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John Gauntt

Founder

John Gauntt is the Creative Director of the Seattle AI Film Festival and a founder of Culture & Code, a B2B podcast and newsletter focused on Generative AI for Creative Professionals.

John’s analysis of technology’s impact on media and marketing have been featured in The Economist and eMarketer while his public speaking includes SXSWInfinity Festival Hollywood, the Monaco Media Forum, and Podcast Movement Evolutions.

John's audio stories and AI short films have won numerous awards including two Signal Awards from the Webbys organization, Official Selection for On Air FestAIFilm3, and the Philip K. Dick Science Fiction Festival.

He holds dual degrees in English Literature and Computer Information Systems plus a 2nd Degree Black Belt in Brazilian Jiujitsu. 

"We turned to MediaStorm for the Seattle AI Film Festival digital platform for two reasons: technical excellence and mission driven commitment. The first reason is largely self-explanatory. The MediaStorm platform and toolset gave us the means to elevate our filmmaker selections and winners better than any other festival. The platform's flexibility and scalability for ingesting visual content, designing filmmaker pages, packaging and delivering a superior audience experience made it the obvious choice for us. But even more important than the technology was MediaStorm's consistent commitment to better storytelling for a better world. That's the spine upon which you can deploy and apply technology to celebrate the human touch while making it accessible and memorable to any audience anywhere. 
There are multiple companies out there ready to sell you a package of features and functions. Most of them are run by good people. But the clear difference emerges when it's clear you're dealing with people who demand high standards of themselves to ensure their work lands with impact. That's the "X Factor" that carries your project through the inevitable ups, downs, in-betweens, and "WTF just happened?" instances that are a part of the game. If you want a media and content technology solution that is user friendly, scalable, flexible and well designed, MediaStorm is a good choice. If you want to take that foundation and apply it to do something risky and worthwhile, MediaStorm is a GREAT choice!"


John's Projects

Seattle AI Film Festival

We’ve created a case study that details how we built the Seattle AI Film Festival website

The website serves not just as a document of the festival itself, but as a record of the early stages of generative AI filmmaking at this historic moment in time.

The inaugural Seattle AI Film Festival held in March of 2025 was a groundbreaking event allowing creatives from around the world to showcase cutting-edge films made using artificial intelligence.

Films from eighty five filmmakers from 22 countries were screened during the two-day, in-person event.

The festival was produced by Culture & Code, a podcast and AI automation company dedicated to helping storytellers collaborate better with AI and each other.

Our companies have collaborated on multiple projects in the past, including the visual implementation of the podcast Burner Face, which we produced using the MediaStorm Platform.

In January 2025, Culture & Code’s John Gauntt and Keith Ancker reached out to commission MediaStorm to build the festival site.

We built the site using the MediaStorm Platform and incorporated many of its sophisticated features in order to showcase its catalog of groundbreaking films.

Read about how we used the MediaStorm Platform to build the site: Case Study: Seattle AI Film Festival.


Burner Face

Burner Face is a 5 episode cinematic audio drama about a plausible Seattle a century from now. Taking current climate projections and technology futurism as given, the series explores issues of privacy, identity and personality in 22nd century Seattle. The website was built using the MediaStorm Platform.


MediaStorm Project Showcase

Back from the Brink

Once teetering on the brink of extinction, the Santa Catalina Island Fox made a dramatic recovery. Its resurgence marks one of the greatest conservation success stories in United States history.

Lights in the Shadows

In the shadow of Silicon Valley’s booming technology industry, a growing number of people remain out in the cold. Skyrocketing housing prices in America’s hub of innovation have pushed many onto the streets, straining policymakers to find solutions to a homelessness problem that impacts everyone in the community.

Zora J Murff

This page recognizing Zora J Murff for ICP’s 2023 Infinity Award for Documentary Practice and Visual Journalism features a film about his life, a slideshow of his projects and extra clips of his thoughts about his work and motivation.

Sebastião Salgado

Sebastião Salgado says "a good picture, a fantastic picture, you do in a fraction of a second, but to arrive to do this picture, you must put your life in there."

Esther Horvath

Esther Horvath has sent questions to the universe and she has received answers. She found her calling to tell visual stories that show the full research story behind our climate data.

Acacia Johnson

See photographer Acacia Johnson’s growth from her earliest explorations of Alaskan landscapes to a National Geographic cover for a documentary project among indigenous people of the Arctic.

Don McCullin

Sir Don McCullin never intended to become a photographer. He found it hard to believe he’d ever escape the poverty of North London. But a spur of the moment photograph launched McCullin into a career spanning 50 years in photography.

The War Comes Home

As the U.S. prepares for the final drawdown of soldiers from the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, Soledad O’Brien and MediaStorm take an intimate look at two veterans as they struggle with the transition from war to home.

Zadie Smith

Writer Zadie Smith pays homage to photographer Deana Lawson in the artist’s first Monograph for Aperture.

Fight Hate with Love

As a formerly incarcerated person, Michael struggled for work, and found purpose in being a husband, father, and activist. But 7 years since his release from prison, the cost of Michael’s activism is evident.

The American-Made Benny

Benny is a “certified” garbologist. He collects what others throw away. Benny is also at war with his family. Here is a man sharing a house with his wife but living as a stranger. This is a household on the edge.

Amber Bracken

Photographer Amber Bracken recognized something deeper than a protest was afoot when hundreds of tribes gathered at the Standing Rock reservation in opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline.

A Shadow Remains

How does the death of a child change a parent? How does the death of a parent change a child? How do these moments change us as we develop and grow further away from who we were as children?

Maurice Berger

Maurice Berger–cultural historian, and columnist for the New York Times’ Race Stories–has spent his career studying and teaching racial literacy through visual literacy. 

