404 Films aka Jimmy Woolley

A TV format man

Before there was a studio, there was television. By his own account, Jimmy Woolley spent 2011 to 2024 at 12 Yard Productions, part of ITV, developing more than a dozen original UK formats; the 404 Films site links two programmes from that list, Comedians Giving Lectures on Dave and I'll Get This on the BBC^[1]. As James W, he also wrote Medium essays about the state of British broadcasting, among them Do you want to save British television? and Why the BBC should not be on YouTube, illustrated with Midjourney images, and he posts on Bluesky as Jimmy W^[31][39].

Format development is a writer's job, and it shows in everything 404 Films makes. Many of the studio's films started as stories he had written years earlier: Harry: The Health and Safety Burglar comes from one he wrote "many moons ago", and The Day They Turned Off the Dark from a bedtime story^[19][28]. When he showed War of Words on AI LIVE, he said the writing had taken a few weeks before he spent three or four more making the film^[7].

404 Films

404 Films describes itself as an international AI creative team based in London that has been experimenting with emerging video models since 2023; its TikTok bio is simply "London AI Studio"^[1][32]. Jimmy writes, directs and edits, and the site also lists Stefan Iriarte, a TV format creator turned AI-first filmmaker and creative producer^[1]. The YouTube channel, @404FilmsUK, calls itself "the last content on the internet"^[2]. The studio site also says Jimmy has given guest lectures at Ravensbourne and run AI production masterclasses^[1].

The first public films arrived in early 2025. Harry: The Health and Safety Burglar, a seven-minute animated comedy, came out on 3 January^[19]. A month later came The Animal Guide to Farming Humans, in which a tweed-suited Mr Fox gives a nature-documentary tour of how to keep your humans in tip-top shape, made with Runway Act One, Hailuo, ElevenLabs, Midjourney, Ideogram, Topaz and Dzine^[5]. Then, for April Fools 2025, Chip a bit off... for the British Museum: a 39-second spot that its YouTube description calls 404 Films' first commercial made with the Museum, while the studio site files it as a satirical commercial and "A 404 Films Original Idea"^[6][1].

Both of those films won. At Neuro Masters 2025, the Best Comedy Film category gave two Silvers to Jimmy Woolley of the United Kingdom, one for The Animal Guide to Farming Humans and one for Chip it off, for The British Museum^[4]. The studio site also lists the Fox film as a Best Short Film nominee at the AIMI Awards 2025, which we have not been able to confirm independently^[1].

This is what happens when AI is made for conscience not clicks.

404 Films^[17]

The rest of 2025 was a run of experiments. Fade to Black, developed for Runway's AIFF 2025 with Isy Imarni, Alan Hall, Paul Kerrison and Simon Allinson, braids three lives across centuries as reality pixelates^[18]. Britain: Land of Water, Wind and Salt, a vision of a Net Zero Britain made with Midjourney, Kling, Udio and Premiere Pro, was submitted to the UN AI for Good Festival 2025, and its credits thank Zed Anwar for showing how powerful a single voice can be^[17]. We play with the same ball drove iPhone footage through Kling Motion Control and Premiere Pro's AI object masking, and became one of the channel's most watched uploads^[23][2].

404 News and the AI LIVE years

In November 2025 the studio started 404 News, a deadpan parody news strand, with The Last Graduate Job^[30]. Its most famous bulletin is the Saint George's Day Special: anti-English protesters turn St George's flags upside down across the country after England lose 1-0 to Japan in a friendly, and Scotland answers with a Buckfast wine cannon^[14][9].

By early 2026 Jimmy was a fixture of the AI LIVE chat, asking whether anyone was actually selling the fizzy drink in a horror entry, reminding viewers that an older film predated Nano Banana and Seedance, and summing up a niche-first argument as "win your niche, win the world"^[38][37][33]. In February his long-form satire War of Words played in 4K on Chris Branch's Ep 108, paused for commentary while he answered questions in the chat: about 90% Kling 2.6 with a little Seedance 1.5, Midjourney for the style, Gemini Pro for framing and dozens of hero images for consistency^[7]. Three days later it went out on YouTube as The War That Never Was, a 12-minute film with a five-part chapter cut^[13][2].

The pieces kept coming. On Ep 117, There's Only One Santa, a spec spot for Twinnin.ai, poured in 1s, and Chris introduced him as a legend of the show; Jimmy shared his split from running comparison tests, about 70% Seedance for action and 30% Kling for directional control^[8]. The Saint George's Day Special drew nine 1s and one 2 on Ep 118^[9]. On Ep 124, A Letter to America, From Football Fans, made with Midjourney and Seedance 2.0 in 4K via Dreamina, drew eight 1s and a 3, and Andrew Davis said it could pass for a Nike ad^[10]. In March 2026 the studio joined the CapCut Creator Partner Program^[24], and in May it launched Song Creator, a free open competition for unsigned artists whose winning track gets a 404 Films music video^[27].

If you got all those references, oh my god, that is absolutely bloody genius, Jimmy.

Chris Branch, AI LIVE Ep 124^[10]

NO WRONG ANSWERS

On 26 October 2026 404 Films released its biggest film yet. NO WRONG ANSWERS is a 16-minute Dreamina Original made with Seedance 2.5, with Dreamina as the AI technology partner^[3]. Jane, skint and from a council flat in east London, gets a seat on BILLION, the biggest quiz show on TV, and finds that every answer she gives is correct, even the wrong ones, because the world bends to fit them^[3]. Jimmy wrote and directed it; the credits thank Stefan Iriarte, Thea Cooke-Campbell and Martin Gent for edit notes, with voices from ElevenLabs and a score from Suno^[3]. YouTube lists the film as a joint upload by 404 Films and Dreamina, so its view count already includes Dreamina's own channel audience^[3]. Two weeks before release Dreamina named it among the first Dreamina Originals in a roll-out post on X^[43].

Three weeks before release, a Short showed how the film was cast: around 3,000 Midjourney images, cut down to 75 character finals^[11]. "The hero image is the foundation, same as a script," he wrote, and with everyone holding the same tools, the work is mostly taste^[11]. The film reached 63,531 views in its first five days, more than eight times everything else on the channel combined^[2]. The studio released a three-minute Tell-Tale Heart the same day, cut the rhino scene into its own Short, and AI LIVE lined up a 404 Films piece for the show after Ep 136^[40][12][36].