Where the Robots Grow turns a small-team pipeline into a feature

Nine people and 90 days produced a complete animated movie, according to ElevenLabs’ account of Where the Robots Grow. The film was released in October 2024. Its scale moves the discussion beyond a few seconds of generated footage.

People remained central. Tom Paton wrote and directed the film, and actors supplied performances. ElevenLabs says Taylor Clarke-Hill played multiple characters through its voice changer, with generated sound effects also used. Transforming a voice does not erase the performer behind it.

Forbes identifies Adobe Firefly, Stable Diffusion and custom pipelines for the visuals. Total cost and the shot-by-shot division of work remain unverified. This is a completed collaborative film and an AiMation Studios showcase, rather than evidence of autonomous filmmaking.

The finished result still attracted criticism: SCIFI.radio criticised its dialogue and storytelling, arguing that finishing the feature was more compelling than its artistic quality. Production scale and audience satisfaction require separate evidence.

The “first-ever” label also needs caution. Forbes later corrected its priority claim because another AI-animated film had arrived earlier. Paton’s release post links to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vfhIeNHhv4. Current views and complete playback remain unverified.

Original source published: Forbes, October 17, 2024, 18:00 Beijing time / 6:00 AM EDT. SCIFI.radio displays October 22, 2024 without a clock time or timezone, preventing a precise Beijing/US Eastern date conversion. The ElevenLabs and Tom Paton LinkedIn pages do not provide verified exact publication dates; the film’s upload timestamp was not confirmed.