reka AI
Ender's GameProducer · Lionsgate/Summit
In the room
M&A advisoryPrivate equity

Three of those films, Titanic, What Dreams May Come, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. The artists earned those statuettes. My job was to lead the teams and clear the path so they could deliver. It has been the privilege of my career to do this work beside some of the most talented filmmakers, artists, and technologists in the world. Some of those collaborations have run two decades, the same directors from the first project to the latest.

The technology is rarely the hard part. Adoption is.

The winners are not the ones with the best model. They are the ones who get frontier capability working inside real teams, real pipelines, and real rights constraints, without breaking trust with the artists who matter most. That gap is where this work lives.

Who I work with

I work across the chain. The labs building the models, the studios buying the result, and above all the companies in between who have to turn one into the other.

01
VFX, animation & AI creative services
The companies that deliver the work. Visual effects and animation houses folding AI into pipelines built over decades, and the creative-services shops born native to it. I have built and run companies like these, and I get them from demo, to delivery, to trust.
02
AI labs, applied AI & agentic services
The technology side. The labs pushing the models, and the applied and agentic companies turning them into capability a production can actually use, inside a pipeline that has to ship.
03
Studios, labels, agencies & brands
The buyers and owners of the work, from studios and streamers to production companies, music labels, agencies, and brands. Deciding what AI changes and what it leaves untouched, then adopting it at scale.
04
Investors, venture & private equity
The capital betting across the chain. Diligence on the companies, teams, and deals at the intersection of AI and production, from someone who has built, run, and sat on both sides of the table.
Operating View
Infrastructure
without adoption is architecture.
Adoption
without infrastructure is theatre.
Talent
without both is advice.

Building, buying, funding, or betting on AI-driven production?

That is the conversation. Board roles, strategic advisory, and diligence for studios, their supply chain, AI labs, and investors.

ed@ulbrichadvisory.com