Eric Day — Creative Technologist

How I Got Here

I got into AI the same way I get into everything — by making something.

I wanted to see if I could create photorealistic Star Wars images. Not for a client. Not for a pitch. Just because I'm a fan who wanted to see if the technology was real.

It turned into a project: Drax Daren, a traveling space photographer documenting daily life across the Star Wars universe. Humans of New York — but in space.

That's the pattern. I follow what unlocks new ways of telling stories — VR, virtual production, real-time animation, now AI — and then I figure out how to actually build with it.

@draxdaren

The Journey

Creative producer turned creative technologist. I learned the tech because the craft demanded it.

Film School

BFA in Directing & Screenwriting

Dodge College of Film and Media Arts. Story and character first.

RYOT / Meta

Senior Creative Producer

Led teams of 100+. Emmy-winning VR/AR. 3 hackathon wins. Filed a patent. Star Wars 5G Sith Trooper at the Rise of Skywalker premiere.

Virtual Prod

Realtime Animation & Unreal Engine

Motion capture, Ncam, world-building. The tech disappears — what stays is the magic.

AI Studios

Built Asteria & Late Night Labs

AI animation studios from zero to production. Multi-series pipelines for streaming-scale delivery.

What I Believe

It's not about the technology. It's about the magic it creates for the people watching.

The goal is to make everything seamless. The tech should disappear. What stays is the story, the feeling, the thing the audience takes home.

Fail faster.

Get to creative decisions quicker. More time to explore, more time for mastery on the moments that matter.

Reduce miscommunication.

So much friction comes from not understanding what someone's asking. AI bridges that gap.

Put the money on screen.

Stop sacrificing shots for budget. Save the resources for what audiences actually feel.

Say yes to what usually dies.

Projects get killed for time and money. AI gives you a chance to breathe life back into them.

Selected Work

A few projects across mediums and tech cycles.

Star Wars: 5G Sith Trooper

Real-time MoCap + broadcast AR at the Rise of Skywalker premiere. Blending physical sets with Unreal Engine.

Unreal EngineMoCap5G

Demeter (Meta Quest)

One of the largest games ever made directly for mixed reality.

Mixed RealityGame Design

Asteria AI Studio

Built AI animation pipelines for multi-series, multi-year streaming projects.

AI AnimationPipeline

Drax Daren

AI-generated Star Wars photography. Humans of New York in space.

Stable DiffusionWorld-building

Earth by Lil Dicky

Bronze Lion-winning website. 1M+ impressions within a day of launch.

WebCreative Direction

Mandela Robben Island

Bronze Telly. Immersive documentary experience with the Mandela family.

VRDocumentary

Art of Rodarte

Mixed reality fashion experience for the legendary design house.

Mixed RealityFashion

Charli Cohen: Electric/City

Virtual fashion collection bridging gaming and high fashion.

Virtual FashionGaming

UN Global Action Climate Summit

Immersive experience for world leaders at the United Nations.

VRClimate

The Messy Truth in VR

Emmy Award-winning VR series with Van Jones exploring America's divisions.

VREmmy Winner

Spatial Fusion

Real-time virtual production pipeline for broadcast television.

Virtual ProductionBroadcast

Life Rendered

Documentary exploring the future of synthetic media and digital humans.

DocumentarySynthetic Media

Creative first.Technologist by necessity.