The Chilean production company JUNTOS has taken an unprecedented step in systematizing its workflows by creating an internal hub for technological experimentation.
Felipe Viedma is the longest-serving employee at JUNTOS. He started as a freelancer, then became part of the production company’s first office, and today he takes another step forward within the company with the creation of BombiLabs. Felipe, known to the team as “Bombi,” is now the Project Visual Conceptualization Coordinator. His aesthetic signature has shaped the graphic identity of a film catalog that successfully moves between drama, thriller, and documentary.
“We spoke with Bombi, understanding his latent desire to experiment and expand design into other areas. That’s how the idea came about. The amazing thing is realizing that, as a producer, you no longer have to come up with all the ideas yourself; your team has better ideas than you, and everyone is pitching,” explains Pancho Hervé, founding partner of JUNTOS.
The genesis of this space traces back directly to the innovation models implemented by global tech giants like Google. Historically, those companies granted employees a percentage of their work hours to play around and invent open-ended projects, many of which ultimately became major products for the company. Adapting that philosophy to the reality of independent cinema, JUNTOS formalizes a fixed weekly block so the team can pitch ideas, experiment, and develop internal tools without the pressure of an immediate commercial deadline.
BombiLabs openly considers the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI), even though it usually generates resistance and explicit friction within the cultural and arts sectors due to the fear of creative content automation. However, JUNTOS’s goal targets the operational side, focusing on optimizing office performance and management.
“It is an important tool, and we want to systematize its use. I think there can be a misunderstanding that AI might be used to create content, but that is actually not our interest. Instead, we want to use it as a tool to systematize certain steps within our processes, leaving more time for the creative work,” Bombi notes.
To date, BombiLabs has only held two sessions, but we have already begun to see the fruits of the team’s experimentation. They are working on a series of ideas, such as automated expense reporting for 7 veces 7, developing an app to assist screenplay writing under the Juntos Method, and data automation to find the perfect match between films and festivals.
Thus, BombiLabs establishes itself as a horizontal space where inventing and testing tools represents JUNTOS’s commitment to validating its team’s ideas and safeguarding the value of creative time in Chilean cinema.