Current Conversations Around Using AI in Film, TV, and Other Media
Ethical Considerations
AI’s influence in filmmaking has sparked significant debate, especially with the recent Hollywood strikes. The Writers and Actors Guilds have secured protections against AI in their agreements with the AMPTP, but the technology threatens to impact many other roles. Industry figures like Tyler Perry have voiced concerns, noting that AI could disrupt not only acting but also roles such as sound technicians and editors, prompting him to halt an $800 million studio expansion.
Legal Considerations
The legal landscape surrounding AI use in filmmaking remains unclear. Lawsuits, such as the one filed against Stability AI and Midjourney by visual artists, highlight the legal ambiguities. While courts dismissed some copyright claims, they allowed others to proceed, leaving the legality of using AI-generated art unresolved. Studios like Paizo have banned AI-generated art to avoid legal complications.
The Obvious Benefits for Studios
Despite the concerns, studios are cautiously exploring AI’s potential. AI’s main advantage lies in streamlining tedious, time-consuming tasks, such as mockups, storyboarding, and editing, allowing human creators to focus on more artistic aspects.
The Real Benefit of Using AI in Film and Media Creation: Eliminating Tedium
Examples of How AI Can Be Used in Film and Media Production
Preliminary Mockups or Storyboards
Generative AI can assist in creating rough drafts of characters, objects, or scenes, providing artists with a foundation to build upon.
Recreating Real Spaces and Objects
Technologies like Neural Radiant Fields (NeRFs) use AI to recreate 3D environments from 2D images, offering high levels of realism and speeding up production workflows.
Generating Realistic Background Characters
AI can generate a multitude of unique background characters, saving artists time on repetitive design tasks for large crowd scenes.
Aging and De-Aging Actors
AI technology has been used in films to age or de-age actors, as seen in projects like the upcoming movies, saving hours of time in the makeup chair.
Editing and Post-Production
AI can expedite editing tasks, including color grading, sound mixing, and object removal, as well as detect potential errors in scenes, reducing human oversight and saving production time.
File Management
AI-driven digital asset managers streamline file organization, applying automatic tagging, renaming, and metadata entry, simplifying search and retrieval processes.
The Technical Challenges of Using AI in Filmmaking
Quality Control
Human oversight is critical in maintaining quality control over AI-generated content. A lack of proper curation, as seen in backlash against AI-generated art in the film “Late Night With the Devil,” can lead to reputational harm. Audiences expect human artistry behind creative works, not machine-generated outputs.
Storage and Computational Limitations
Training AI models requires vast datasets and computational power. Studios using AI need ample storage and powerful GPU servers to support the large-scale data required for AI learning models.
To Use Generative AI, Film & Media Studios Need a Modern Tech Stack
Outdated Pipelines
Many studios are not equipped to handle the demands of AI. Signs of an outdated development pipeline include artists storing files locally, exchanging large files via email, and manually tracking versions. Such inefficiencies hinder the ability to fully leverage AI technologies.
Q&A
Q1: What are the main ethical concerns regarding AI in filmmaking?
Ethical concerns include the potential displacement of human roles in the film industry, such as actors, sound technicians, and editors, as well as the broader question of whether AI-generated art diminishes the human element of creativity.
Q2: What are the key legal challenges with AI-generated art in films?
The legality of using AI-generated art remains ambiguous. Lawsuits involving AI creators and visual artists point to unresolved issues regarding copyright infringement and intellectual property rights.
Q3: How can AI improve post-production processes in filmmaking?
AI can streamline post-production tasks such as color grading, sound mixing, and editing, reducing the time required to complete these tasks while also improving accuracy and efficiency.