Notlith · Pittsburgh
AI video production in Pittsburgh: investor films for robotics spin-outs
Pittsburgh's robotics companies often start in a Carnegie Mellon lab and grow up in Lawrenceville or the Strip District, along the stretch sometimes called Robotics Row. Before a raise, they need a film that shows the machine at work in the setting it was built for. Notlith makes that film with AI from your CAD files, test footage and photos, without showing anything the robot cannot yet do.
Remote production · From your photos
A machine that moves only as it really moves
The film usually opens on the problem: a pallet that has to be checked, a pipe that has to be inspected, a hospital corridor at night. Then the robot arrives and does one task. The point is to show that task at its real speed, with its real reach and payload, inside a setting the founders could actually deploy into within the next round.
We set the motion from your test logs and lab clips, not from what looks impressive. If the arm takes four seconds to pick, it takes four seconds on screen, or the cut says time has been compressed. Anything the system does not do today, such as a feature on the roadmap, appears as a labelled illustration rather than as footage.
CAD files, shaky lab clips and a whiteboard
Spin-outs rarely have clean footage. What they have is better for us: CAD exports, renders from the design team, phone videos from the test bay, and the diagram on the lab whiteboard that explains how the system works. We rebuild the robot from the CAD and photos and check the result against them, so sensors, joints and markings stay in their real positions.
The setting is where generation does its work. A warehouse aisle, a rail yard, a mill floor along the Monongahela or a clean room can be built around the machine without renting one. We keep those places generic and plausible, because pretending to show a named customer site would be a claim the company cannot back.
Rewatched during due diligence
An investor film is seen twice. Once in the pitch, where it buys attention, and again weeks later by a technical partner checking every frame against the data room. That second viewing shapes how we work: each on-screen number comes from your spec sheet, each shot is tagged in a short log as real footage, simulation or illustration, and that log travels with the film.
For spin-outs in medical robotics, from the University of Pittsburgh's orbit or elsewhere, the line is stricter still. We show no patient, no clinical outcome and no claim that regulators have not cleared. The film can explain the mechanism and the workflow, and leave clinical evidence to the documents written for it, which your regulatory lead reviews before any cut leaves the company.
One edit for the raise, the hiring page and the trade booth
The master is a two-minute film for the pitch deck and the data room. From it we cut a forty-five-second version for the company site, a vertical clip for recruiting posts aimed at engineers deciding between Pittsburgh offers, and a silent loop for a trade show booth. Each version keeps the same shot log, so nothing is relabelled along the way.
When the robot reaches its first real deployment, we suggest filming it there with a crew and replacing the illustrated scenes. The hybrid film is a bridge to that moment, and we plan the edit so the real footage can slot into the same structure later, keeping the titles, the music and the shot log consistent for the next raise.
Catalog demonstration
See the production approach
English, adaptable to your language
Plan the details
Can you show features that are still on the roadmap?
Only as clearly labelled illustrations, separated from footage of the working system. We never present a planned capability as something the robot already does.
What if our only footage is from phones in the lab?
That is often enough. Combined with CAD exports and a few still photos, phone clips give us the real motion and timing. We rebuild the visuals and keep the movement faithful to what you recorded.
Will investors know which shots are simulated?
Yes. We deliver a shot log marking each segment as recorded footage, simulation or illustration, and short on-screen labels where a viewer could otherwise be misled.
Can you work under a non-disclosure agreement?
Yes. We can sign your NDA before receiving CAD files or test data, and review links can be restricted to the people you name.
Start with your images
Send us your CAD exports, a few lab clips, your spec sheet and the date of your raise, and we will reply with a first outline of the film.