Documentary
Department of Growth
“RichieBot: Modern Day Legacy”
- project
- RichieBot: Modern Day Legacy Teaser
- role
- Director · Producer
- client
- Department of Growth
- year
- 2026
Brian Dema wanted to know what his late father would say now. So he fed tens of thousands of pages of writing, sales training, voice recordings and video into an AI built from the life and work of J. Richard Dema, entrepreneur and entertainment producer, and we followed what happened.
The goal was never to bring him back. It was to see how far film, data science, psychology and art can go in recombining a person’s ideas and creative legacy: how close the bot gets to the man, and what it does to the people who knew him. Worked with a 19-person national team of data scientists, neuroscientists, project managers and art directors. A private screening showcased in San Francisco alongside a companion exhibit, with team members from Anthropic, Google, Adobe and EM Marketing in the room, and was featured in The Wall Street Journal.
credits
- Director, DP & Editor
- Christian Vergara
- AI Researcher, Developer
- Femi Adeniran
- Psychologist, AI Researcher
- Dr. Ashish Mehta
- Neuroscientist, AI Researcher
- Dr. Han de Jong
- Product Manager
- Joe Morrow
- 3D Generalist, VFX Artist
- Mateo Antonio
- Data Warehousing
- Phanuel Golconda
- AI Evaluation, UX Researcher
- Karl Neumann
- Artist
- Khytul Abyad
- Poet
- Ben Bernthal
- Artist, Art Director
- Alyssa Mae Tumlos
- Artist, Designer
- Bronze Swallow
- Editor
- Harvey Martinez
- Anthropologist
- Dr. Nell Haynes
- Public Relations
- Will Kruisbrink
- Public Relations
- Mike Bradley
- Network Engineer, Developer
- Andy Farrell
- Marketing Engineer, Richard’s Daughter-in-Law
- Olga Namsaraeva
- Founder of the Department of Growth, Richard’s Son
- Brian Dema
- “Could Have Been”
- Billy Jesus
- “Missouri”
- Audiences
- “Metamorphosis”
- Mathilde Marsot
- Arlene Sobin
- Rosina Ruffolo
- Janice Ricci Wilcox
- Dino Gane-Palmer
- Dr. Antonio Tovar
- Rick Sjoberg
- Mickey Sjoberg
- Bucky Zid
- Beth Zid
- Katy Librizzi
- Deb Carlson
- Andy Waggoner
- Jennifer Modena
- Marina Emery
- Elena Tolstova
- Shay Rao
- Viral Patel
- Jessica Wiser
- Pat O’Neill
- Clarke Allen
- Savage
- Natayla Asadullina
- Justin Liszanckie
- Charlie Mock
- Ken Chen
- Ryan Quisol
- Heidi Bianchi
- EM Marketing
- The Break
- LastingMind
- SoulKeep
- Vault Gallerie
- Unorthodox Artspace
- Strangers’ Poems