Michael Jenkins is a Los Angeles-based 🏷️#filmmaker and research engineer who founded Influential Films, a Santa Monica production company, in 2018. A cinematographer, video producer, and 3D-scan specialist, he began in chemical engineering at the University of Florida before moving into film, and has since shifted his focus toward AI research — 3D scene reconstruction, Gaussian splat generation, and large-scale environment modeling.
Since 2021 Jenkins has run Real Sim Roads, a photogrammetry project that recreates real-world roads as digital twins for the Assetto Corsa driving simulator, processing multi-terabyte visual datasets into faithful road geometry and textures. He co-founded the production company Innocent Illusions in 2019, served as Director of AI Media Production and Research at Wonderlanded Productions, and led capture as a Senior 3D Scan Technician at Global Objects; he reports presenting image-authenticity detection research to DARPA.
I was introduced to Michael by Trevor Soares when he brought him along to one of the early symposiums. You might have seen him zipping around 📝Symposium on his Segway Minipro (or holding a big ass camera).