The creation of Entrenched and the formation of Bad Beetle is in many ways indicative of the current state of Hollywood, including the rise of independent, full-stack creators. Rather than following the expected path and attending film school, Roman started to teach himself the skills he needed through easily available tutorials and welcoming online communities. He began by experimenting with Blender and was soon creating realistic digital environments. That led Roman and his father to discover Jetset, a tool created specifically to offer teams of any size the ability to track performances in real time against a virtual background, all on an iPhone.

After experimenting with Jetset for a few weeks, the Dowlings reached out to Lightcraft founder Eliot Mack and its chairman Bill Warner, who offered their guidance and expertise, leading the father and son team to turn their garage into a studio. That led to a brief three-minute teaser for Entrenched being featured at Mack’s “AI on the Lot” presentation in May 2025, and from there, the attention of Hollywood. The reaction to the teaser was so immediate and overwhelmingly positive that the Dowlings elected to take their time and reshoot several scenes, giving an already polished production a professional shine.

“Hollywood is currently at an inflection point as studios and individual productions are wrestling with ways to adapt and save on cost without sacrificing quality,” said Mack. “That’s what Jetset was created for, and Navaz and Roman are proving that you can do more with less if you have vision, talent and the right tools for the job.”

To create Entrenched, Roman initially began by building several digital environments, which they could then view against live performances in real time by pairing an iPhone running Jetset with a Blackmagic 6K camera. That offered Roman the flexibility of writing minimalistic scripts that could be adjusted during filming to offer the best look and action. From there, they proceeded to test different greenscreen options before electing to use a loose, draped screen, in part to show that a tensioned screen wasn’t necessary.

Actors were able to mimic the movement of being in a large space using treadmills to walk, while others had their movements run through MarionetteXR to create keyframe data that Roman was able to later animate using Cascadeur, another tool he learned along the way. Navaz, an experienced 3D scanning specialist, created props and pieces of apparel using 3D printers, while a family friend handled the costumes. Following the success of the teaser, the Dowlings recalled the actors and reshot several scenes. They then reworked the effects to leverage the new techniques they had picked up from months of experimentation, along with implementing advice from several successful Hollywood players, ranging from VFX professionals to producers to elite directors.

In total, the short film cost around $3,000. The initial shoot took less than five months from concept to release, with a few additional months added for reshoots and to polish the final results. Within days of the teaser’s debut, the Dowlings began receiving requests for meetings from some of Hollywood’s elites, and were quickly recruited to work on several upcoming projects, including a new series in the works from an A-list Hollywood director, a commercial for the Italian retail market, an upcoming horror film and more.

For Lightcraft, the success of Entrenched is the latest validation of its virtual production system, following a string of award wins at NAB. Jetset has also been adopted by several productions, including an upcoming animated feature film and multiple projects currently in development at Amazon Studios. Lightcraft also recently announced Spark, a new collaborative platform due out next year, created to give teams of any size a comprehensive tool that can handle every step of the filmmaking process, from creating previz scenes based on actual scripts to producing finished projects.

Building on its earlier success, Bad Beetle has now created a second trailer for Entrenched to highlight the project. The complete Entrenched short film will debut on the Bad Beetle YouTube channel in the coming weeks. The Dowlings, meanwhile, are currently looking for a larger studio and have already begun pre-production on their next project, a live-action 25-minute short film based on the Emmy-winning Batman: The Animated Series episode, “Heart of Ice.” It is expected to debut next year.