Japan's Disposable Workers

Japan’s Disposable Workers examines the country’s employment crisis: from suicide caused by overworking, to temporary workers forced by economics to live in internet cafes, and the elderly who wander a town in search of shelter and food.

Karl Ove Knausgaard

Karl Ove Knausgaard is the celebrated author of a massive six-volume autobiography. But Knausgaard remains confused by the attention. This is a portrait of a man who has achieved massive success yet still considers himself unworthy.

The Last Move

Michael Thomasson has devoted his life to video games. It’s been his passion and his obsession for more than three decades. He owns over 11,000 unique game titles for more than 100 different systems.

Michael Christopher Brown

A film about Michael Christopher Brown for the 2017 ICP Infinity Awards.

The Long Night

The Long Night, a feature film by Tim Matsui and MediaStorm, gives voice and meaning to the crisis of minors who are forced and coerced into the American sex trade.

Jonathan Harris & Gregor Hochmuth

Jonathan Harris and Greg Hochmuth have a complicated relationship with the internet and have worked together to develop an artwork that explored some of the more difficult consequences of what it means to live with the internet.

Inside Tracks

In 1977, Robyn Davidson walked 1,700 miles across the Australian outback. National Geographic sent Rick Smolan to photograph her perilous journey—a trek that tested and transformed them, forming an immutable bond that continues to this day.

Driftless: Stories from Iowa

Once at the center of the U.S. economy, the family farm now drifts at its edges. In Iowa, old-time farmers try to hang on to their way of life, while their young push out to find their futures elsewhere. Driftless tells their stories.

Common Ground

The American family farm gives way to a subdivision - a critical cultural shift across the U.S. Common Ground is a 27-year document of this transition, through the Cagwins and the Grabenhofers, two families who love the same plot of land.

Remember These Days

For Walter Backerman, seltzer is more than a drink. It’s the embodiment of his family. As a third generation seltzer man, he follows the same route as his grandfather. But after 90 years of business, Walter may be the last seltzer man.

Art: Larry Fink

Larry Fink has spent over 40 years photographing jazz musicians, wealthy manhattanites, his neighbors, fashion models, and the celebrity elite. His archive is a thoughtful collection of American history, and Fink’s experience of it.

LaToya Ruby Frazier

LaToya Ruby Frazier’s body of work “The Notion of Family” examines the impact of the steel industry and the health care system on the community and her family. Collaborating with her mother and grandmother, she uses her family as a lens to view the past, present and future of the town.

Tomas van Houtryve

Tomas Van Houtryve wants there to be a permanent visual record of the dawn of the drone age, the period in American history when America started outsourcing their military to flying robots. In order to create this record, Van Houtryve sent his own drone into American skies.

Evgenia Arbugaeva

Evgenia Arbugaeva was born in the magical town of Tiksi, Russia. This barren, arctic landscape influenced Arbugaeva in almost every aspect of her dreamlike photography.

Surviving the Peace: Laos

Surviving the Peace: Laos takes an intimate look at the impact of unexploded bombs left over from the Vietnam war in Laos and profiles the dangerous, yet life saving work, that MAG has undertaken in the country.

A Thousand More

A family is determined to give their disabled son a whole and vital life. In the midst of a great burden, one small child – with a seemingly endless supply of love – is the blessing that holds a family together.

Lynn Johnson

Inspired by the photographs of the Farm Security Administration growing up, Lynn Johnson has spent nearly 35 years as a photojournalist working for LIFE, National Geographic, Sports Illustrated and various foundations.

Resetting The Table

Resetting the Table takes a unique, personal look at the impact Starbucks’ Create Jobs for USA program has had on the American Mug & Stein pottery facility in East Liverpool, Ohio.

Hungry Horse

Hungry Horse captures the spirit of renewal, peace and serenity through stunning landscapes and intimate oral histories.

The Amazing Amy

Using humor and a love of fantasy, "The Amazing Amy" Harlib connects with audiences through performing strenuous yoga-based contortion acts in New York City.

The Bride Price

In many countries, girls as young as eight are forced into marriage by their families, culture and economic situation. This practice destroys their chance at education leading to tragic results.

David Guttenfelder

Surreal and mysterious, North Korea was a black hole to outsiders wanting a glimpse of the country. That all changed in 2012, when AP photographer David Guttenfelder led the opening of the bureau's newest office inside the North Korea.

Take Care

Virginia Gandee's brilliant red hair and dozen tattoos belie the reality of this 22-year-old's life. Inside her family's Staten Island trailer her caregiving goes far beyond the love she has for her daughter.

A Darkness Visible: Afghanistan

Based on 14 trips to Afghanistan between 1994 and 2010, A Darkness Visible: Afghanistan is the work of photojournalist Seamus Murphy. His work chronicles a people caught time and again in political turmoil, struggling to find their way.

Intended Consequences

In Rwanda, in 1994, Hutu militia committed a bloody genocide, murdering one million Tutsis. Many of the Tutsi women were spared, only to be held captive and repeatedly raped. Many became pregnant. Intended Consequences tells their stories.

The Marlboro Marine

To those who serve in the armed forces, what is the aftereffect of war? The Marlboro Marine is photographer Luis Sinco's portrait of Marine Corporal James Blake Miller, whom he met in Iraq. For Miller, coming home has been its own battle.

Ivory Wars

Zakouma National Park is one of the last places on earth where elephants still roam by the thousands. In a land where poachers will slaughter the huge animals for their tusks alone, it takes armed guards to keep them safe.

Kingsley's Crossing

Kingsley's Crossing is the story of one man's dream to leave the poverty of life in Africa for the promised land of Europe. We walk in his shoes, as photojournalist Olivier Jobard accompanies Kingsley on his uncertain and perilous journey.


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