Quilty Founder Daniel Wood Wants AI to Give Indie Filmmakers an Edge

For independent filmmakers, making the movie is only part of the battle. Before production begins, they must decide which screenplay deserves their limited time and money. After the film is finished, they face the equally difficult task of finding an audience. Quilty founder Daniel Wood believes artificial intelligence can help at both ends of that process.

Speaking with Film Threat’s Chris Gore, Wood described Quilty.app as an AI-powered information platform created to help screenwriters and producers evaluate their projects. Rather than replacing filmmakers, the platform is designed to give them access to analysis that ordinarily requires more money, more personnel, and considerably more time.

That distinction is especially important amid the controversy surrounding generative AI. Gore acknowledged his own conflicted feelings about the technology, even though he used AI to upscale low-resolution archival footage for his documentary Attack of the Doc. For Gore, the ethical dividing line depends largely on the material used and whether a human creator remains in control.

Wood approaches the debate as both a filmmaker and a programmer. A graduate of the USC School of Cinematic Arts, he moved into internet technology during the early 2000s before returning to film production. His independent projects generally run on budgets of $250,000 or less, so he understands the difficult choices producers face without studio resources.

“When AI came out, I was like, ‘How can I use this as an advantage for me instead of something that’s going to wreck me as a film producer?’” Wood said.

That question became the foundation of Quilty.

An Information Layer for Screenplays

Quilty begins with an uploaded screenplay. The platform can analyze feature films, television pilots accompanied by series bibles, stage plays, short films, and vertical productions. Its purpose is not simply to generate new material but to examine a project from numerous creative, commercial, and practical angles.

Wood said the platform differs from uploading a screenplay directly to a general-purpose chatbot because Quilty routes different parts of its analysis through multiple AI models. Each model is assigned work that plays to its particular strengths.

According to Wood, Gemini is useful for structure, breakdowns, and character information, while Anthropic’s Claude performs well with story and character analysis. ChatGPT can handle writing theory, and DeepSeek contributes to financial modeling. Quilty combines the results, supplements them with industry data, and delivers them through a single service.

The goal is to spare filmmakers from mastering numerous platforms, managing multiple subscriptions, or learning the technical limitations of every model.

Wood also addressed one of writers’ biggest concerns about AI: the security of their intellectual property. He said Quilty accesses AI services through business-to-business application programming interfaces rather than ordinary consumer chatbots. Under those arrangements, he explained, submitted screenplay material is not used to train the underlying models. He also said Quilty’s information is hosted in the United States and governed by U.S. law.

Measuring More Than Story

A full Quilty analysis generates a score based on four interconnected areas: story and craft, commercial potential, cultural relevance, and production feasibility.

The story-and-craft category evaluates the screenplay itself. Commercial analysis considers factors that can change over time, including a genre’s current popularity. Cultural analysis examines how closely the screenplay connects with themes contemporary audiences are discussing. Production analysis asks whether the film can realistically be made with the proposed resources.

Wood offered the example of a user whose screenplay was set in the 1500s, included jousting sequences, and unfolded across seven countries. The concept may have been creatively appealing, but producing it would require a substantial budget or major stars to support its commercial prospects.

For a writer, that information could inspire a more practical rewrite. For a producer, it could expose financial risks before money is committed.

Quilty also examines a screenplay’s title, including its clarity, memorability, genre signals, and search-engine potential. Wood said the feature was partly inspired by a distributor who argued that, particularly in the catalog market, a movie’s title could matter more than its cast. After all, a title is often an audience’s first encounter with a film.

The platform can additionally consider how a project might perform internationally and warn filmmakers about content restrictions or cultural preferences in different territories. Gore recalled learning that some jokes and bodily-humor scenes from My Big Fat Independent Movie didn’t travel as well in every market. That sort of information can affect everything from the screenplay to a distributor’s international strategy.

Three Hundred Pages of Feedback

Wood said a complete analysis takes approximately 45 minutes to an hour and can produce more than 300 pages of information across roughly 36 sections.

That amount of feedback can be overwhelming. Wood stressed, however, that Quilty is not intended to deliver an unquestionable verdict on a screenplay.

“We’re not trying to be definitive,” he said. “We’re just trying to give you information and let you decide what’s valid and what’s not.”

Gore compared the process to receiving feedback from the YouTube comments section: the information is there, but the creator decides what deserves attention. As he put it, “Feedback, I believe, to a creative is air. What you choose to do with all this data you get back, that’s on you. That’s on humans.”

During the interview, Wood said the full analysis cost $49.95, while a less expensive, writer-focused coverage option was being developed at a planned price of $19.95. Film Threat viewers were also offered the code FTBOGO for a buy-one-get-one-free deal on screenplay analyses. Prospective users should check Quilty.app for current pricing, features, and offer availability.

Following the Market in Real Time

Quilty extends beyond conventional script coverage. Its industry snapshot aggregates information about what is selling in Hollywood, while its trend engine monitors conversations across entertainment sites and social platforms.

For independent producers, that information can reveal where attention is moving and whether interest in a particular subject is growing, stable, or disappearing. Timing matters because a commercially promising idea today may arrive too late after years in development.

Wood cited Speed Racer, which spent many years moving toward production, as an example of how inefficient development can become. Production itself tends to be tightly scheduled, but both development and marketing can consume extraordinary amounts of time and money.

Studios can assign specialists to each part of that process. Independent filmmakers often handle it all themselves.

“A studio has a marketing team,” Wood said. “A studio has a guy dedicated to every single task.”

Quilty is intended to narrow that information gap. Its emerging Discovery Network could also connect highly rated screenplays with production companies looking for projects. Wood said the company was working with Giovanni Entertainment and hoped to add more production partners, potentially helping promising films find financing and move toward production.

A Quiet AI Revolution

Wood does not dismiss the threat posed by generative AI. He expects it to eliminate some jobs and disrupt significant portions of the entertainment industry. His preferred response, however, is to place better tools in the hands of independent creators.

“What I’d like to do is this quiet revolution where we’re empowering filmmakers with AI and turning the tables,” Wood said, “so that we can make more films and more people can be employed and make movies.”

That vision appealed to Gore, who sees an independent-film revolution approaching. Younger creators are already building audiences around original projects while major studios remain heavily dependent on existing franchises. Independent filmmakers, Wood argued, are the people most likely to accept the risks involved in creating new intellectual property.

No algorithm can guarantee that a screenplay will become a successful movie. Nor can hundreds of pages of data replace taste, instinct, or the stubborn determination required to finish a film. A tool like Quilty can offer another perspective—and possibly an early warning about problems a filmmaker cannot afford to discover during production.

For filmmakers already fighting against limited budgets, shifting markets, and an overcrowded distribution landscape, better information may not level the playing field completely. It could, however, give them a fighting chance.

Visit Quilty.app and use the offer code FTBOGO to buy one screenplay analysis and get a second analysis free.