The future is here, whether some like it or not, and artificial intelligence is already impacting the film industry. But just how far can, and should, it go?

Last year, Rachel Antell, an archival producer for documentary films, started noticing AI-generated images mixed in with authentic photos. There are always holes or limitations in an archive; in one case, film-makers got around a shortage of images for a barely photographed 19th-century woman by using AI to generate what looked like old photos. Which brought up the question: should they? And if they did, what sort of transparency is required? The capability and availability of generative AI – the type that can produce text, images and video – have changed so rapidly, and the conversations around it have been so fraught, that film-makers’ ability to use it far outpaces any consensus on how.

… So Antell and several colleagues formed the Archival Producers Alliance (APA), a volunteer group of about 300 documentary producers and researchers dedicated to, in part, developing best practices for use of generative AI in factual storytelling. “Instead of being, ‘the house is burning, we’ll never have jobs,’ it’s much more based around an affirmation of why we got into this in the first place,” said Stephanie Jenkins, a founding APA member. Experienced documentary film-makers have “really been wrestling with this”, in part because “there is so much out there about AI that is so confusing and so devastating or, alternatively, a lot of snake oil.” — Read More

Generative artificial intelligence is coming for streaming, with the release of a platform dedicated to AI content that allows users to create episodes with a prompt of just a couple of words.

Fable Studio, an Emmy-winning San Francisco startup, on Thursday announced Showrunner, a platform the company says can write, voice and animate episodes of shows it carries. Under the initial release, users will be able to watch AI-generated series and create their own content — complete with the ability to control dialogue, characters and shot types, among other controls. — Read More

The Tribeca Festival will feature five short films made using technology from OpenAI.

The films will use OpenAI’s Sora, which is a text-to-video model that accepts textual descriptions and generates video clips based on them. This is the first time films using this technology will be showcased at the festival.

… The films will be screened June 15, with a conversation afterwards with the filmmakers.  — Read More

For horror fans, Late Night With the Devil marked one of the year’s most anticipated releases. Embracing an analog film filter, the found-footage flick starring David Dastmalchian reaped praise for its top-notch production design by leaning into a ’70s-era grindhouse aesthetic reminiscent of Dawn of the Dead or Death Race 2000. Following a late-night talk show host airing a Halloween special in 1977, it had all the makings of a cult hit.

But the movie may be remembered more for the controversy surrounding its use of cutaway graphics created by generative artificial intelligence tools. One image of a dancing skeleton in particular incensed some theatergoers. Leading up to its theatrical debut in March, it faced the prospect of a boycott, though that never materialized. — Read More

A group of filmmakers are launching an AI film and animation studio and has snagged some A-list advisors.

Eric Day, Benjamin Michel, and Nick Confalone have launched LA-based Late Night Labs with Poker Face star Natasha Lyonne and Blue Beetle director Angel Manuel Soto among its advisors.

The trio are using generative AI in the creative process but are hoping that the new technology can also provide artists with “tangible ownership” with what they create. — Read More

It’s been three months since OpenAI demoed its captivating text-to-video AI, Sora, and now Google is trying to steal some of that spotlight. Announced during its I/O developer conference on Tuesday, Google says Veo — its latest generative AI video model — can generate “high-quality” 1080p resolution videos over a minute in length in a wide variety of visual and cinematic styles.

Veo has “an advanced understanding of natural language,” according to Google’s press release, enabling the model to understand cinematic terms like “timelapse” or “aerial shots of a landscape.” Users can direct their desired output using text, image, or video-based prompts, and Google says the resulting videos are “more consistent and coherent,” depicting more realistic movement for people, animals, and objects throughout shots. — Read More

Apple did what needed to be done to get that unfortunate iPad ad out of the news; you know, the one that somehow found the crushing of musical instruments and bottles of paint to be inspirational:

…Creativity is in our DNA at Apple, and it’s incredibly important to us to design products that empower creatives all over the world…Our goal is to always celebrate the myriad of ways users express themselves and bring their ideas to life through iPad. We missed the mark with this video, and we’re sorry.

The apology comes across as heartfelt — accentuated by the fact that an Apple executive put his name to it — but I disagree with Myhren: the reason why people reacted so strongly to the ad is that it couldn’t have hit the mark more squarely. — Read More

#vfx, #strategy

RightRight now, every industry faces discussions about how artificial intelligence might help or hinder work. In movies, creators are concerned that their work might be stolen to train AI replacements, their future jobs might be taken by machines, or even that the entire process of filmmaking could become fully automated, removing the need for everything from directors to actors to everybody behind the scenes.

But “AI” is far more complicated than ChatGPT and Sora, the kinds of publicly accessible tools that crop up on social media. For visual effects artists, like those at Wētā FX who worked on Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, machine learning can be just another powerful tool in an artistic arsenal, used to make movies bigger and better-looking than before. Kingdom visual effects supervisor Erik Winquist sat down with Polygon ahead of the movie’s release and discussed the ways AI tools were key to making the movie, and how the limitations on those tools still make the human element key to the process. — Read More

#vfx