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ROBO SAPIENS

Robot anthropologists Olivia and Gus Henderson are on a mission to prove that delivery robots are worthy of species status and protections. Aspiring documentarian Sam Bourdain is on a mission to prove that his work is worthy of the family name. But when one researcher starts listening to their heart instead of their head, the research—and the documentary itself—begins to unravel. A mockumentary about hubris, humanity, and a scientific endeavor forced to reckon with the most volatile data point of all: love.

  • Sam Clark
    Director
    FAIRVIEW, Magic For Humans (Netflix), Problematic (Comedy Central)
  • Olivia Miller
    Director
    BLOODY MARY: LIVE, CALL FROM
  • Sam Clark
    Writer
  • Olivia Miller
    Writer
  • Sam Clark
    Producer
  • Olivia Miller
    Producer
  • Gus Mayopoulos
    Producer
  • Olivia Miller
    Key Cast
    "Olivia Henderson"
  • Gus Mayopoulos
    Key Cast
    "Gus Henderson"
  • Sam Clark
    Key Cast
    "Sam Bourdain"
  • Project Type:
    Short, Television
  • Genres:
    Comedy, Mockumentary, Satire
  • Runtime:
    29 minutes 58 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    November 23, 2025
  • Production Budget:
    7,500 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Sam Clark, Olivia Miller

Sam Clark and Olivia Miller are two thirds of Slogan TBD Productions, alongside ROBO SAPIENS co-star Gus Mayopoulos. Slogan TBD's first film FAIRVIEW, a mockumentary about a city council election in a purple district, screened at 32 film festivals, won 19 awards, and was reviewed by Film Daily as "the political satire we need.” FAIRVIEW is streaming now on Laugh After Dark TV on Apple TV, Amazon, Roku, and more.

Sam is a director, comedian, writer, and actor from Denver, Colorado. He has written for Netflix’s MAGIC FOR HUMANS and Comedy Central's PROBLEMATIC, and he sold and developed an original TV show with the SyFy Channel. He has directed, produced, and starred in viral videos with over 55 Million YouTube views, which have been featured in USA Today, Forbes, ATTN:, TikTokForGood, Business Insider, Funny Or Die, The Atlantic, HuffPo, Buzzfeed and more. His self-directed debut comedy special SAM CLARK: BUILT FOR MATH debuted as the #1 Comedy Album in the world on iTunes (take that, Weird Al!). Sam was featured as a “Filmmaker Making a Social Impact” by Authority Magazine and Thrive Global for his work as Lead Video Producer for the YouTube channel Crimson Education, which he built from the ground up to 225,000 subscribers. As a comedian, he appeared on Amazon Prime's LAUGH AFTER DARK, he regularly hosts the Time Out NY-featured show HOT SETS, and has been featured in SF Sketchfest, the San Francisco Comedy Competition, the Cleveland Comedy Festival, the Laugh Factory's "Fresh Faces," the Devil Cup, the LA Comedy Festival, Laugh After Dark ComedyFest, and more. Sam wrote, directed, and starred in Slogan TBD's first film FAIRVIEW, winning 5 festival awards for Best Actor in a performance reviewed by the Actors Awards as one "you love to cringe over...He steals the room with his bravado...Sam Clark clearly isn't afraid to push boundaries."

Olivia is an NYC-based actor and writer. She is the writer and performer of the critically acclaimed one-woman show BLOODY MARY: LIVE, which has been produced internationally at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the Vaults London, and across the UK via two tours in 2023 and 2024, as well as in New York City (Caveat, Club Cumming, The Duplex, Pete’s Candy Store, the PIT), Los Angeles (The Cat’s Crawl), and Boston (ART’s OBERON). During the pandemic, Olivia co-created, co-produced, and co-starred in the web series CALL FROM, which followed iconic theater characters trying to connect via Zoom. The episodes inspired by Waiting for Godot won Best in Fest and Best Screenplay at the Manhattan Repertory Theatre’s Film Festival (’21) and First Place at Irondale’s On Women Festival (’21). As an actor, Olivia has performed in plays, musicals, operettas, and podcasts, working with The Playwrights Realm, Playwrights Horizons, Cherry Lane Theatre, Trinity Repertory Company, Gloucester Stage Company, Shadowland Stages, Purple Rose Theater Company, and Penobscot Theater. She holds an MFA from Brown/Trinity and a BA from Harvard College.

ROBO SAPIENS marks Sam and Olivia’s first formal collaboration as directors. They have previously worked as creative partners in a variety of capacities, including as creators & hosts of the COVID game show CA$H OUT BLACK OUT and as collaborators on the original musical HERSHEL AND THE HANUKKAH GOBLINS: THE UNAUTHORIZED PARODY MUSICAL (“Hilarious & irreverent” - BroadwayWorld).

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Director Statement

Slogan TBD maintains our commitment to the mantra of “stupid things done seriously” with our sophomore short ROBO SAPIENS. Following our success satirizing political campaigns with the award-winning FAIRVIEW, we decided to target a new genre to blend with our signature run-and-gun style: nature documentaries. As with many of our endeavors, ROBO SAPIENS began with a one-off joke: upon encountering autonomous delivery robots in LA, Slogan TBD member and then-Psychology PhD candidate Gus Mayopoulos attempted to offer counseling services to an overturned Coco robot. In an age of growing concerns about AI and robots replacing humans, Olivia and Sam saw something incredibly funny, yet profoundly tender, in Gus’ brief work as robot psychologist. On the one hand, Gus looked ridiculous treating an object clearly lacking sentience as something worthy of psychological care. On the other hand, he did not look entirely dissimilar from Jane Goodall in footage of her early interactions with chimpanzees. With Big Tech insisting that AI is here to stay, it seemed both hilarious and prescient for us to pursue Gus’ passing interaction with the delivery robot like the start of a new frontier of research.

We leaned heavily on the format of nature documentaries to guide our “scientific” question, using the language and framing devices of educational entertainment to develop our researchers and the way that they might understand and advocate for this new “species.” ROBO SAPIENS features fake research happening in the real world—our fictional characters conduct fictional research, but we repeatedly engage with real delivery robots (and people) in Los Angeles, all of whom were presumably just trying to do their jobs during our 3-day shoot. And as the mock/documentary progresses, it unravels in unexpected directions, as our characters interact with their subjects in all too-human ways. It’s NATHAN FOR YOU meets BEST IN SHOW meets National Geographic. In blurring this line between reality and fiction, we hope ROBO SAPIENS deepens and satirizes the conversation around the technology in our lives. What do we risk when we offer more humanity to technology than to our fellow man? In our film, the answer is “Gus’ wife,” but perhaps you’ll come to a different conclusion—hopefully in the midst of some hearty laughs.