Latest news with #Cheehoo
The Spinoff
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Spinoff
Sad news for Samoans: Cheehoo is dead
No good thing ever lasts and this week, the Samoan call was lost to the corporate world forever. Everybody's heard a cheehoo before. Certainly if you've ever been in the vicinity of two or more Samoans, you'll have heard one whether you wanted to or not. It soundtracks every sports event and school gathering, and Dwayne Johnson let out a few slightly cringe ones as Maui in Moana. A cheehoo is undefinable. It's loud (there is genuinely no way to quietly do it), it's high-pitched and it's 100% positive affirmation. Heartier than a 'woohoo' and much browner. While it's not strictly Samoan, it certainly feels like Samoans love doing it the most, and every time I hear it, I know there's a warm-blooded Islander nearby and that's nice. Except now it's dead. Killed by the most ironic of things: an AI company. On Tuesday (Pacific time), Deadline reported the launch of Cheehoo, a 'technology and entertainment company focused on providing creators, artists and IP rightsholders with a new AI-enabled platform to reduce barriers to animated storytelling'. Sounds bleak, I thought, when I read the headline, but get that bag I guess, random Samoans. Except it's not random Samoans behind Cheehoo, it's not even randoms. The founders include a former president of Dreamworks Animation, former Apple scientists, and the chairman of Netflix Film. None of them look like they've cheehoo'd in their life. I read one last name, LoFaso, instinctively as if it was Samoan but turns out it's Italian. In reading through the jargon, it appears the thrust of Cheehoo is to allow streamers, studios and brands to use AI to repurpose their existing IP into, for example, sequels, games and spinoffs. As far as business ideas go, it's a bleak but smart move and will probably become a huge, global 'production' company. Which means the name Cheehoo and its logo – which seems to be a visual representation of someone yelling it – will be everywhere. It also means the word cheehoo will be written and said so. many. times in interviews and casual conversation, and that's how I know it has died. Nobody says cheehoo. In fact, it's extremely weird to just say the word in a normal tone. Somehow – don't ask me how, I'm not a linguist – it is literally easier to pronounce it when yelling than when speaking normally. Now scroll back up to the photo of the founders, who look like walking American accents, and imagine them all just saying cheehoo constantly. The pronunciation will be 'chee – hoo' which I know is exactly how it's spelled but phonetically it's wrong. And the more people just say 'chee – hoo', the more normalised it'll become, until it loses all meaning. And certainly no one writes cheehoo. The spelling has been contentious from the beginning because it really is just a sound. So to see it written, turned into a logo and chucked up on the Hollywood Hills… my usos, we are in hell. If you really want to stress yourself out, think about classic start-up culture and imagine every palagi senior executive at Cheehoo yelling it every time they secure a new client. Think about it becoming a team bonding exercise or a daily incantation inside a large building made of steel and glass. Think about multi-millionaires wearing it on their little t-shirts. I thought cheehoo was safe from full cultural appropriation (full cultural appropriation is when phrases and practices are adopted by others and taken all the way to the top of the capitalist ladder). But nothing remotely cultural is safe from the culture vultures of tech and Hollywood. And now, after decades of mostly being left alone in that regard, the Islands have shot all the way to the top, with a behemoth AI machine. Yay? Michael LoFaso has a little quirky personal quiz on his own company's page. It includes his favourite foods, holiday destinations and such. And his favourite recent purchase? A pair of Hoka running shoes. Figures. Cheehoo the company won't swallow cheehoo the sentiment immediately, but the descent has begun. And one day, probably soon, you'll go to the movies to watch a fun new animated film with your kids, and as the production logos pre-roll begins, you'll see the logo appear and hear the distinctive and disembodied yell of 'cheeeeehoooo' over the top, and that's when you'll know it's truly died. RIP cheehoo. May you still be remembered at weddings and barbecues.
Forbes
28-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Cheehoo Raises $10 Million To Build AI Tools For 3D Animation
Los Angeles-based startup Cheehoo has raised $10 million to build what it describes as a "creative engine" for animation and interactive storytelling, putting advanced AI-enhanced workflows into the hands of artists, animators, and IP owners. The company was incubated at production company Rideback ("The LEGO Movie," "Avatar: The Last Airbender"). The round was led by Point72 Ventures with participation by Greycroft, Basis Set, Headline Asia, and others. Cheehoo's founding leadership team blends Hollywood and Silicon Valley experience, including former DreamWorks Animation President Chris deFaria, AI scientists from Apple and Stanford, and Rideback Co-CEOs Michael LoFaso and Jonathan Eirich. Rideback founder Dan Lin is also a co-founder. The company's early focus is on professional studios, IP holders, and select artists participating in a closed pilot program. Cheehoo is building a modular platform designed to reduce the time, friction, and cost associated with animated content production. LoFaso, who remains co-CEO of Rideback while helping lead Cheehoo, described it as a flexible and nimble animation pipeline that maintains compatibility with industry-standard tools like Maya and Unreal Engine, while incorporating AI to accelerate processes that typically bog down production. "Our sole focus is empowering artists," LoFaso told me in an interview. "We're trying to give them better tools — to eliminate the friction points that slow down iteration and prevent them from spending more time on the creative aspects of their work." Rather than scraping the internet for training data — a controversial tactic among some AI firms — Cheehoo generates its own proprietary 3D assets in-house and allows clients to retain ownership of anything they contribute. The system applies metadata to models and animation files, making it easier to search, repurpose, and build upon assets across projects. Over time, as studios and creators produce more with the platform, they generate a growing "data flywheel" that fuels further automation. Cheehoo's system can train mini-models on specific characters or projects using relatively small datasets compared to the massive corpuses typically needed to train pixel-based video generators. By focusing on 3D asset-based workflows, rather than pure video synthesis, the platform offers greater control and fidelity — a critical requirement for professional animation. The company is initially targeting enterprises but has a long-term vision of opening the platform to smaller studios, prosumers, and eventually, user-generated content creators. In LoFaso's view, the biggest immediate opportunity isn't replacing traditional studios but helping creators meet the ever-increasing demand for frequent, serialized content across platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and streaming services. "Studios spend years and tens of millions to produce one major animated feature," LoFaso said. "But building a franchise today increasingly requires consistent, high-quality output — in addition to the big tentpole events." Cheehoo plans to announce its first creative partners and project slate later this year.
