The Future of Cinema Summit at the NAB Show opened Saturday morning with speakers who agreed that AI can make production faster and cheaper, but it can’t do everything. Meanwhile, the issue of jobs remained murky.
“This is the age of the generalist,” suggested Eric Shamlin, CEO of AI-driven production studio Secret Level and co-chair of the TV Academy’s AI Task Force, during the SMPTE-produced summit. “The other thing we are seeing is it’s putting a spotlight back on the creative vision. … People can now create space operas in their bedroom. I think we are about to see a massive unlocking of human creativity…To be a creative, previously, was a very limited group. This blows that apart.”
Looking ahead to production involving AI tools, Shamlin emphasized his “commitment to how to do this responsibly, not replace artists, and be a voice in how these tools get adopted.”
Albert Bozesan, creative director at Munich-based AI production house Storybook Studios, believes it is “a lot cheaper and a lot faster to use AI in our [production] workflows, [though] you have a little less creative control.” As one example, he asserted that AI for dialogue is not a viable option. Actors, he insisted, are needed for their performances.
He admitted that “the unpleasant part” of this subject is talking with artists. “I really want to show [them] that with AI, they can create and continue existing in the future if they learn to use these tools, not ignore them.”
Chaitanya Chinchlikar, vice president and CTO at India’s Whistling Wood, suggested that it’s difficult to sum up the impact of AI on creative jobs. “For some jobs, it’s an assistant, some jobs, it’s revolutionizing [their work].”
Currently, many of Storybook Studios’ hires are coming from the visual effects field. “They are the most powerful users. They know how to take these clips and put them together in a meaningful way,” Bozesan related.
Similarly, Shamlin reported, “We are not hiring as many grips and gaffers, but we are hiring more VFX artists.”
On schedules, Shamlin related that while studio animated movies might take three to five years to make, “now this could be done in nine months.” He added, “We have to hold some sort of ground in rates and costs.”
“The genie is out of the bottle,” he summed up of a range of subjects to address, including copyrights. “We need to figure out how to make those models work for everybody.”
